LOS ANGELES (CN) — Marilyn Flynn, former dean at the University of Southern California, was sentenced to 18 months’ home confinement for bribing a county official in exchange for contracts with the university’s social work school.
Flynn, 84, was also ordered to pay a $150,000 fine at her sentencing hearing Monday morning in downtown Los Angeles.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer rejected Flynn’s bid to get only probation without home confinement, noting the seriousness of her crime and the need to deter others from committing similar offenses. The judge also wasn’t interested in one of Flynn’s attorney’s suggestions of imposing a curfew instead of allowing her to leave the house only for medical, legal and court appointments.
“I considered imprisonment,” Fischer said. “I’m sure she prefers this.”
Flynn pleaded guilty last year to helping veteran politician Mark Ridley-Thomas — who served on the LA County Board of Supervisors at the time — funnel $100,000 from his campaign account, through the USC school, to a nonprofit ran by his son Sebastian. The younger Ridley-Thomas was trying to embark on a new career after he suddenly resigned from the California Assembly, where he had become the subject of a sexual harassment investigation.
The $100,000 payment was part of a broader scheme whereby Flynn and the senior Ridley-Thomas arranged for Sebastian to get a full scholarship and a paid professorship at the USC school in exchange for county contracts for the financially troubled school.
Ridley-Thomas, 68, chose to go on trial in March. A jury found him guilty of bribery and conspiracy as well as several counts of honest services wire fraud. Fischer set his sentencing date for Aug. 21.
“Dr. Flynn was motivated to do the common good,” her attorney Brian Hennigan argued at the hearing in an effort to avoid home confinement for his client. “She was not looking to line her own pockets.”
Flynn, according to her lawyer, had reached out to Ridley-Thomas because she wanted to extend and expand a contract with the county under which students at the school of social work provided mental health services over the telephone to patients referred to the school by the county. Ridley-Thomas, Hennigan said, was the “moving force” behind the bribery scheme.
“I’m really greatly embarrassed, obviously, to be here today,” Flynn told the judge. “I hope you understand that I deeply regret the consequences of my actions.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Dotson cited Flynn’s acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with the prosecutors as reasons why the government didn’t seek a prison sentence for a crime that could send people behind bars for as long as 10 years. Dotson also noted that Flynn didn’t feign ill health, as defendants of advanced age frequently do in an effort to get leniency when it comes to sentencing.
Fischer, in accepting the prosecution’s recommendation, noted that the sentence didn’t comply with the goal of avoiding sentencing disparities, or ensuring that defendants who commit similar crimes and have otherwise similar criminal histories receive similar sentences.
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