Former Kentucky Democratic party leader ordered to prison in campaign finance case
The former head of the Kentucky Democratic Party has been ordered to report to prison in November.
Jerry Lundergan, 74, had been allowed to remain free while appealing his conviction on federal campaign finance charges, but the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction and turned down a motion to stay the judgment.
As a result, U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove ordered Lundergan to report to prison on Nov. 30.
Lundergan will report on that date, said his attorney, J. Guthrie True.
However, Lundergan also will seek to continue his appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, True said.
Lundergan, who lives in Lexington and owns catering and other businesses, was a force in Kentucky elections for decades, serving as a state representative and two terms as party chair.
He and veteran political consultant Dale Emmons were convicted in 2019 of conspiring to illegally make more than $200,000 in contributions from one of Lundergan’s companies to the 2014 U.S. Senate race of Lundergan’s daughter, Alison Lundergan Grimes.
Grimes, who served two terms as Kentucky secretary of state, lost that race to Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Defense attorneys argued that the spending by Lundergan’s company did not qualify as corporate contributions; that Lundergan and Emmons didn’t intend to do anything wrong; and that any failure to seek reimbursement from Grimes’ campaign was an oversight.
Prosecutors, however, said Lundergan and Emmons knew what they were doing and used misleading or vague invoices in some cases to conceal the spending.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Lundergan also engaged in improper spending to support Grimes’ 2011 and 2016 races for secretary of state.
For instance, the evidence included testimony that Lundergan reimbursed consultant Jonathan Hurst more than $200,000 in the 2011 race without getting repaid by the campaign.
The jury convicted Lundergan and Emmons on all the charges against them.
Van Tatenhove sentenced Lundergan to 21 months in prison and a $150,000 fine. The judge sentenced Emmons to probation for three years, with nine months of that at a halfway house, and fined him $50,000.
They appealed on a number of grounds, including that prosecutors shouldn’t have been allowed to present evidence about spending in Grimes’ 2011 and 2015 races, but the appeals court ruled there was no error that justified overturning the convictions.
Emmons reported to the halfway house in Lexington in August. However, the director raised concerns the next day about whether the facility could handle Emmons’ health problems, so Van Tatenhove approved a request to have him serve nine moths on home detention with electronic monitoring.
Emmons has had heart and other health problems.
If the U.S. Supreme Court accepts Lundergan’s case, he will argue that applying the ban on corporate communications to him was a violation of his First Amendment rights because the contributions were to a close family member, according to a court document.
