Former state Treasurer Rob McCord gets 2½ years for attempted extortion
HARRISBURG — Former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord was sentenced to 2½ years in prison Tuesday for attempting to use his public office to strong-arm political contributors during his failed gubernatorial campaign in 2014.
McCord, 59, was tearful as he addressed U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in federal court shortly before the sentence was announced. The former treasurer, who will report to prison in late October, also must pay a $5,200 fine.
“I do want to apologize again — I want to apologize to the people of Pennsylvania, to the court, to my really great colleagues at Treasury,” McCord said, his voice cracking as he addressed a courtroom packed with friends and family, including his two sons.
“I broke the law,” the Democrat from Montgomery County said, adding that what he did “was not only illegal, it was wrong. I feel horrible remorse about that.”
In handing down the sentence, Judge Jones described McCord as “dichotomous” and a “paradox” — a man capable of much good, but one who became so fixated on his quest to become governor that he was willing to abuse his power.
“What I see before me is that, unfortunately, Mr. McCord, you used your position as treasurer to further what really became an obsession, an avaricious ambition to become the governor,” the judge said.
“When an individual’s ambition trumps his or her good judgment and their otherwise good character, that’s when crimes happen. … You were almost hysterical to raise funds. … It trumped any fiber of reasonable judgment that you had left.”
McCord’s sentence appeared to bring to an end what was once described as the most ambitious public corruption probe to come out of Harrisburg in years, one that also snared another former state treasurer, Barbara Hafer, as well as the onetime chief of staff to Gov. Ed Rendell, John Estey. The investigation spanned years and intrigue, as top political figures — McCord among them — agreed to secretly wear recording devices and tape conversations with other insiders.
The question before Tuesday’s sentencing was how hard federal prosecutors would advocate for McCord to receive credit for that cooperation, which also included a turnas the star government witness in the pay-to-play trial last year of a ChesterCounty businessman.
In the end, they did. But federal prosecutors also tempered their request for leniency because they noted that McCord had not fully owned up to the impact his “corrupt actions” had on his decisionmaking as a public official.
“He corrupted a watchdog agency,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Consiglio said.
U.S.Attorney David J. Freed put it this way: “McCord’s official actions to benefit his friends and punish his foescompromised the integrity of the Treasury and directly damaged the citizensof Pennsylvania.”
After Tuesday’s hearing, a visibly relieved McCord hugged his friends and his family, but he did not speak to reporters. He is to turn himself in to federal authorities on Oct. 29.
His lawyer, Robert E. Welsh, has said that McCord in recent months has been living in North Carolina, taking classes and teaching yoga. McCord is also studying to become a marriage counselor, according to testimony at Tuesday’s hearing.
Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 37 to 46 months in prison, a reduction from the federal guidelines, citing his cooperation. But Mr. Welsh had argued that McCord deserved more credit, noting he took responsibility for his misdeeds and agreed to cooperate in other cases.
“That is a really, really difficult decision,” Mr. Welsh said, noting that the type of cooperation McCord provided would lead to him being “reviled and hated.”
McCord abruptly resigned his position and pleaded guilty in 2015 to attempted extortion. A year earlier, federal authorities had secretly recorded him attempting to shake down campaign donors in
the 2014 primary for governor. In one instance, he threatened the managing partner of a Philadelphia law firm if the firm did not make a sizable contribution to his campaign.
“At the very least, I’m still gonna be the freakin’ treasurer,” McCord told the partner in a conversation recorded by federal agents or cooperating witnesses, court records show.
McCord agreed to cooperate after prosecutors confronted him with his own words captured in 2,000 wiretapped conversations. For several weeks in late 2014, McCord wore a wire for the FBI and recorded conversations with Richard Ireland, a Chester County businessman and Republican campaign donor. Federal prosecutors charged Ireland with attempted bribery.
But McCord’s erratic and unpredictable performance as a key government witness during Ireland’s trial last year dealt the investigation its harshest blow and was cited by Judge Jones in his unusual decision to throw out the case mid-trial.
“That wasn’t my first rodeo either and what I saw clearly indicated to me that for whatever reasons … [McCord] was not entirely forthcoming in his testimony,” Judge Jones, who presided over the Ireland trial, said Tuesday.
Prosecutors had accused Ireland of attempting to bribe McCord with campaign donations, as well as a promised job in the private sector, in exchange for help in landing state contracts.
But McCord was reluctant to admit he had done anything wrong, insisting he never felt that his dealings with Ireland involved a “this for that” arrangement.
McCord had faced a range of 57 to 71 months in prison under federal guidelines.
Judge Jones, in sentencing McCord, closed with these words: “There is redemption. I think you understand that now. I think you’ve achieved some measure of that.”