The wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) reported to a federal prison in West Virginia on Friday the 10th to begin a 37-month sentence on corruption charges.

Conyers pleaded guilty last year for taking bribes to influence a vote on a sludge disposal contract in Detroit. She has since attempted to withdraw her plea.

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Her husband, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has dodged questions about his wife and her guilty plea.

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Former Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers wants to stay out of federal prison until a decision is made on her appeal.

Conyers already won a delay until Sept. 10 to help a family member with medical needs.

Her lawyer asked a U.S. district judge today to further postpone the 37-month sentence while an appeal is pending.

Prosecutors have until Aug. 12 to respond.

Conyers faces prison for corruption during her time at Detroit City Hall. Her appeal centers on Judge Avern Cohn’s refusal to allow her to withdraw her guilty plea on the day she was sentenced.

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DETROIT — A former Detroit city councilwoman was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for bribery after a federal judge refused to set aside her guilty plea during a stormy court hearing dominated by a dispute over evidence of other payoffs.

As guards cleared the packed courtroom, Monica Conyers yelled that she planned to appeal. The wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., wanted to withdraw her guilty plea, suggesting she was the victim of “badgering” last year when she admitted taking cash to support a Houston company’s sludge contract with the city.

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U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn, reviewing a transcript of the June hearing, said Conyers had denied any coercion and voluntarily pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

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Conyers, 45, is the biggest catch so far in the FBI’s wide-ranging investigation of corruption in Detroit city government. Nine people have pleaded guilty, including two former directors of the downtown convention center, and prosecutors have promised more charges are coming.

“Bribery is a betrayal of trust,” Cohn told Conyers after announcing a 37-month prison term for her “egregious” crime. She quit the council after pleading guilty in June.

Conyers’ plea deal was limited to taking bribes to support a contract with Synagro Technologies worth $47 million a year. But the recent trial of her former aide, Sam Riddle, exposed a series of alleged schemes involving others making payoffs to do business at city hall.

Prosecutors said Riddle and Conyers collected $69,500 by shaking people down and urged Cohn to consider the alleged crimes when sentencing her. Defense lawyer Steve Fishman firmly objected and demanded a separate hearing.

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Conyers declared, “I’m not going to jail for something I didn’t do.”

Cohn had handled the Riddle trial and said he agreed with prosecutors that the evidence was relevant. Considering it in the sentencing would have boosted Conyers’ guidelines and given the judge justification to send her to prison for as long as five years. But Cohn changed his mind — and she got a break.

“The sentence will be based solely on conviction,” Cohn said.

Earlier this year, jurors at the Riddle trial heard secretly taped phone calls in which he and Conyers discussed money, bank deposits and how to split cash.

In a November 2007 call, Conyers told Riddle, “You’d better get my loot.” On another call, businessman Rayford Jackson, who passed bribes to Conyers for her sludge vote, said, “You’re my girl. Don’t forget that.”

Conyers told the judge some taped conversations would exonerate her.

“They have taken tapes and used them out of context,” she said of the U.S. attorney’s office. “I will take the blame for things I did do.”

Fishman said news media had turned Conyers into a “human pinata for all that’s wrong in the city of Detroit.” He asked Cohn to keep her out of prison and urged him to consider factors filed in a sealed document. At one point, Conyers said she had been examined by a mental-health expert at the judge’s request.

“What about my children? … My children didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Conyers, who has two sons, told the judge.

She wants to appeal but her plea deal with prosecutors prevents her from objecting to a sentence of under five years.

Before the hearing, Conyers moved around the courtroom like a playful host, blowing kisses to supporters while wearing dark sunglasses. Her husband, who has an office in the courthouse, was not in the courtroom. Spokesman Jonathan Godfrey said he didn’t know his whereabouts.

Councilman Ken Cockrel, who clashed with Monica Conyers on the council, said there’s a lesson in her case.

“When you are elected to public office, you are elected to fulfill the public’s trust. You not only break that trust, but you put your career in peril,” he said.

From clickondetroit.com:

Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. sent a note to his colleagues at City Council detailing that $21,000 worth of equipment was missing from former council member Monica Conyers’ office.

The discovery was made during an audit of Conyers’ office after she resigned from her position on July 7 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. Cockrel listed 29 missing items including computers, printers, a camcorder, digital cameras and software.

Eight of the items that are missing are notebook computers, four of which are less than a year old and were shipped to her office 17 days before her resignation.

Purchase orders, invoices and other documents provided by the City Council Administration office reveal the total purchase price of these items was $21,300.

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From Freep.com:

Detroit City Councilwoman and admitted felon Monica Conyers went on television Tuesday to talk about council endorsements, hopes of staying out of jail and her plans to write a tell-all book.

