ATLANTA (AP) – A federal judge on Friday sentenced former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to three and a half years in prison after Oxendine pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

US District Judge Steve Jones had one question for the 62-year-old Republican, who was elected to office four times before taking on the failed tax run for governor:

“Why?”

As Jones noted in the Atlanta trial, Oxendine himself received only $40,000 from the project, although Jones ordered him to pay $25,000 and share $760,000 in restitution with Dr. Jeffrey Gallups, who prosecuted health care fraud before he could. even to be accused.

Oxendine replied that he was “very happy” and said he was trying to make his client Gallups happy.

That meant Oxendine stood before Gallup’s doctors at a September 2015 meeting at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta and urged them to order unnecessary medical tests on patients and liability insurers, Oxendine said. It also meant that Oxendine devised a plan to raise $260,000 in funding from clinical trial company Next Health through his consulting firm and funnel more money to Gallup, prosecutors said. Oxendine paid $150,000 in charitable contributions and $70,000 in attorneys’ fees to the Gallups, prosecutors said.

Oxendine noted that her father, who was legally blind, served as a judge in Gwinnett County. But Oxendine said that he does not have his duties as a lawyer.

Oxendine told the judge: “I chose to go blind, but I did it myself. “I just sat there; I closed my eyes. I didn’t see my actions and the consequences, and how other people would suffer.”

Defense attorney Drew Findling asked Jones to sentence Oxendine to more than two and a half years, compared to the 3 years and 8 months that prosecutors were seeking. Finding argued Oxendine should not serve the time Gallups, who was sentenced to three years in 2021. Now Gallup is asking that the imprisonment be reduced because he made secret recordings as evidence against Oxendine .

About 60 people sent letters asking for mercy for Oxendine, including family members, lawyers, Rep. former US Bob Barr and insurance commissioners from other countries.

“I know John regrets the decisions he made,” Ivy Oxendine, his wife, told a tearful Jones. “It is his choices that brought him here today. He expressed his sorrow to me and to his children.”

But prosecutors said Oxendine used his position as a lawyer and his political “access” from his four terms as insurance commissioner to commit fraud.

“He could have stopped the plan instead of planning it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Huber said. He should have recorded those games instead of collecting them.

Huber noted that this project does not only benefit insurers, but also patients, including the one who received a $18,000 loan.

Prosecutors said Oxendine told Gallups to lie about Gallps’ company manager that the payments from Oxendine were loans. Oxendine told Gallups to repeat the lie when questioned by federal agents, prosecutors said. And they say Oxendine falsely said he did not receive money from Next Health when asked by Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Jones said Oxendine abandoned his political commitment to advocate for “the guy”.

“In this situation, you were not helping this boy,” the judge said. “You were hurting a little guy.”

Jones showed leniency, dropping prosecutors who had asked for $700,000 to $25,000. And after Huber told Jones that the Gallups had paid $197 of the $760,000 shared refund, Jones promised that Gallup would have his payments audited. Oxendine made the first payment of $100,000 on that sum on Friday.

Gallups aside owes $5.4 million after the whistle file a lawsuit he said Gallup defrauded the federal government of the Next Health project and kick-started a private medical device company.

Oxendine ran for governor in 2010 but lost the Republican primary. The Georgia Ethics Commission began investigating campaign finance violations in 2009, accusing Oxendine of using campaign funds to buy a home, lease luxury cars and join a private group.

Oxendine solve the case on commission in 2022, he agreed to donate the remaining $128,000 to his campaign fund if he pleaded not guilty.

He was also accused of accepting financial contributions of $120,000, 10 times the legal limit, from two Georgia insurance companies while running for governor. The judge sentenced the government officials wait too long to pursue Oxendine on those charges.