Ex-Reagan Campaigner Gets 3-Year Term
John Gnau, a Detroit-area businessman who twice led Ronald Reagan’s Michigan presidential campaigns, was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for taking part in a plot to sway Postal Service contracts.
U.S. District Judge George H. Revercomb sentenced Gnau to concurrent terms of three years for conspiracy and two years for making an illegal payoff to a high Postal Service official.
Gnau has until Feb. 1 to report to federal authorities for imprisonment.
Asked by Revercomb if he would like to make a statement prior to sentencing, Gnau apologized to the court and his family, and said he had been made wiser by the experience and would survive it.
“This has been an experience in which there is no way to describe,” he said. “I am remorseful and sorry.”
The Michigan businessman had pleaded guilty to the charges and cooperated with prosecutors investigating a kickback scheme to influence postal contracts, including efforts to steer a $250-million mail-sorting equipment order to a Texas firm.
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