Claude Allen manages to avoid jail time

August 5, 2006

In March, Claude Allen, a top White House domestic policy advisor and favorite of Christian conservatives, was caught in a two-bit shoplifting scheme in which he’d return items he hadn’t actually purchased. At the time, Allen said there had been a mix-up with his credit card. He was lying.

Yesterday, however, he managed to avoid a jail sentence.

A former White House policy adviser, who was arrested in March and charged with multiple counts of shoplifting, pleaded guilty Friday to a single count, in a plea agreement under which he will pay a fine and make partial restitution but will avoid having a criminal record if he completes probation successfully.

The former official, Claude A. Allen, was initially charged with stealing more than $5,000 of merchandise from Target and other retailers in a fraudulent-return scheme.

The maximum sentence was 18 years in prison, which means Allen got off remarkably easy. He’ll serve two years of supervised probation, perform 40 hours of community service, pay a $500 fine and make restitution of $850 to the Target Corporation. And as the NYT noted, Allen will be able to practice law again because there will be no conviction on his record.

As for Allen’s explanation for his bizarre criminal conduct, you won’t believe his excuse.

Former White House adviser Claude Allen tearfully pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge Friday, telling a Montgomery County judge that he lost his bearings after working 14-hour days and getting little sleep in the “tumultuous time” after Hurricane Katrina.

“Something did go very wrong,” said Allen, who began crying during his remarks to the court. “I failed to restrain myself … I did not appreciate what was going on.”

As Justin Rood noted, “That’s right, folks: Katrina made him shoplift. On twenty-five separate occasions.”

This guy has worked in Republican politics for 22 years. This is the best excuse he can come up with? I always assumed they taught more creative responses in How-To-Be-A-Republican school.

I was thinking that his punishment was probably typical for a first offense – until I got to his excuse. The judge should have thrown the book at him after that.

  • So “lack of sleep” is now the standard Republican excuse for everything that goes wrong on their watch. Staying up too late keeping an eye out for terrorists, I guess.

    He is, however, quite right about one thing: “I did not appreciate what was going on.”

    An occupational disease among Republicans, no doubt.

  • Poor Claude had to work far far far far away for long long long long hours because of Katrina and pilfered 5Gs worth of crap got a chickenshit slap on the wrist while less connected folks who had to actually endure Katrina got 15 years for stealing a hundred bucks worth of booze.

    To mangle MLK Repub style:
    “to be judged by the quality of their connections, not the color of their skin…”

    $850 in restitution? Shouldn’t he be paying the whole bill?

  • Partial restitution? PARTIAL restitution? Jeez, you mean the low-life jerk didn’t even have to pay them back? He made money on the deal? He should have had to pay them back the full $5000 and their attorney fees and anything else they could think of.

  • Nice to see that Anatole France’s famous observation about the operation of the law is color-blind:

    ”The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

    To which Clod Allen, as irony-impaired as any Republican moron (“oh! but I repeat myself!” to quote Mark Twain), would say “Yassuh! That’s the way it is suh! May I go now?”

  • As a African American who is a Democrat….I think I’m gonna switch parties! No telling what other fringe benefits Republicans are offering to African Americans to jump ship. But, Claude Allen’s deal looks inticing.

  • One of the things that caught me breathless in the NY Times account of this is that someone–his lawyer?, the judge?–said that “EMBARRASSMENT was enough of a penalty for him to pay.” Well, I would like to see the next ID fraud guy, or low level drug dealer or check kiter use that excuse, along with “I did not appreciate what was going on” and see what they get. Community service and partial restoration. Is justice really blind–or really dumb?

  • Apparantly what they are floating for Libby’s excuse is similar. It’s just too stressful working in the White House. No one under that kind of stress should be expected to obey the law ALL the time.

    Except for Democrats, of course.

    It’s nice to know what passes for responsibility these days. I’ll be sure to pass that on to future generations.

  • I can’t believe he had the gall to mention Hurricane Katrina. Taking food from a grocery store in a flooded city is “looting,” but stealing from Target because you wanted free clothes is a symptom of post-traumatic stress? Who appointed/elected that judge?

  • Well it seems to me that one way or another this moronic idiot judge was bought off. Wasn’t he a federal judge? This creep commits 25 separte premeditated robberies and walks free. Join the OJ club Claude. And to top it all off GWB wanted him to be a judge !

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