FORMER REP CHRIS COLLINS REPORTS TO PRISON

 

Former Representative Chris Collins (R) of New York’s  27^th district, which is primarily the Buffalo area, reported to FPC Pensacola  Federal Prison in Florida  on Tuesday, Oct. 13 to  begin a 26 month sentence.  Collins is also responsible for a $200,000 fine for his felony crime. He had served in the U.S. Congress for seven years before being charged. He was known for being the first member of Congress to endorse Donald J. Trump for President, when Trump announced his candidacy.

Collins pled guilty to Insider trading and lying to FBI investigators in January 2020, after saying for months the charges were “meritless.”  According to authorities, Collins, who was both a U.S. Representative and on the board of Innate Immunptherapeutic, a large pharmaceutical company, was at a Congressional party in June 2017, when the company’s CEO told him that a drug the company had been working 0n for multiple sclerosis had failed its clinical test.

Collins then contacted his son Cameron and another friend to tell them the news before the general public found out, knowing the news would cause stock prices to tumble.  His son Cameron pled guilty to one count of insider trading, paid his fine and did community service, but was allowed to do home confinement as his sentence. He owned about 2 per cent of the company, and he and others avoided $768,000 in losses by selling when he did. Chris Collins, who owned 17 per cent of the company, did not sell, and lost millions. When the news was announced a few days later, value of shares dropped by 92 per cent.

Collins was sentenced to 26 months to begin on March 17,2020, but made four motions to delay since then, due to his 70+ year old age and Covid concerns.  However, this time the judge did not answer his new request, and so, Collins had to report. The prison is about a 9-hour drive from his new home in Marco, Fl.

Collins wrote both the prosecutor and judge letters criticizing them for the decision, saying he should have been allowed to serve his sentence as -home enforced isolation, but received no reply, so reported for prison, as promised. The minimum security prison has no barbed wire, has athletic fields, community television rooms, vocational and educational opportunities, and has been likened more to a college dormitory than a prison, with a population of white-collar crime convicts, with no violent criminals there.