The deadline has come and gone for prosecutors to seek a delay of the Oct. 28 sentencing of former Veco chief executive Bill Allen, the FBI's key informant in the Alaska public corruption investigation.
No motion for a stay was filed in the public docket of U.S. District Court by the cutoff day Monday -- a federal holiday -- or on Tuesday. There was no way to determine whether motions to delay the sentencing of Allen and former Veco Vice President Rick Smith were filed under seal.
If nothing was filed in the sealed docket, Allen and Smith will soon learn their punishment for their influence-buying spree among the ranks of Alaska's elected Republican officials.
It's been nearly two and a half years since U.S. District Judge John Sedwick accepted Allen's and Smith's guilty pleas to bribery, conspiracy and tax violations. In the intervening time, Sedwick agreed to stay their sentencings seven times while the pair testified in trials and held extensive debriefings with federal agents and prosecutors.
But Sedwick said the delays have gone on long enough.
"Allen's crimes are significant ones which involve the integrity of the political process in the State of Alaska," Sedwick wrote in his July 7 order accepting the previous government-proposed delay but suggesting it should be the last. "The community has a substantial interest in seeing the imposition of punishment for these crimes without undue delay."
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