Orange County's former sheriff is waging a battle to be released from federal prison, where he is serving time for witness tampering in a corruption case that exposed wrongdoing in the state's second-largest sheriff's department,
the Los Angeles Times
reports.
On Monday, a federal judge heard arguments on whether to resentence
Michael S. Carona
, once a rising political star before he was indicted in late 2007 in a sprawling corruption case.
Carona's attorneys argued that the 66-month sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford on the one witness-tampering charge on which he was convicted should be adjusted based on changes in the law. About one year after Carona's sentencing, the Supreme Court narrowed a definition of corruption to just bribes and kickbacks.
His attorneys contend that Carona's conduct amounted to simply not disclosing gifts but did not amount to bribery.
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