Court orders resentencing of former Wal-Mart executive

little rock, ark. -- A U.S. appeals court Tuesday ordered that a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vice chairman be resentenced instead of serving under house arrest for wire and tax fraud.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims that Tom Coughlin’s heart condition was too fragile for him to survive prison, as his lawyers had argued when he was sentenced last year to pay fines and restitution totaling $500,000 and spend 27 months in home arrest.

“The record does not establish imprisonment would subject Coughlin to more than the normal inconvenience or danger,” Judge William Riley wrote in the court’s opinion accompanying the ruling.

The appeals court ordered a U.S. district judge in Fort Smith, Ark., to come up with a new sentence for Coughlin.

The appeals court pointed to evidence that Coughlin, 60, had generally failed to follow doctors’ warnings regarding his heart condition since 1980.

Prosecutors had appealed the district court’s sentence, issued after Coughlin pleaded guilty last year to five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud and one count of filing a false income tax return.

Coughlin, who was also a chief operating officer of Wal-Mart, admitted stealing more than $400,000 in cash and merchandise from the company through inflated or fictitious expense accounts and unauthorized use of gift cards.

The appeals court also said the district judge “plainly erred” in finding Coughlin could not pay interest on the fines and restitution ordered, noting that a federal pre-sentence report calculated his net worth “to be in excess of $50 million.”