Figure in Rowland scandal gets 5 more years in bankruptcy case
Kurt Claywell, 55, was convicted last July of conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud for attempting to conceal during a 2005 bankruptcy filing more than $200,000 in assets including property, rare books and a wine collection he told authorities he gave away.
U.S. District Judge Alvin W. Thompson ordered the sentence to begin after Claywell finishes a 5 1/2 year term he began serving in October 2005 for unrelated federal tax and mail fraud convictions.
"Being sentenced to a lengthy prison term did not deter him from committing another crime," Thompson said.
Thompson also ordered Claywell to pay $86,000 in restitution, which included the value of the wine.
Claywell also faces a year in state prison for a 2007 conviction of fourth-degree sexual assault and attempting to bribe the victim.
In seeking a shorter sentence, Claywell asked the judge to consider that he will be in his 60s before he is released from prison and can seek work to pay off his debts.
"I hope that my criminal record aside, my age will not be too much of an obstacle when I get out," he said.
In asking for the five-year maximum sentence, prosecutor Ann Nevin noted that Claywell's fraudulent bankruptcy filing came within weeks of his 2005 sentencing.
"The defendant has demonstrated that he is incorrigible," she wrote in court papers. "The defendant's guilty pleas to financial fraud charges have not resulted in rehabilitation, but rather have been followed by additional financial fraud crimes resulting in significant financial loss to others and in the waste of taxpayer dollars better spent on other pursuits."
Claywell, a Simsbury electrical contractor, was not charged in connection with the federal corruption investigation of the Rowland administration, but told investigators he gave Rowland expensive cigars and champagne in exchange for access to state contracts. He was facing tax and fraud charges when he agreed to cooperate in the corruption probe that led to Rowland's resignation and one-year federal prison sentence.
Claywell's attorneys had asked for a sentence of about three years in the bankruptcy case. They said Claywell's latest scheme was bound to fail because his prior criminal record would lead to more scrutiny from creditors, which included the wife he was divorcing and his own divorce attorney.
Thompson rejected that argument as a reason to reduce the sentence, saying most defendants that come before him can claim their criminal plots were doomed to fail.
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