Former State Rep. Fullwood seeks to stay out of prison

BY THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

With a sentencing hearing scheduled for Tuesday, an attorney for former state Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, has filed a six-page document seeking to keep him from going to prison. Fullwood pleaded guilty in September to one count of wire fraud and one count of failure to file a tax return in a case related to the illegal use of campaign contributions for personal expenses. The plea led to Fullwood resigning his Duval County House seat, which he had held since 2010. In a sentencing memorandum filed Friday in federal court, Fullwood's attorney, Robert Stuart Willis, wrote that sentencing guidelines would ordinarily lead to 15 to 21 months in prison. But Willis asked in the document that Senior Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. exercise "discretion and impose a non-custodial sentence." In part, Willis wrote that Fullwood is a "committed, attentive and supportive father" to two children and pointed to Fullwood's time in public office, including getting elected to the Jacksonville City Council at age 23. It also described community involvement including his former position as executive director of Metro North Community Development Corp., a non-profit affordable housing organization. The document also noted that Fullwood is going through a divorce and that "the defendant's current circumstance before this court certainly played a part of the pending dissolution" of the marriage. "With the exception of the (sentencing) guideline yield based upon the current calculation, there is literally nothing that suggests Mr. Fullwood should be incarcerated," Willis wrote. "If allowed, he will have a bright future notwithstanding the undeniable fact of these convictions."