WASHINGTON -- Former PaineWebber Inc. vice president Lance Wilson was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday by U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Harris for providing an illegal gratuity to a Housing and Urban Development Department official.
The jail term, which Harris said could begin within weeks in a minimum security prison, was imposed three and a half months after Wilson was convicted of providing an expense-paid theater trip to New York City in September 1986 for Dubois Gilliam. At the time Gilliam was a HUD deputy assistant secretary and was instrumental in approving grants for bond-financed housing projects co-owned by Wilson.
In imposing the jail sentence, Harris rejected a plea by Wilson's attorney, Theodore Wells of Lownstein, Sandler, Fisher & Boyle, that he grant a stay to the sentence, or at least allow Wilson bail, pending his appeal of the case. Harris also ordered Wilson to pay an $8,000 fine within 90 days.
Attorneys for both the defense and the prosecution said the judge was trying to make an example of Wilson by imposing the relatively harsh and immediate sentence.
Harris said he took the need for "deterrence" into accout in determining the sentence, but not with Wilson in mind.
"I don't think you will do anything wrong, but I have to think of others. I have concluded that a sentence of incarceration is required," Harris said.
Wilson, who said immediately after the sentencing that he would appeal his conviction, said that the entertainment of federal and municipal officials appears to be common on Wall Street and that many bond dealers, like himself, appear to have been unaware of the restrictions on such gratuities.
"As a lawyer, I realize that ignorance ofthelaw is no defense," he said. But he cautioned others on Wall Street to be sure that they are complying with all possible federal, state, and local prohibitions against gifts and favors.
"You could be prosecuted for giving someone a pen and pencil set at Christmas time," he said.
The judge said he took into account that Wilson, both as a lawyer and a former top HUD aide, should have been aware of the law.
Wilson said he will appeal on the grounds that his January 1992 indictment came after the expiration of a five-year statute of limitations on prosecuting federal crimes.
Wells said he will ask the appeals court to stay the jail sentence or grant bail pending the appeal.
Both Wilson and Wells were hopeful that the appeals court will dismiss his conviction, "I just want to clear my name," Wilson said.
Wilson's co-defendants in the 14-week trial that ended in early January, Florida developer Leonard Briscoe and Nebraska attorney Maurice David Steier, are also scheduled for sentencing in the next week on two counts each of providing illegal grtuities to Gilliam.
While all three were convicted on the illegal gratuities charges, they were acquitted of conspiracy, mail, and wire fraud charges.
