TPM Reader DM:
pretty much everyone who pleads guilty does so as part of some sort of deal, so i wonder, what were the terms of the deal? more broadly, assuming there was a deal, i wonder what motivated the prosecutors to offer ney a deal.prosecutors offer plea deals for any number of reasons – resources, strength of their case, etc. the conventional wisdom is that bribery is notoriously difficult to prove. so maybe the prosecutors gave ney a deal because they didn’t want to roll the dice at trial. but the state does have four cooperating witnesses as well as pretty compelling circumstantial evidence.
which leads me to wonder. do you think prosecutors gave ney a deal for other reasons? in particular, is it possible ney is cooperating as well? if so, who might be the target?
Again, to see what prosecutors had in their arsenal, here’s our primer on Ney.