And toward the end of her hour-long live TV show, Conyers apologized.

“To all of the residents of the city of Detroit, if I disappointed you, I apologize,” she said.

Just before the 3:30 p.m. airing, Conyers raced to the Highland Park studios of WHPR-TV (Channel 33), and stepped out of the city-owned Ford Crown Victoria in a dress with a strand of pearls and a light-colored blazer.

It was her first time addressing the public since pleading guilty Friday to a bribery charge. She started the show by telling viewers she wouldn’t talk about the case.

“I don’t want to get my judge mad at me, and I don’t want to go to jail,” she explained.

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Detroit: City councilwoman Monica Conyers resigned from office Monday, days after admitting in court that she accepted bribes from a company in exchange for her vote on a lucrative city sludge-treatment contract.

Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers who was voted into office in 2005 largely on his name, submitted her resignation in a letter to the city clerk’s office Monday. It will take effect July 6.

“I am glad she did the right thing and resign from the Detroit City Council,” Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. said in a statement. “Now we as a council and a city, can move on and forward in focusing on the vital issues our city faces — and we will.”

Monica Conyers did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment Monday.

She pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges Friday and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she is sentenced. Conyers admitted she took bribes from Houston-based Synagro Technologies in exchange for her vote on a city contract. The council voted 5-4 in favor of the Synagro contract with Monica Conyers’ support.

Prosecutors made clear that John Conyers, the 80-year-old chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, knew nothing of his wife’s corruption.

Prosecutors said Monica Conyers accepted two payments in late 2007 from a Synagro Technologies official, Rayford Jackson, in exchange for supporting a 20-year, $47-million-a-year, contract that November to have Synagro recycle wastewater sludge and build a modern incinerator in a poor Detroit neighborhood.

The council voted 5-4 to approve the contract with Conyers’ vote. It was rescinded in January amid the accusations of wrongdoing.

Monica Conyers is the most prominent person snagged in the Synagro investigation. Jackson and the company’s Michigan representative, Jim Rosendall, also have pleaded guilty to bribery charges in the case. Rosendall’s plea agreement described how he distributed cash and other gifts to officials.

DETROIT – City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, pleaded guilty Friday to accepting cash bribes in exchange for supporting a sludge contract with a Houston company.

Conyers, a fiery 44-year-old first-term council member, admitted in federal court to a single count of conspiracy to commit bribery, responding quietly to questions from Judge Avern Cohn.

She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she’s sentenced.

Conyers left court without commenting.

Her lawyer, Steve Fishman, declined to comment on the specifics of Conyers’ case outside of court, saying only that all plea deals were more or less the same.

Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who has no role in the case, didn’t answer when questioned about it as he walked to the House floor for a vote Friday morning. “I have no comment whatever,” he said.

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John Conyers’ office issued the following statement:

“This has been a trying time for the Conyers family. With hope and prayer, they will make it through this as a family. Public officials must expect to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards. With this in mind, Mr. Conyers wants to work towards helping his family and the city recover from this serious matter.”

Prosecutors accused Monica Conyers of accepting two payments from a Synagro Technologies official in late 2007 in exchange for supporting the sludge contract. They said Conyers received envelopes containing cash on Nov. 20, 2007 in the parking lot of a Detroit community center and on Dec. 4 of that year in a McDonald’s parking lot.

In November 2007, Conyers voted in favor of the Synagro contract. The U.S. attorney’s office said she received cash payments from an individual sent by Rayford Jackson, a paid consultant for Synagro, before and after her vote.

“It’s a very sad day for Detroit,” said City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. “On the other hand, I think it’s another step in clearing out some problems in city government. I don’t necessarily think this is over. This may go beyond one council member and may involve non-elected officials.”

Conyers is the most prominent person snagged in the Synagro corruption investigation. Jackson and another person who worked for the company already had pleaded guilty.

U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg said Friday that the Conyers plea doesn’t end the Synagro investigation, but it does mark the conclusion of the probe into elected officials in the case. He called the plea deal an “appropriate and fair resolution to the matter,” with a “high-level public figure pleading guilty” to bribery.

The Synagro sludge contract was rescinded in January.

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The council voted 5-4 in November 2007 to award a $47-million-a-year contract to Synagro to recycle wastewater sludge and build a state-of-the-art incinerator to replace one that belches yellow plumes over a poor neighborhood.

In January, Synagro’s Michigan representative, Jim Rosendall, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. His plea agreement described how he distributed cash and other gifts to officials.

Jackson pleaded guilty on June 15.

