William Jefferson gets 13 years over freezer cash stash case

Alexandria, Virginia: A former New Orleans congressman who famously hid $90,000 (Dh330,300) cash in his freezer was sentenced on Friday to 13 years in prison for taking bribes, the longest term ever imposed on a congressman for bribery charges.

William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans for nearly 20 years, was convicted in August of taking roughly $500,000 in bribes and seeking millions more in exchange for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.

The sentence was still far less than the nearly 30 years prosecutors had sought. Agents investigating the case found $90,000 wrapped in foil and hidden in boxes of frozen pie crusts in his freezer.

Prosecutors had asked a judge to follow federal guidelines and sentence him to at least 27 years, though the judge determined on Friday that the sentencing guidelines should have been calculated at 22 years instead of 27.

The defence asked for less than 10 years, arguing a stiffer sentence would be far longer than those imposed on congressmen convicted of similar crimes in recent years, none of whom was sentenced to more than a decade.

Former Republican Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, for example, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty in 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defence contractors.