Ex-Senator Carpenter’s Extradition Is On Again : Courts: Judge in Costa Rica orders return of Paul Carpenter to the United States. The ex-legislator had fled before he could be jailed on federal political corruption convictions.

Former state Sen. Paul Carpenter’s on-again, off-again extradition from Costa Rica was on again Thursday.

Carpenter, who fled the United States before he could be jailed on federal political corruption convictions, was ordered extradited by a Costa Rican judge, U.S. Atty. Charles Stevens said.

The judge originally ordered Carpenter extradited in May. But in July, a Costa Rican appellate court overturned that order on procedural grounds and ordered additional review of the case.

On Thursday, the lower court confirmed its earlier decision that Carpenter should be extradited on the mail fraud and money laundering charges of which he was convicted, Stevens said.

Carpenter is to remain in a Costa Rican jail until he is returned to the United States, Stevens said.

The former senator arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, last February. He said he was suffering from cancer and did not want to enter prison.

Carpenter, 66, was convicted of conspiracy, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, racketeering and extortion in two trials arising from an FBI sting operation at the state Capitol in the late 1980s.

Carpenter, a Democrat from Cypress, left the state Senate in 1987. He was convicted in 1990 of shaking down a businessman, who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, for $20,000 in campaign donations.

That conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was convicted last year of serving as a middleman in a scheme to funnel bribes to another lawmaker. Carpenter was scheduled to be sentenced for that crime when he fled the country.