Head of Corrine Brown’s Fake Charity Wants No Jail Time
Carla Wiley says she did not benefit as much as Brown and assisted prosecutors
The head of former Florida Rep. Corrine Brown’s bogus charity is hoping to avoid prison time for cooperating with the Brown’s prosecution.
Carla Wiley, who served as the president of the sham charity One Door for Education, plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the Florida Times-Union reported.
“She has fully accepted responsibility for her role in the offense and did so from the outset,” wrote her attorney Gray Thomas in a memo to Judge Timothy Corrigan.
Wiley is the ex-girlfriend of Brown’s former chief of staff Ronnie Simmons, who also plead guilty and testified against the disgraced Florida Democrat.
Thomas wrote that Wiley returned the money that was left in the charity’s account.
Brown was found guilty of 18 charges including conspiracy, concealing income, and filing false tax returns. Prosecutors said that Brown largely used the $800,000 collected in donations for personal use.
Simmons and Wiley’s sentencing hearings are scheduled for next Wednesday and Brown’s follows a day later. The former congresswoman has twice requested her sentencing hearing be delayed and has been denied both times.
Thomas wrote that Wiley “had a lesser role in the offense and is less culpable than either Ms. Brown or Mr. Simmons,” and that while her actions “set the table for the total offense conduct and loss, but her personal gain was greatly exceeded by that of the others.”
In addition, Wiley’s attorney included a number of character references from an FBI supervisory special agent and the president of the NAACP in Loudon County, Virginia, WOKV reported.
