BROOKLYN — The ex-girlfriend of former Rep. Michael Grimm was sentenced to three months in prison Tuesday for campaign fraud related to fundraising in the convicted congressman's 2010 re-election bid.
Diana Durand, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in September, according to court papers, and was hit with a $10,000 fine, a year probation and was ordered by a federal judge to surrender to U.S. Marshals in Texas on May 1.
Durand, of Houston, Texas, used straw donors to skirt the maximum campaign contributions allowed by law, the FBI said. She would reimburse or pay people in advance to make contributions in their name to two campaigns — including Grimm's 2010 bid — and funneled more than $10,000 them.
On Tuesday, lawyers for Durand filed a motion for the court to reconsider her sentence because "a clear error has occurred," according to court documents.
"This case just doesn’t add up," her lawyer, Stuart Kaplan, wrote in the motion.
"Diana Durand had no prior criminal record. She had accepted responsibility for her actions. Diana Durand has no chance of re-offending," the motion read. "She certainly is not a danger to community. Rather, it takes a brief review of the letters submitted to this court from friends, family, and coworkers, to take notice that it is beyond dispute that Diana Durand is a woman of many fine qualities."
Kaplan argued in the motion that Durand's sentence should be changed to house arrest because she's a single mother and so she can keep her job "with a national leading provider of lubricants, fuel, diesel exhaust fluid, and industrial reliability services."
"Diana Durand is a simple woman," Kaplan wrote. "All Ms. Durand attempted to do was to assist a dear and trusted friend who she wholeheartedly believed was the best person to represent the people in Congress."
The "trusted friend," Grimm, has his own sentencing to worry about in June.
In December, Grimm, 44, pleaded guilty to tax fraud for underreporting profits and wages at a Upper East Side eatery he co-owned. Almost after his plea, Grimm resigned from his seat in congress and was recently denied permission to travel to Europe for a job by a judge who considers him a flight risk.
His sentencing was set for June 8 and he could face up to three years in prison for his guilty plea to tax fraud.
