CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Sheriff Gets Year in Prison for Extortion

Retired Yolo County Sheriff Rodney Graham was sentenced to one year in prison for extorting $3,650 in campaign contributions from a developer. Graham, 50, was indicted as an offshoot of the FBI’s three-year sting investigation of corruption in state government. He was secretly tape-recorded promising the developers of a huge project planned for the banks of the Sacramento River that he would falsify crime statistics to convince local officials that the project would reduce crime. He also promised developers extra patrols during construction. “No matter how you look at it, it has to be described as a kind of shakedown, even though it may have happened only once,” U.S. District Judge Milton Schwartz said in imposing the sentence, which includes a $2,000 fine. Schwartz told Graham to report to a minimum-security prison camp at Sheradon, Ore., on Aug. 31, allowing Graham and his wife time to start a bed-and-breakfast inn in Mendocino County.