Reagan Associate Also Fined $30,000 : Nofziger Sentenced to 90 Days in Prison

Lyn Nofziger, a longtime associate of President Reagan, was sentenced Friday to 90 days in prison and fined $30,000 for illegally lobbying the White House.

U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Flannery allowed Nofziger, the former White House political director, to remain free pending appeal of three felony convictions of violating the Ethics in Government Act.

“I thought things were going to go better than they went,” said Nofziger, 63.

But “in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe I’m going to serve time because I don’t believe a prison sentence is justified even if I were guilty. And I repeat that I am not guilty,” he said.

Reagan and his wife, Nancy, issued a statement from their vacation home in California: “Lyn Nofziger is a dear friend of many years and our prayers are with him.”

Addressing the judge before he was sentenced, Nofziger said he wanted to reiterate “my belief that, despite my conviction, I have done nothing ethically, morally or legally wrong.”

“I am an honorable man,” Nofziger told Flannery. “Like other honorable people, I have gone through life making mistakes, doing stupid things. I doubt that there is a person in this room who hasn’t. But I am not a criminal and I think the record of my life will bear out that statement.”

Nofziger shook hands with friends and kissed his wife after the sentence was pronounced. He shrugged when a well-wisher offered words of sympathy.

Outside the courthouse, Nofziger angrily charged that independent counsel James C. McKay “set out to get me.”

“He set out because I would not knuckle under, because I would not cop a plea and because I would not say I was remorseful, and I think he succeeded,” he said.

“He makes mountains out of molehills. He has exaggerated, he has misstated and I think he has lied,” Nofziger said. “I don’t think he is an honorable man.”

Nofziger was convicted Feb. 11 of three counts of illegally lobbying then-presidential counselor Edwin Meese III and other White House aides on behalf of the scandal-ridden Wedtech Corp., a marine engineers union and the manufacturer of the Air Force A-10 anti-tank plane. The contacts were illegal because they occurred within a year of Nofziger’s departure from the White House staff in early 1982.

The fine was the most Flannery could have imposed. Nofziger could have received a maximum two-year sentence for each conviction.

Flannery also ordered that Nofziger be placed on two years’ probation.