The monetary fine to be paid by Cecil McCrory, a Brandon businessman who admitted he bribed former Mississippi prisons chief Christopher Epps and helped him launder money, has been reduced from $150,000 to $20,000.
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate lowered the amount Wednesday after McCrory testified Wednesday that his debts outweigh his assets and he doesn’t have enough money to pay the higher amount, the Associated Press reports.
Wingate ruled that McCrory should start making fine payments while he is in prison, and be required to pay at least $150 a month once he is released. McCrory, a former state lawmaker, was sentenced in February to serve 8½ years.
McCrory was supposed to report to prison April 4, but he remains free on bail so he can testify in lawsuits brought by Attorney General Jim Hood that seek to recover money paid to prison contractors in cases where bribes changed hands, AP says.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
This is too often the result of clever, highly-paid attorneys and gullible judges. The amount of Mr. McCrory’s legal fees compared to his fine cannot be justified.