COULD HAVE BEEN WAY WORSE

Former State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel will spend 10 months in a federal prison after pleading guilty last September to drug charges. He was also fined $250,000. Ravenel could have faced up to 20 years and a $1 million fine.

His co-defendant, Michael Miller, was also sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Ravenel, 45, a mulitmillionaire businessman and one-time U.S. Senate candidate, admitted during his September guilty plea that he bought cocaine from Miller, used it sporadically for two years and provided the drug to guests at his Charleston mansion.

Then, Ravenel told a judge that he threw parties at his home and someone would call Miller, who would deliver cocaine. A prosecutor said Ravenel would buy the cocaine and then provide it to people at the parties that he threw.

Ravenel was charged June 19 with distributing up to a pound of cocaine, according to the indictment. He has been free on bail since then and has sought drug treatment.

In his plea agreement, both sides agreed the amount of cocaine that Ravenel distributed was less than 100 grams, or about a fifth of a pound. That made Ravenel eligible for a lighter sentence.

The parties — and the cocaine — led to the end of Ravenel’s political career. He resigned from office after his first court appearance July 24. [The State]

Ravenel didn’t speak to the media, but I’ll just assume he would have said, “Thank God this wasn’t heroin. The mandatory minimums for that sh*t are like 50 times worse.”

He would have then added, “When I was treasurer, that kind of money alone would have been a huge percentage of our budget. Actually, I’m not sure, I don’t think I ever even looked at our budget.”

I wonder how he’ll roll in prison?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Executive, Ravenel indictment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.