"60-year sentence reinstated for Hurricane Katrina housing scam"

The title of this post is the headline of this local news report, which gets started this way:

The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated a 60-year prison sentence for a former Alabama lawmaker who bilked a half-dozen New Orleanians out of $250,000 with the promise of new modular homes after Hurricane Katrina. The court found that Orleans Parish Criminal District Judge Darryl Derbigny didn't abuse his discretion on Feb. 12, 2010, when he sentenced John Colvin to six consecutive 10-year sentences.

Colvin, 65, a former state legislator and water board member in Rainbow, Ala., pleaded guilty in 2009 to six counts of theft.

From the end of 2007 through the spring of 2008, Colvin held himself out as a licensed contractor, though he never registered as one in Louisiana. Colvin invoked God, his mother and children to secure contracts with mostly older residents put out by the storm.

He took from $39,400 to $63,500 from each victim, much of it Road Home money, and did little or none of the promised work. In some cases, his victims said, he left some holes dug or a few stakes in the ground.

A panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Derbigny's sentence, citing a 1979 Louisiana Supreme Court decision that states: "For an offender without prior felony record, ordinarily concurrent rather than consecutive sentences should be imposed ..."

Judge Roland Belsome also cited those who spoke on Colvin's behalf -- Alabama Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom sent a letter of support -- along with his lack of a criminal record and his attempt to return $5,000 to one victim before his arrest. But in an odd twist, the appeals panel also said it didn't think a 10-year sentence -- with each count running concurrently -- was enough, considering the "economic and emotional harm" to the victims.

The Supreme Court rendered that opinion moot Tuesday, finding in its 10-page reversal that the 60-year sentence wasn't disproportionate to the offense. Colvin engaged in "a pattern of conduct that clearly reflected more than business ineptitude and was fraudulent from the outset, " the court found.

The court also didn't buy Colvin's expression of remorse and contrition at his sentencing hearing, noting that only a month earlier he had blamed another contractor for botching the jobs and sapping the money. Colvin's attorney, Craig Mordock, didn't immediately return a call for comment.

The 10-page opinion for the Supreme Court of Louisiana is available at this link.