Former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain is facing up to ten years in a federal lockup after pleading guilty today to one of 16 corruption counts in a kickback scheme related to his privatizing of an inmate work release program. Loyola University law professor, Dane Ciolino, says Strain’s plea comes as no surprise. He says, “once he was convicted of crimes that carried mandatory life sentences in the state court system there was really little reason to fight these federal charges.”
Strain is facing multiple life sentences after being earlier convicted in state court on multiple sexual assault charges, some of the victims children.
Ciolino says Strain’s federal plea may have been an attempt to avoid going first into the state’s prison system. “Perhaps his lawyers are hoping that he might get sentenced on that federal case before the state case goes to sentencing and somehow he might be able to serve out his federal sentence before being sent to the state court system,” said Ciolino. However, Ciolino doubts that will happen.
Ciolino says there wasn’t much to gain by forcing Strain to plea to more than one federal corruption charge. “It makes very little difference if you plead guilty to one count or multiple counts, particularly when you’re dealing with a scheme to defraud,” according to Ciolino, who says he wasn’t at all surprised by the single-count plea.
Strain is scheduled to be sentenced on his state rape/sexual assault convictions on January 18th. He’ll be sentenced on the federal corruption charge March 9th.
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