Attorneys for Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump, late Monday asked a federal appeals court to delay his 40-month prison sentence citing concerns about the coronavirus in the Georgia facility where he is scheduled to report later this month.
Stone’s legal team asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to halt an earlier decision by trial Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who ordered him to report to a federal prison in Jesup, Georgia.
The facility has three inmates infected with COVID-19 along with six positive tests and no staff cases, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Stone’s attorneys said the 67-year-old political operative can’t start his sentence because of unspecified medical conditions that “require close monitoring and strict compliance with the directions of his physician.”
They say Judge Jackson “wholly ignored” the advice of Stone’s doctor. Court filings detailing Stone’s medical conditions are under seal, but in the past Stone has said he suffers from asthma and other respiratory issues.
Stone was convicted last year of making false statements, obstructing justice and witness tampering in a bid to undermine a congressional panel’s probe into allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
The case was an offshoot of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.
In an Instagram post on Monday, Stone acknowledged that the appeals court will likely kick the case back to Judge Jackson. But he said it is “vitally important” that the American people “see all of the false claims in her most recent ruling.”
“I want the president to know that I have, in good faith, exhausted all of my legal remedies and that an only an act of clemency by the [president] will provide Justice in my case where I was charged on politically motivated, fabricated charges and was denied a fair trial with an unbiased judge, an honest jury and uncorrupted and non-political prosecutors,” he wrote.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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