PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Former Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Michael “Ozzie” Myers was sent directly to jail from his sentencing hearing in federal court Tuesday afternoon.
He is sentenced to serve 2 ½ years after pleading guilty to election fraud.
Myers, who served in Congress from 1976 to 1980, admitted in June to paying two South Philadelphia election officials to add votes for candidates that hired him as a consultant in elections from 2014 through 2018.
His lawyers asked the judge for leniency including house arrest, considering that Myers is 79 years old and not in the best of health, that his crimes were not violent, and there was no way he’d offend again because he’d “learned his lesson.”
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Seven character witnesses urged Judge Paul Diamond to go easy on Myers. Diamond rejected their appeals.
“I’m not at all convinced he won’t offend again,” Diamond said. “He didn’t learn his lesson after being sentenced in this courthouse 41 years ago.” That’s a reference to Myers’ 1981 bribery conviction in the ABSCAM scandal, in which six other members of Congress were also convicted. Myers was expelled from the House of Representatives for his role in the scandal.
He called Myers’ latest crimes “awful behavior” and said he had no doubt that if Myers had not been caught, he would still be doing it.
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Diamond also said that election fraud hurts society, in some ways, worse than violent crime.
More than 40 friends and family members showed up in court to show their support for Myers. They looked shocked, and some began weeping when the judge ordered that Myers be taken directly to prison to begin his 30-month sentence.
There was even a brief tussle as Myers’ son tried to approach the defense table to say goodbye, and was held back by marshals.