Tom DeLay in a Texas courthouse today. He was jailed for three years for illegally directing corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. Photograph: Jack Plunkett/AP
A leading figure in George Bush's Republican party, Tom DeLay, was sentenced today to three years in prison on accusations that he by-passed political funding laws to forward his own electoral interests.
DeLay remains a free man, released on $10,000 bail pending appeal. But his sentence runs to five years in prison, reduced to three years with the addition of 10 years on probation.
To the very end the former politician, who acted as majority leader – the No2 position – in the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2005, insisted on his innocence, dismissing the prosecution as a political vendetta against him. He told the judge, Pat Priest, who sentenced him: "Judge, I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did. I fought the fight, ran the race and kept the faith."
For DeLay, the fight was particularly scrappy. He was known as the Hammer, and had a reputation within Congress of being ruthless in enforcing the line and imposing loyalty to President Bush's conservative agenda.
In the outcome, he overstepped the line, allowing intense party loyalty and ambition for power to slide into illegality.
The specific charges, for money laundering and conspiracy, related to the 2002 mid-term election campaign. Prosecutors told the courts in Texas that DeLay had collected a war chest of $190,000 from corporate lobbying companies.
He had then directed that money to a branch of the Republican National Committee in Washington, which had in turn funnelled it to the election funds of seven Republican candidates running for the state legislature in Texas – in contravention of strict electoral laws that prevent corporate interests directly funding candidates.
Six of those candidates were successfully elected, and the Republicans gained control of the Texas assembly. That allowed them to implement a plan, orchestrated by DeLay, to redraw the electoral boundaries in Texas and thus send more Republicans to Congress in 2004, firming up DeLay's position.
DeLay was found guilty on 24 November. At his sentencing hearing, he was supported by Dennis Hastert, who was the leading Republican in the House of Representatives at the time DeLay was majority leader.
Hastert told the judge that the accused had been motivated purely by a desire to help others. He was a man of deep religious and conservative values and worked assiduously to help foster children.
"That's the real Tom DeLay that a lot of people never got to see," Hastert said.
Since being forced to quit Congress in 2005 to defend himself against the charges, DeLay has had a colourful career. He has written a political memoir called No Retreat, No Surrender, appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and embraced the so-called "Birther" movement that claims President Obama is a foreign imposter.
