RICHMOND — Former governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, were convicted of corruption in federal court Thursday, after a trial that shattered the political career of the one-time Republican star and peeled back the couple’s private life to the bone.
As he was pronounced guilty on 11 counts of conspiracy, bribery, and extortion, Bob McDonnell covered his face with his hands as his head fell nearly to the defense table. His wife, convicted on nine counts, looked straight ahead. There were sobs from the seats behind them where their five adult children and other family members sat.
The seven-man, five-woman jury returned its findings on the third day of deliberations here, in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Both McDonnells, who now face years in prison, were acquitted of lesser charges of making false statements on loan applications. Maureen McDonnell was convicted on a charge she alone faced, of obstructing a grand jury investigation by trying to make a gift of $20,000 worth of designer dresses and shoes appear to have been a loan.
The verdict provided an emphatic coda to a trial that began with an investigation of the McDonnells’ acceptance of a Rolex, Armani dresses, free trips, and other luxuries, and turned into a cringe-inducing, tabloid drama of marital strife.
“This is a difficult, disappointing day for the commonwealth,” said Dana J. Boente, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whose office prosecuted the McDonnells. “When public officials turn to financial gain for official actions, we have little choice but to prosecute the case.”
Asked whether Bob McDonnell would appeal, his lawyer, Henry W. Asbill, said, “Of course,” adding that he was “shocked” by the verdict.
Over the six-week trial,McDonnell, 60, offered a few upbeat words as he entered and left the courthouse each day. His reaction upon the first utterance of “guilty” around 3 p.m. suggested he was stunned.
The McDonnells were indicted on 14 counts stemming from what prosecutors said was a scheme to sell the office of governor for $177,000 in gifts and cash from a dietary supplements executive.
Limited by law to one term as governor, Bob McDonnell, who left office in January, was in the mix as a possible running mate for Mitt Romney in 2012 and was highly popular in Virginia until his career cratered with the corruption investigation. The case rattled the entire state’s political class, which had never had a governor indicted.
While other governors around the country have faced corruption charges in recent years, none of those cases unfolded in the national glare like the McDonnell melodrama. That glare was magnified because the unexpected defense of the former governor — elected as a social conservative and an exemplar of traditional family values — was that his picture-perfect marriage was a sham.
Bob McDonnell, who carried his wife over the threshold of the executive mansion the day of his inauguration, portrayed her in his testimony as a harridan whose yelling left him “spiritually and mentally exhausted.”
The defense used the self-debasing portrait to argue that the McDonnells were too estranged to conspire criminally to trade favors with the vitamin executive, Jonnie R. Williams Sr.
The jury, which heard 67 witnesses over five weeks, had the task of deciding whether gifts from Williams and Bob McDonnell’s actions on his behalf over two years added up to bribery and extortion.
At issue was whether the McDonnells accepted the largesse with corrupt intent.
They were not forbidden under Virginia ethics laws from taking $120,000 in undocumented loans from Williams, nor the goodies he bestowed — including a golf bag for the governor, Louis Vuitton shoes for his wife, and a $15,000 check for their daughter’s wedding at a time the couple owed $31,000 on their credit cards and were hemorrhaging money on beachfront property.
The defense argued that actions Bob McDonnell took on behalf of Williams’s company, Star Scientific, the maker of Anatabloc, were merely political courtesies.
But prosecutors argued that McDonnell’s actions followed so closely after Williams’s gifts that they were strong circumstantial evidence of a corrupt bargain. At one point, McDonnell e-mailed an aide to come see him about “Anatabloc issues” just six minutes after discussing a $50,000 loan with Williams.