{"id":8128,"date":"2006-08-05T10:28:07","date_gmt":"2006-08-05T14:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8128.html"},"modified":"2006-08-05T10:28:07","modified_gmt":"2006-08-05T14:28:07","slug":"claude-allen-manages-to-avoid-jail-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/claude-allen-manages-to-avoid-jail-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Claude Allen manages to avoid jail time"},"content":{"rendered":"

In March, Claude Allen, a top White House domestic policy advisor and favorite of Christian conservatives, was caught<\/a> in a two-bit<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, however, he managed to avoid a jail sentence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As for Allen’s explanation for his bizarre criminal conduct, you won’t believe his excuse<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Justin Rood noted<\/a>, “That’s right, folks: Katrina made him shoplift. On twenty-five separate occasions.”<\/p>\n

This guy has worked in Republican politics for 22 years<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}