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U.S. District Judge James C. Turk instead sen- tenced Hutcherson to 36 months of probation and six months of house arrest, and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service. Turk also ordered Hutcherson to check in to Lynchburg’s Elim House, a residential treatment program, to undergo a year of counseling.
Ex-mayor is spared prison

BY REX BOWMAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
RELATED: Police Beat

ROANOKE — Former Lynchburg Mayor Carl B. Hutcherson Jr., convicted in May of raiding his church’s charity to pay his bills, will serve no time in prison, a federal judge ruled yesterday.                                      
Turk passed the sentence after witnesses testified that Hutcherson had spent a lifetime aiding the elderly, clothing the homeless and dipping into his own pocket to pay rent and electric bills for the poor.
“That’s my dad’s life story,” testified his daughter Sherri Deloatch, 33.                                     
 Minutes after she testified, Hutcherson, 62, stood and accepted responsibility for his crimes.
“I let my city down,” he said. “I let my church down. I let my family down. But most of all, I let my God down.
“I do take full responsibility. While it was not my intent to commit [a] crime, I stand guilty before this court. I apologize to my wife . . . my children, grandchildren, friends, to the judge, to this honorable court, and to anyone that I might have hurt by my actions. I am deeply sorry.”
Hutcherson left the U.S. District Court in Roanoke a relieved but humbled man. At one point a pastor, a mayor and a member of a local bank board, he now holds none of those positions. Hutcherson gave up his role as pastor while fighting the criminal charges, and he resigned from City Council and the major’s job the day after the federal jury convicted him in May.
“We all sin and fall short,” Hutcherson said outside the federal courthouse. “I did. I sinned and fell short.” Still, he said, “I feel pretty good right now.”
About 70 friends and family members had packed into the courtroom to show their support for Hutcherson. The crowd spontaneously broke into applause when Turk announced his sentence, which was far more lenient than the 37 months in prison that federal sentencing guidelines called for.
In May, a federal jury convicted Hutcherson of five counts of fraud, lying to federal investigators, and obstruction of justice. The jury concluded that, while he was pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church, Hutcherson had illegally taken a contribution of more than $30,000 that Falwell Ministries had made to a charity run by the church and used it to pay off his debts. At the time, Hutcherson, who owns a funeral home, owed more than $100,000 in federal back taxes, prosecutors alleged.
The convictions also included Hutcherson’s theft from two handicapped Social Security recipients whose money he was supposed to manage.
At yesterday’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney John Fishwick asked for leniency, telling Turk that Falwell Ministries knew its donation to Trinity New Life Development Corp. might be loaned by the charity to Hutcherson. Fishwick submitted a stack of letters signed by hundreds of people asking Turk to spare Hutcherson. One of the letters was endorsed with Jerry Falwell’s signature.                                                             
 Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Bondurant Jr. argued that Hutcherson should spend time in prison since he had abused a position of trust. He added that Hutcherson engineered the transfer of the Falwell donation from the charity to his funeral home without the knowledge of the charity’s governing board. Finally, Bondurant noted that Hutcherson spent some of the ill-gotten money on a mistress, cable television and fine dining.
The federal sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of between 37 and 46 months. But Turk, who said he was taking into consideration Hutcherson’s history of good deeds, opted to put him on probation. Turk also ordered Hutcherson to pay $12,400 in court fines and fees, and more than $7,800 in restitution to the two Social Security recipients he ripped off.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 7:00 am and is filed under Nigga Watch.
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