MHProNews.com has learned from NOLA in New Orleans the Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld the 60-year sentence of a former Alabama lawmaker who swindled older victims of Hurricane Katrina out of $250,000. John Colvin, who passed himself off as a licensed contractor but was not licensed in LA, pleaded guilty to six counts of theft for taking from $39,400 to $63,500 from six different people for new modular homes that were never delivered. An appeals court had overturned Orleans Parish Criminal District Judge Darryl Derbigny’s original sentence because of Colvin’s lack of a previous criminal record, based on a 1979 Louisiana Supreme court ruling. But in Tuesday’s ruling, the Supreme court noted that Colvin engaged in “a pattern of conduct that clearly reflected more than business ineptitude and was fraudulent from the outset,” and upheld the six consecutive sentences instead of making them run concurrently. At his sentencing hearing, Colvin expressed remorse but also blamed another contractor for taking money and not performing the work.
