* By Steve Patterson
* Story updated at 3:17 AM on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010
Tom Manuel, former chairman of the St. Johns County Commission, will spend 21 months in federal prison for demanding bribe money from a developer.
He received $60,000 to support a deal for the county to buy land at Interstate 95 and County Road 210 owned by the Falcone Group, a real estate investment business.
At the time, Manuel boasted he had power and connections to help or hurt the company across Northeast Florida.
But Thursday in federal court in Jacksonville he described himself as being deep in debt, fearful and having manic episodes from undiagnosed bipolar disorder as he made demands that brought him to shame.
"My financial desperation led me to throw away all of the values I have believed in," he told U.S. Circuit Judge Timothy J. Corrigan.
Manuel said he rationalized that the money was payment for trying to help Falcone partner Bruce Robbins sell 200 acres near the former Imeson airport on Jacksonville's Northside.
"The biggest lie is the lie you tell yourself," he said.
Defense lawyers pleaded for leniency, saying the 64-year-old heart transplant recipient has a wife in bad health and an 11-year-old daughter who needs someone to raise her.
Putting Manuel in prison could amount to a death sentence, attorney Bill Sheppard said.
Even if that's true, "that can't be the only consideration," Corrigan answered later, saying that a bribe-taking politician "strikes at the heart of our system of representative government."
Manuel, a Republican elected to represent the Ponte Vedra Beach area in 2006, was indicted in October 2008 and suspended from the commission. Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Phil Mays to fill the seat until an election this year.
The money Manuel collected was split into two payoffs made in 2008, with discussions about making future deals. But that all turned out to be part of the investigation's setup.
Robbins and land-use attorney George McClure of St. Augustine told the FBI in 2007 that Manuel was pressuring them to donate to favored charities. St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar said Thursday the men reported that to him first, and after four days of reflection he contacted federal agents to ask them to open an investigation.
Federal investigators had the men secretly record conversations with Manuel, collecting about 20 hours of video or audio.
When Manuel met the men at a Jacksonville Beach restaurant in June 2008 to collect a $50,000 payment, agents were waiting in the parking lot.
Manuel quickly offered to help the agents in a murky investigation of other crimes.
The commissioner wore a wire to record conversations and worked with agents for maybe a week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Savell said.
"It was something that may have led to something," Savell told the judge, but said more investigation became impossible because word got out that Manuel was caught in a federal probe. People who saw the FBI approach him at the restaurant were talking, and then Shoar formally confirmed the investigation's existence, she said.
Though the sheriff has said he was authorized by the FBI to say that, Savell told the judge that wasn't the case.
Asked whether "that disclosure effectively put the kibosh on it," the prosecutor said it did.
"I'm not sure exactly why it happened," Savell said, adding Shoar "was in no way permitted to disclose that."
Though otherwise declining to talk with reporters, Manuel stressed that point Thursday, saying: "You can say the sheriff lied."
The sheriff later repeated to a reporter that he had FBI approval to acknowledge the investigation.
Sheppard argued Thursday the disclosure deprived Manuel of a chance to cut his sentence by helping authorities, and that he deserved consideration for efforts he made.
The commissioner got enough consideration, Savell said, noting she wanted a sentence on the low end of the 37 to 46 months that federal guidelines call for. In theory, Manuel could have faced up to 10 years' imprisonment, but his lack of criminal record made that unjustifiable.
Trying to balance guidelines against the commissioner's personal issues, Corrigan said Manuel would serve 16 months of home detention after the prison term and 20 more months under court supervision after that.
Before that decision, Savell played outtakes from tapes of Manuel celebrating his plans to build power and steer money to causes he supported.
This month, Savell filed a motion that quoted parts of the tapes. In explaining that he was starting a political committee, the motion said, Manuel told a Falcone representative: "It's a chance for you to give me lots of money."
"Just so I'm clear, if I don't give you the money, what happens?" the representative asked.
In that case, the politician answered, the representative "gets screwed," according to the motion.
That motion said Manuel also wanted donations to the St. Johns County Council on Aging and to former Jacksonville City Council member Elaine Brown's campaign for a seat in the Florida Legislature.
The prosecutor quoted Manuel instructing: "... Tell me how much money you have, and I will tell you how to spend it."
The aging council and Brown both denied any knowledge of Manuel's demands and said they received no Falcone Group money.
steve.patterson@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4263
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