GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - A federal judge has agreed to move the sentencing to July 23 for Ocean Springs businessman Scott Walker because the prosecution and the defense are still discussing sentencing issues.
Walker was originally scheduled be sentenced Tuesday on guilty pleas of conspiracy and corruption. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett granted Walker’s motion to reschedule.
Walker, 34, pleaded guilty in February in an agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office. He was charged with a total of 10 counts in the two cases. As part of a plea agreement, the other eight charges were dropped.
Walker faces up to 10 years in prison for fraud and up to five years for conspiracy.
Walker admitted he conspired with his father, former agency director Bill Walker, to spend $210,000 in federal funds on Scott Walker’s waterfront lot in the Gulf Hills subdivision of Jackson County. Evidence shows Bill Walker arranged for the state agency to give the Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain federal funds for the property purchase in July 2011. The federal funds were intended for other purposes.
The elder Walker also pleaded guilty.
In a second case, Walker admitted that he received an unearned $180,000 “finder’s fee” from the city of D’Iberville, with half the proceeds directed to a business he co-owned with Michael Janus. At the time, Janus was D’Iberville’s city manager.
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