Monica Conyers’ plea is the latest blow to a city beset by political scandal in recent years. Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and a top aide were jailed after admitting to lying under oath about their romantic involvement during a whistle-blowers’ trial.

And a recent audit of the city’s beleaguered public school system has uncovered theft and other wrongdoing by employees.

Like the brash and arrogant Kilpatrick, Monica Conyers took a defiant stance as the Synagro bribery accusations swirled around her, the council and city. She refused to address the accusations in recent weeks, and was often contentious with colleagues and the media.

Monica Conyers was a political unknown until her 2005 election – largely on the name of her 80-year-old husband. She told The Associated Press in September that she would like others to see her as “someone who cares about the city, someone who wants to make sure all the citizens of Detroit have what they need to live” productive lives.

But it was another side of Conyers that gained the most attention.

She has called reporters seeking interviews “evil” and compared the local media to “paparazzi.”

Last summer, Conyers was involved in a disturbance at a Denver hotel while attending the Democratic National Convention with her husband. She also has been accused of threatening to shoot a mayoral staffer, and she publicly called Cockrel “Shrek.”

City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of a prominent congressman, sought political support from Baptist pastors and prayers from constituents Tuesday as her re-election bid collided with a corruption probe involving cash bribes handed over in fast-food parking lots.

A person told The Associated Press that Conyers is the “Council Member A” listed in a court document as receiving more than $6,000 for her fall 2007 vote on a multimillion-dollar sludge contract. She has not been charged. The information comes from a person with knowledge of the investigation who asked not to be named because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.

No suggestion has been made that Conyers’ husband, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has any role in the investigation and it appears unlikely to dent his nearly 45-year political career. In Washington, he said he hadn’t talked to his wife Tuesday and wasn’t aware of any discussions with prosecutors.

Monica Conyers, meanwhile, asked for prayers during her weekly public access television show, without directly addressing the scandal that has the FBI investigating how Houston-based Synagro Technologies won a $47 million-a-year contract to recycle sludge from a wastewater treatment plant.

“All these things that are going on right now … I believe in my heart that God will deliver me from them,” said Conyers, 44. “And so I say to all of the people out there: If you’re not praying for me, then you’re just adding to the problem.”

Officials at the U.S. attorney’s office did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday. After the show, Conyers ignored questions about the case or any possible plea deal.

“I’m not going to talk to you today, tomorrow, next week. What difference does it make?” Conyers told the AP.

Earlier Tuesday, Conyers met for three minutes with the influential Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit & Vicinity as one of many candidates seeking a political blessing ahead of the city’s August primary.

“As of this morning, the lady has not been indicted,” said the Rev. Oscar King, the group’s president. “We’re not passing judgment at this point because we’re being pastoral in the political process.”

Monica Conyers is a relative neophyte in elective politics compared with her husband. John Conyers, 80, has never received less than 82 percent of the vote since he was first elected to Congress in 1964. He faced no Republican opposition in the latest election.

Voters first put Monica Conyers on the Detroit council in 2005. She served as council president for about eight months until Ken Cockrel Jr. returned to the post in May after serving as interim mayor following Kwame Kilpatrick’s September resignation over a text-messaging sex scandal that sent him to jail for 99 days.

The sludge scandal broke in January when Jim Rosendall, Synagro’s Michigan representative, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. His plea agreement described how he distributed cash and other gifts to officials, including an unidentified Council Member A, to win the city business.

The probe cooled for nearly five months, at least publicly, until Rayford Jackson, a local businessman and Synagro contractor, pleaded guilty to the same charge Monday and said he gave more than $6,000 to Council Member A.

Jackson said a courier delivered $3,000 to the council member on Nov. 20, 2007, the same day Conyers joined with the majority in approving the Synagro deal 5-4. An unspecified payment was made a month earlier outside a Mr. Fish restaurant, and another $3,000 was passed in a McDonald’s parking lot in December of the same year, Jackson said.

A month before her vote, Conyers expressed concern giving the sludge contract to Texas-based Synagro would lead to the loss of jobs in Detroit, home to the ailing auto industry and plagued by some of the highest home foreclosure and unemployment rates in the country.

“I don’t understand why we can’t do that ourselves here in the city of Detroit. … I don’t see how a company that just may have 10 African-Americans is more important than the people in that community,” she said at a public hearing.

In his plea deal with prosecutors, Rosendall said $25,000 was spent after the Synagro vote to ensure that Council Member A and others in favor of the deal would not withdraw support. The contract was rescinded and Rosendall was fired after his guilty plea in January.

In a separate matter, the council in March 2007 voted to allow a yard-waste composting operation on land controlled by Rosendall. He said an “intermediary” in that deal passed $5,000 to $8,000 to Council Member A.