Former New York Rep. Chris Collins was sentenced to 26 months in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to federal charges in an insider trading case.
The sentence from Judge Vernon Broderick in a New York federal court comes after Collins pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements in October. Federal prosecutors on Monday recommended that Collins be sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
"You had a duty and you betrayed that duty," Broderick said, additionally slapping Collins with a $200,000 fine and a year of supervised probation upon his release.
Collins, 69, admitted to sharing non-public information with his son about a failed drug trial they were investing in. He emotionally addressed the court, saying in part "now I stand here today as a disgraced former member of Congress."
The former Republican lawmaker pleaded on behalf of his son and blaming himself for putting his family in this situation. In the nearly three-hour hearing, he spoke for mere minutes and begged his wife and daughter for their support, asking them to please stay with him.
Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused Collins in a statement Friday of showing "greed and disregard for the law."
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http://www.cnn.com/2020/01/17/politics/collins-sentencing/index.html
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