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Ex-California Assemblyman Sentenced for Money Laundering

Terrence Goggin took $685K from investors who thought funds were going toward BART coffee shops

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A former California Assemblyman who laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars that were supposed to be invested in San Francisco Bay Area coffee shop projects was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in federal prison.

Terrence Goggin, 79, was sentenced for money laundering under a plea deal. A judge rejected a defense argument that he was too old and ill to go to prison, saying it would send a β€œwrong message,” the Bay Area News Group reported.

Goggin also was ordered to repay $685,000, the amount of money prosecutors said he took from investors in 2013 to build coffee shops at two Bay Area Rapid Transit stations but instead used for other purposes, including personal expenses and other business ventures the investors hadn't agreed to fund.

However, U.S. District Judge James Donato said he doubted Goggin had any money to pay back the victims.

Goggin was a Democratic Assemblyman representing San Bernardino from 1974 to 1984, when he lost a re-election bid. A friend of then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Goggin began practicing law in the city after Brown became mayor in 1996.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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