Former Chelsea selectwoman Carole J. Swan has lost her bid to remain free and is now fighting to keep her property.
Swan must report to the Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury, Conn., by 2 p.m. Aug. 15.
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Swan, 56, had sought to delay her prison term while the appeal of her convictions last year is pending in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But the trial judge, U.S. District Court Chief Judge John A. Woodcock Jr., denied her request, saying that her appeal is based on his rulings in her extortion convictions, not the tax and federal workers compensation fraud for which she was also convicted.
Swan was sentenced June 13 in U.S. District Court in Bangor to more than seven years in prison for three counts of Hobbs Act extortion for using her position as a selectwoman to seek kickbacks from Frank Monroe, who held the contract to plow and sand Chelsea’s roads.
Woodcock sentenced Swan to 60 months in prison for two counts of lying to get federal workers compensation. Swan claimed she was unable to work and had no other income, failing to disclose her work as a Chelsea selectwoman, as co-owner/bookkeeper for Marshall Swan Construction and her ownership of race horses. She received more than $40,000 a year in disability payments as a result of injuries she suffered while working as a rural carrier for the U.S. Postal Service.
She also was sentenced to 36 months in prison for falsifying five years’ worth of income tax returns and failing to report some $650,000 in income, all from Marshall Swan Construction.
The judge ordered all those terms to run concurrently.
He also imposed $232,346.94 in penalties and fines, including $30,581.66 restitution for Monroe, $75,765.28 restitution for the tax and worker’s compensation fraud, and a $125,000 fine on the extortion charges.
Swan’s husband Marshall is serving a 33-month prison term for the same tax fraud counts. The Swans filed their tax returns jointly. When he was sentenced, he paid $145,000 in back taxes the couple owed.
In ruling against a stay for Carole Swan, Woodcock noted that she is appealing rulings on suppressing evidence obtained Feb. 3, 2011, when she was questioned by Kennebec Sheriff’s deputies who stopped her shortly after she received a sting package from Monroe in Augusta.
“She has not discussed any specific legal error in her tax and workers’ compensation fraud convictions,” Woodcock wrote. “As such, she has failed to sustain her burden of proof for release pending appeal as to those convictions.”
Swan’s 21-page “expedited motion for bail pending appeal” was filed by attorney Darla J. Mondou. Swan’s previous attorneys, Leonard Sharon and Caleigh S. Milton, withdrew shortly after the sentencing hearing.
Mondou wrote that Swan has a stable home life, “tends to her personal business and has not had contact with any Chelsea officials. Moreover, Carole wishes to actively participate in reviewing the vast amount of documents generated by two separate trials in order for her to participate in determining the issues to be raised on appeal, in addition to the denial of the motion to suppress her statements.”
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Clark, opposed the request for a stay.
“The defendant is a corrupt public official, three-time extorter and a multi-year defrauder of two government programs,” Clark wrote. “She repeatedly perjured herself during these criminal proceedings.”
He also said any appeal of the rulings in the extortion case will not reduce her other two sentences.
Clark also said Swan voluntarily agreed to meet with deputies at the sheriff’s office where she confessed to extorting money from Monroe.
With that ruling in hand, Swan is now seeking to protect her assets.
Through her attorney, she is asking the court prevent the government from seizing the home she and her husband own at 472 Windsor Ave., Chelsea, and a gravel pit she and her son Jacob own at 20 Rod Road, Windsor. Swan also asks the court to place a stay on the 25 percent penalty the government wants to assess on unpaid fines and restitution. She wants the stay to remain in effect until she is out of prison.
According to Mondou, the government has already placed liens on the properties and is seeking a $232,346.94 payment of fines and restitution.
Swan paid $80,000 on July 28, according to a receipt accompanying the filing.
Clark opposed these moves, saying the government is permitted to use the Federal Debt Collection Procedure Act to collect restitution for Monroe.
Clark also wrote, “Given her $80,000 payment, all that remains to be collected is federal restitution ($27,346.94) and the ($125,000) fine.”
Woodcock has yet to rule on those issues.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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