POSTED: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 4:51pm
UPDATED: Friday, October 5, 2012 - 3:46pm
Lorenzo Garcia will soon learn how much time and money he'll be forced to give up for his guilty pleas in connection with corruption at the El Paso Independent School District.
The former superintendent was scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning. U.S. attorneys said they're recommending a jail sentence of three and a half years in prison plus a $180 thousand restitution.
But former State Senator Eliot Shapleigh, who helped launch the investigation against Garcia, wants a harsher sentence.
In a brief sent to Judge David Briones he writes:
"This court, in a single sentencing, cannot correct all of the institutional wrongs implicated by the defendant's conduct. But the court, in considering the nature and circumstances of this offense, can and should provide a punishment that is at least equal to the true nature of the crime."
"This court should impose a sentence that will be noticed by all and noticed especially by the public education community in Texas and beyond."
Shapleigh wants Garcia to be forced to pay back all the money he was paid in salary plus pension dollars.
That would be more than $1.5 M in addition to serving the maximum 46 months in prison.