Rep. Linda Sanchez’s estranged husband sentenced to 6 months in Connecticut fraud case
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The estranged husband of Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Whittier) was sentenced Wednesday to six months in jail for using public funds to pay for lavish trips to the Kentucky Derby and a luxury golf resort while he served as the board chairman of a Connecticut energy cooperative.
James Sullivan, 56, a onetime Democratic congressional candidate in Connecticut, was convicted of helping plan trips in 2015 and 2016 for dozens of top staff, board members and family members totaling $800,000. Prosecutors said the trips were unrelated to the business of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative, which receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The $800,000 included travel expenses, private chartered airfare, first-class hotel accommodations, meals, tickets to sporting events, golf fees, souvenirs and gifts, federal prosecutors said.
For a trip to the Kentucky Derby in 2015, which prosecutors said had an average cost of about $9,000 per guest, Sullivan brought his son, brother and sister-in-law, as well as a woman he knew and her friend.
Sanchez dropped her bid for chair of the House Democratic Caucus after Sullivan’s indictment in 2018. Connecticut court records indicate that the couple is going through divorce proceedings.
A second case against Sullivan and the energy cooperative’s former CEO is still pending. That case is related to $100,000 of Sullivan’s personal and travel expenses, including several entries that included expenses for Sanchez, such as travel to the Kentucky Derby and to Key West, Fla., in 2014.
Four horses have scratched, five have died and one trainer has been suspended for this Kentucky Derby. Now it’s time to actually run the race.
An email was left seeking comment with a spokesperson for Sanchez.
In 2018, a spokesperson for Sanchez said she attended a Kentucky Derby trip “in her personal capacity as the spouse of a board member, which is expressly allowed under House rules. Although she was not required to do so, out of an abundance of caution she did seek the advice of the House Ethics Committee prior to attending, and the committee confirmed that she could attend.”
Sullivan, the second of three people to be sentenced this week in the scheme, apologized in court and called the trips “a serious lapse of judgment,” according to the Day newspaper of New London, Conn. He is required to report to jail July 12.
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