NEW YORK (AP) – Former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm was sentenced Friday to 8 months in prison for tax evasion.
The sentencing in Brooklyn before U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen follows Grimm’s guilty plea late last year to aiding in filing a false tax return – a charge that stemmed from an investigation into the Staten Island Republican’s campaign financing.
The defense had asked the judge to spare him a prison term; prosecutors argued he deserved at least 2 years behind bars.
Prosecutors said the tax fraud began in 2007 after Grimm retired from the FBI and began investing in a Manhattan eatery called Healthalicious. An indictment accused him of underreporting more than $1 million in wages and receipts to evade payroll, income and sales taxes, in part by paying immigrant workers, some of them in the country illegally, in cash.
Grimm, 45, won re-election in November while fighting the charges but later resigned.