www.CharlesJeromeWare.com
Tuesday, May 27, 2013.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A defense lawyer has asked a federal judge to avoid sending former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway to jail at her sentencing Tuesday for bank fraud.
Hathaway's lawyer made the request in a May 20 sentencing memorandum to Federal Judge John Corbett O'Meara. She pleaded guilty in January to misleading her bank during a short sale of her Grosse Pointe, Mich., home.
"Her fall from the pinnacle of professional success has been swift, sudden, and tragic," her lawyer wrote in the memo under consideration by O'Meara for Tuesday's sentencing in the southern division of U.S. District Court's Eastern District.
Judge Hathaway, who also held a real estate license, retired Jan. 21 amid the scandal involving the sale of her home.
Hathaway was charged with and pleaded guilty in January to one count of bank fraud after investigators said she moved ownership of property in Florida to relatives so she could qualify for the short sale.
Short sales are when a bank allows a sale for a home for less than is owed by the mortgage holder, typically when property values fall.
Hathaway's short sale in Michigan erased nearly $600,000 in mortgage debt on the $1.5 million Grosse Pointe Park home on Lakeview Court, which eventually sold for $850,000. The debt-free Windermere, Fla., home then went back into Hathaway's name.
The plea deal set Hathaway's possible jail time at either 8 to 14 months or 12 to 18 months, depending on how much money the court decides was at stake. Hathaway also agreed as part of her guilty plea not to appeal her punishment.
[www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/5-28-2013; Detroit Free Press, May 28, 2013/ "Sentencing Set For Disgraced Ex-Michigan Judge]
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