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Taylor sentenced to house arrestBy Rose Hooper |
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Jonathan Ed Taylor, former principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, was sentenced to six months house arrest and three years of probation.
The sentencing was handed down by Judge Graham Mullen on Tuesday, April 18, in federal court in Charlotte. The ruling stemmed from the 59-year-old Taylorıs guilty plea to tax evasion April 1999 in U.S. District Court in Asheville. Taylor pled guilty to filing a joint tax return in 1994 with his wife, Cleo, in which the couple reported a combined income of $71,930, with a tax due of $15,199. In court he admitted to owing $47,895 for a $182,234 income and agreed to pay back taxes. Taylor could have received up to five years in prison, a fine up to $250,000, or both. Taylorıs poor health, including diabetes and hypertension, may have lessened the sentence. Indictments returned against Taylor in October 1998 had also charged him with receiving monies totaling $120,000 from Betty Estes, former manager of Cherokee Bingo. The Taylors had maintained that the monies, received during 1993 and 1994 when he was principal chief were loans. The government had alleged the $120,000 was bribes. However, a U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 27, 1999, ruled that gifts are a crime only if prosecutors prove they are linked to an official act. Cleo Taylor still faces one count of perjury before the grand jury in connection with her April 7, 1999, testimony about the money. |
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