Monica Conyers Goes To Jail

The corrupt Detroit lawmaker who took cash bribes in fast-food parking lots will report to prison today after a federal appeals court rejected her desperate effort to avoid serving time for crimes she pleaded guilty to but subsequently denied committing.

Disgraced Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, will spend the next three years incarcerated (if you can even call it that) at a West Virginia federal detention center appropriately nicknamed Camp Cupcake. Located along a river in the scenic foothills, the facility resembles a college campus and has hosted famous inmates such as Martha Stewart.

Never the less, Conyers mounted an aggressive fight to avoid becoming a “cupcake” tenant. After pleading guilty to one of her many transgressions—taking bribes from a developer—the flamboyant politician tried to change her plea when a judge sentenced her to 37 months in prison and two years of probation. The developer paid Conyers $6,000 to change her vote on a multi million-dollar city sewage contract and the FBI had electronic surveillance evidence of her taking cash bribes in fast-food parking lots.

But Conyers went ballistic during her March sentencing hearing, exploding in court and declaring that she wasn’t going to jail for something she didn’t do. She tried withdrawing the guilty plea and took her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit when the judge refused. This week the appellate court denied Conyers’ last-ditch effort to stay out of jail, ruling that she must begin serving her sentence while she continues the appellate process.

No word if her beloved husband, who chairs the House committee that oversees the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, will accompany her when she turns herself in today. After all, despite his $174,000 annual salary, the veteran congressman wouldn’t pay for his wife’s criminal defense attorney. Taxpayers had to pick up the tab, even though Monica Conyers’ guilty plea waives the right to contest her jail sentence.

The Conyers case is just one of many public corruption scandals to rock Detroit in the last few years. The beleaguered city’s mayor (Kwame Kilpatrick) went to jail for a multitude of crimes, its deputy mayor pleaded guilty to bribery and several public school employees have been charged with numerous felonies for embezzling education funds.