Monica Conyers, the former councilwoman and felon who shirked her duty and betrayed the good people of Detroit for about $5,000, stated on her TV show she was afraid of prison. This coming after she plead guilty to taking a bribe.

Too bad, Monica. You should have thought of that before you sold out the people who elected you and the ones who got stuck with your incompetent leadership.

I can feel sympathy for a person who gets caught up in a bad situation or is desperate and they break the law because they feel it is their only way out. But, Conyers was not in a bad situation. She had a job where she was paid $81,000 a year to do nothing but screw up a city, she is married to a man who lives high off the government hog (doing very little to earn it), and receives lifetime health benefits and pension.

Conyers wasn't starving or almost homeless. She was greedy, selfish, uncaring, arrogant and criminal. She took that money because she thought she could get away with it.

To that, I say..."HAHAHAHAHAHA!" And, Good riddance!

Conyers is just another example of a shady politician with no morals and an inflated ego that says they are bigger than the peons they lord over.

There has been some controversy about how much time Conyers will spend in jail. She took between $5,000 and $6,000 to vote for Synagro to get a waste deal with Detroit that was worth more than a billion dollars. (If she were smart, she would have held out for at least $100,000.)

When considering jail time, prosecutors will probably want it factored on the billion amount, while Conyers' attorneys will be asking for it to be based on the $5,000-$6,000 number.

I say, Detroit got screwed to the tune of a billion, so her sentence should show that.

Actually, sentencing for bribing a public official should have little to do with the amount the politician received or how much money the briber made. It should all be handled as the gross violation of public trust that it is.

Here is how sentencing should work for all bribery convictions:

The public official should get 10 years in jail with no parole. For five years after release, 30% of everything they earn goes to pay back the municipality they screwed. For the rest of their life, they can't hold any public office or job, they must pay 5% of their income to a fund that goes toward prosecuting other corrupt officials. They also lose the right to vote.

As for the companies that do the bribing. They have to pay the municipality they screwed twice as much as the value of the contract or goods they received. Also, all people involved in the bribery get 10 years in jail and have to pay 5% of their incomes for the rest of their lives to the prosecution fund. They also will never be allowed to hold a public office or job.

A strong message should be sent or the politicians will continue to take bribes. Of course, we can't change the sentencing guidelines in midstream to nail Conyers to the wall (too bad), but we can make sure future crooked politicians will think twice before betraying the public.

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