A federal judge today sentenced former state Sen. Henry “Hank” Wilkins IV, charged in a sprawling bribery/kickback public corruption case, to a year and one day in prison.
Judge Brian Miller sentenced Wilkins, a Democrat from Pine Bluff, in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
Miller also sentenced Wilkins, 68, to three years of supervised release after the prison sentence is completed and ordered him to pay $123,000 in restitution to the state of Arkansas, defense attorney Ronald L. Davis Jr. said.
Wilkins is to report to authorities to begin his sentence on March 7. The judge said he would recommend that Wilkins be incarcerated in the federal prison in Texarkana, Texas.
The sentence is substantially lower than the maximum allowed — five years in prison — and also lower than the federal guidelines the prosecution recommended. Under those guidelines, Wilkins could have faced three years in prison, Davis said.
In a statement to Judge Miller, Wilkins expressed “how sorry he was for his actions” and said he took “full responsibility” for them. He said he did all he could to cooperate with the government.
Like Republican Jeremy Hutchinson, Wilkins was charged in the the Preferred Family Healthcare bribery/kickback public corruption case. Hutchinson, also a former state legislator and nephew of former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, is to be sentenced on two federal charges Feb . 3.
Wilkins pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to commit bribery. He admitted taking $80,000 in bribes, masked as contributions to a church he pastored, in return for steering nearly a quarter-million in state money to Medicaid-financed health care providers.
Here’s some additional background on the bribery scandal from a post Max Brantley wrote last month.
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