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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal appeals panel has ordered a former Mississippi school superintendent to pay a $75,000 lump sum restitution in a bribery case.
Former Greenville schools superintendent Harvey Franklin is serving a 76-month sentence for taking more than $270,000 in bribes to influence the school board to use a reading program for children.
He also was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Education. The first $75,000 was due in mid-January 2014.
Franklin's attorney had argued to U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in Aberdeen that Franklin's assets were all but depleted. Nevertheless, Aycock ruled in last December that Franklin had the ability to pay the $75,000.
The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday that Franklin did not object to a financial statement that accompanied his pre-sentence report to the judge. The report included the amount or availability of several liquid assets totaling $92,000.
Without an objection from Franklin, the Mississippi judge assumed the pre-sentence report was accurate and was free to order the restitution, the panel said.
Franklin's attorney argued the depletion of Franklin's funds was largely due to expenses related to the bribery case and medical expenses. Franklin also argued the reading program did provide something of value to the Greenville schools and that should be deducted from his restitution.
Federal prosecutors said there was no error in the amount of restitution and the judge's order for an immediate $75,000 payment was within Aycock's discretion.
Edna Goble, who owned Teach Them To Read in Conyers, Georgia, was sentenced in June to conspiracy to commit bribery. She is serving a 30-month sentence. She was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution
Her reading program is called EDNA, for Early Detection Necessary Action.
Authorities say Goble paid bribes to Franklin for him to influence the school board to use the $1.4 million reading program.
Franklin is serving his sentence at the prison in Montgomery, Alabama. Goble is at a federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia.
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