Businessman gets 7-year term for bribery of DHS deputy director

Signaling that he was not impressed by claims of Ted Suhl's "generosity" to others over the years, a federal judge sentenced the northeast Arkansas businessman to seven years in prison Thursday -- more than four years beyond what his attorneys said he deserved for bribing a state official.

U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson also ordered Suhl, 51, of Warm Springs to immediately pay a $200,000 fine, overriding a fine range of $12,500 to $125,000 suggested by federal sentencing guidelines. Wilson increased the penalty on his own, without a request from prosecutors, saying, "Using religion to grease the skids for his crimes is particularly egregious and hurts people who are straightforward in their religious beliefs."

After a weeklong trial in July, a federal jury convicted Suhl, who calls himself an Evangelical Christian, on four of six charges he faced: two counts of honest services wire fraud and single counts of interstate travel in aid of bribery and bribery involving federal program funds.

The jury found that Suhl paid bribes over four years, under the pretense of charitable giving and religious activism, to keep Steven Jones, then the deputy director of the state Department of Human Services, on a "retainer" to benefit Suhl's companies.

Read more: http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/oct/28/businessman-suhl-gets-7-year-term-for-b/?f=news-arkansas