LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Legal Newsline) – The Justice Department announced that former state Circuit Judge Michael A. Maggio was sentenced to 120 months for accepting bribes for reducing a sentence against a company.
Maggio had presided over a case in which a jury awarded a plaintiff $5.2 million in damages against a nursing home company. At the time, Maggio was running for a spot on the Arkansas Court of Appeals.
The nursing home company purportedly donated $24,000 to Maggio’s campaign office, which Maggio admitted led him to reduce the verdict to $1 million.
The FBI’s Little Rock Field Office looked into the matter, while Trial Attorneys Edward P. Sullivan and Charles Walsh of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters of the Eastern District of Arkansas handled the case.