Former State Rep Sentenced to Prison

A former member of the Georgia House of Representatives has been sentenced to 12 months in federal prison following guilty pleas on charges of mail and wire fraud and filing false tax returns.

Tyrone Brooks, whose House District 55 included a section of Buckhead, was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg. WSB-TV reports that prosecutors had asked for a two-year sentence, while Brooks’ defense team requested leniency and a five-year term on probation.

In April, Brooks pleaded no contest to five counts of mail and wire fraud and guilty to one count filing false tax returns. He was indicted in May of 2013 after prosecutors claimed Brooks used nearly $1 million worth of donations meant for charities to pay personal and family expenses.

Brooks’ plea came on the same day he resigned from office, writing in a letter to Gov. Nathan Deal that he intended to “transition back to fulltime Civil Human Rights work.” Brooks said he would focus his efforts on the Moore’s Ford lynchings in 1946, which remain unsolved and were the subject of several violent clashes between civil rights marchers and segregationist police in the 1960s and 1970s.

Brooks was first elected to the General Assembly in 1980.