Federal prosecutors recommended a prison term of nearly five years Monday for a former lobbyist who specialized in getting congressional appropriators to funnel money to his defense contractor clients.
In papers filed in U.S. District Court here, prosecutors said Paul Magliocchetti should serve 57 months behind bars because his criminal activities driven by greed caused significant injury to the image and integrity of the nation’s electoral process.
Magliocchetti, 64, pleaded guilty to illegally funneling more than $380,000 in campaign contributions to House members controlling the Pentagon‘s budget.
In a separate court filing, Magliocchetti’s lawyer, Lindsey R. Vaala, recommended that her client be sentenced to probation and home confinement of 1 to 5 years, on grounds that the former lobbyist suffers from serious mental and physical illnesses which would irreversibly worsen if he is sent to prison.
Magliocchetti’s “relationship with his son remains strained, seemingly beyond repair,” she said, because the son, Mark Magliocchetti, cooperated with the government against his father. Mark Magliocchetti also pleaded guilty in the investigation.
The elder Magliocchetti founded and owned the now-defunct PMA lobbying group, which was a major player on Capitol Hill for nearly two decades.
Before becoming a lobbyist in the late 1980s, Magliocchetti served as a staffer on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which for many years was chaired by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who died earlier this year.
Murtha collected $2.37 million in campaign contributions from Magliocchetti’s lobbying team and the companies it had represented over the years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political donations.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press
