ATLANTA (AP) – Several heavyweights of the 1960s civil rights movement asked a federal judge Wednesday to show leniency to a former Georgia state representative and civil rights activist who’s being sentenced this week on fraud charges.
Tyrone Brooks, an Atlanta Democrat, pleaded guilty in April to one count of filing a false tax document and no contest to five counts of mail and wire fraud. His sentencing hearing began Monday and U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg is expected to sentence him Friday.
An indictment alleged that Brooks solicited about $1 million in contributions from the mid-1990s to 2012 from individuals and corporate donors, saying the money would be used to fight illiteracy in underserved communities and for other causes. The contributions were made to the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which Brooks had led since 1994, and to Universal Humanities, a tax-exempt organization Brooks founded in 1990.
Prosecutors have asked Totenberg for a two-year prison sentence. Brooks’ lawyers are seeking five years’ probation, citing his lifetime of dedicated civil rights work.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and fought alongside King against racial discrimination, testified in a video message that Brooks has made “some serious and foolish mistakes,” but he urged Totenberg to find mercy.