WASHINGTON – Former Rep. Chris Collins wants his 26-month prison sentence converted to home confinement, but the top government prosecutor in the case is saying, in essence, lock him up – and right away.
"The public has an interest in seeing justice done in this case without further delay," wrote Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a court filing Wednesday. "It is time for Collins to begin his prison sentence."
Strauss' letter to the judge signals a break with the Collins legal team over when the former Republican congressman should go to prison after pleading guilty to federal insider trading charges.
Collins was originally scheduled to be incarcerated on April 21, but prosecutors and Collins' lawyers agreed that his imprisonment should be delayed till June because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
People are also reading…
The two sides then agreed to two additional delays in his imprisonment, which is set to begin Tuesday.
Separate from the court proceedings, Collins' legal team has been pressuring the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to change his sentence to home confinement in light of the pandemic. The Collins lawyers detailed that effort in court papers last week, asking the judge in the case to either convert his sentence to home confinement or to once again delay his incarceration date.
Strauss said both are bad ideas.
"While the world has changed significantly since January (when Collins was sentenced), the need to deter this conduct and to see justice done has not," she wrote.
Strauss noted that another federal judge recently rejected the bid that former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver made to have his prison sentence converted to home confinement. Strauss said she agreed with the point the judge made in that case.
"Given that the pandemic has imposed significant limitations on the ability of much of the population to travel and socialize, a sentence of home confinement at the present time would have even less deterrent effect than it might otherwise have," Strauss wrote.
The prosecutor said she was just as adamantly opposed to again delaying Collins' prison term. She noted that the facility where Collins is set to serve his sentence – a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Fla. – has not reported any Covid-19 cases. Things are much worse in the Florida county where Collins' waterfront home is located.
"Nearly 13,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Collier County, which translates to an infection rate of about 3.4% of the overall population," Strauss wrote.
Collins' lawyers had argued that his age – 70 – and underlying health conditions put him in the high-risk category for Covid-19.
U.S. District Court Judge Vernon S. Broderick gave the Collins legal team until Friday to respond to Strauss's letter. Broderick will decide Collins' fate after that.
Collins resigned from Congress and pleaded guilty last Oct. 1 to charges that he passed an insider stock tip to his son Cameron, who used it to shield himself from hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
Cameron Collins and his prospective father-in-law, Stephen Zarsky, were sentenced to probation in the case.
