| Fmr. USC President Sentenced to 3 years in Prison |
| (Miami) - James Holderman's defense
attorney, Neil Nameroff of Miami, told News 19 his client, former
USC President James Holderman (left) was sentenced to 3 years in
prison. Nameroff says they will appeal the sentence. Holderman who was forced out in a 1990 financial scandal was convicted in September 2003 of scheming to get visas under false names and launder drug money. Miami court officials say he had claimed he was lured into crimes he never intended to commit while desperate for money to treat his mental illness. In the nine-month investigation, an undercover police officer posing as a drug-dealing Russian mobster told Holderman and a protege - Dallas-area community college administrator Rafael Diaz Cabral - that he wanted U.S. visas for himself and up to 200 associates, along with up to $1 million a month in clean profits from his crimes. The community college was to be a front for issuing student visas, investigators said. The State Department does not believe any fraudulent U.S. visas were issued. Prosecutors said the pair also agreed to accept $250,000 in drug profits to buy a casino license from Diaz's father in the Dominican Republic. Holderman, 68, of Charleston testified that he took $30,000 from the officer but never intended to commit the promised crimes. Diaz testified against Holderman in exchange for a 14-month sentence. Holderman was convicted on all four counts: conspiracy to launder money, attempted money laundering, conspiracy to sell false immigration documents and offering to sell false immigration documents. While at the University of South Carolina, Holderman had brought Pope John Paul II and President Reagan to campus, but his 13-year tenure ended with the fraud in 1990, the year he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was convicted of state charges in the scandal and on subsequent federal bankruptcy fraud charges. |