Former Knoxville lawmaker gets probation for tax conviction

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Former Democratic state Rep. Joe Armstrong has avoided a prison sentence for his federal tax fraud conviction.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports (https://bit.ly/2j5oU3z ) that Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips on Wednesday ordered Armstrong to spend six months under house arrest and perform 300 hours of community service.

Armstrong will them be on probation for three years and must repay nearly $100,000 in unpaid taxes, a $40,000 fine and cover the costs of his prosecution.

Phillips in the sentencing hearing said Armstrong’s behavior was “a marked deviation” from what the judge called the former lawmaker’s otherwise “exemplary” life.

Armstrong was convicted of tax fraud last year after failing to declare a windfall of more than $300,000 he made buying and then reselling cigarette tax stamps after voting to hike their price. He was acquitted on two other counts of tax evasion and conspiracy.

Armstrong resigned from the Legislature on the eve of a September special session that included the ouster of then-Rep. Jeremy Durham, a Franklin Republican, who had been the subject of an extensive sexual harassment investigation by the state attorney general.

Armstrong became Knox County’s youngest commissioner in 1982, and was first elected to the state House in 1988 and was one of three lawmakers tied as the chamber’s longest-serving members when he resigned in September. He is also a past president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

As chairman of the House Health Committee in 2007, Armstrong hit the road in support of an initiative by then-Gov. Phil Bredesen, a fellow Democrat, to more than triple the state’s cigarette tax, to 62 cents per pack. The tax hike “should have been a dollar,” he said at the time.

Federal prosecutors said Armstrong sought to hide the transaction from public view because of the political implications of making money off of tobacco.

In addition to his failure to pay taxes on the windfall, Armstrong didn’t disclose the earnings as required in state ethics reports. Armstrong called that omission an oversight, saying he wasn’t familiar with new requirements that followed the FBI’s 2005 Tennessee Waltz bribery sting, which led to the convictions of five former state lawmakers.

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Information from: Knoxville News Sentinel, https://www.knoxnews.com