DetNews.com – Former City Councilwoman Monica Conyers was sentenced to 37 months in prison today, prompting her to erupt in screams and vow an appeal.

 
U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn also sentenced her to two years supervised probation, despite her efforts to withdraw her plea. Cohn’s sentence was the top of the recommended range for what she had pleaded guilty to last summer.

The judge sentenced her over Conyers’ yelled objections.

“If I have to go the jail for what I’ve done, I’d love that,” she told Cohn. “But I’ll talk to my family and I don’t want to go to jail for things I didn’t do.”

Conyers has 10 days to appeal and must report to prison on July 1.

“I’m walking out the front door and I’m appealing this case because he didn’t have no right to do that,” Conyers said after the sentencing.

Conyers, who arrived early for her 2 p.m. sentencing, popped her head into the courtroom from the adjacent jury room, wearing sunglasses.

“I just want to say hi to my family. Hi everybody,” Conyers said, blowing kisses.

About a dozen family members and friends and her pastor are in court. Her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, was not.

Conyers, 45, admitted in June she took at least $6,000 in cash bribes in connection with her vote on the $1.2 billion contract the council awarded to Synagro Technologies Inc. of Texas in 2007.

She had originally spoken out against the controversial deal, but her “yes” vote proved to be the deciding one as the contract passed 5-4.

Bribery conspiracy is a five-year felony and Conyers remains free on bond. Prosecutors asked Cohn for a “substantial” prison sentence, possibly in the four-year range.

They noted evidence at the recent trial of political consultant Sam Riddle, Conyers’ former aide, pointed to Conyers receiving tens of thousands of dollars more in bribes from business people with matters before the council or the General Retirement System.

Lennie Jackson, a paroled drug felon and the brother of Detroit businessman Rayford W. Jackson, testified at Riddle’s trial that he acted as a courier for his brother, delivering cash to Conyers at a west side Detroit McDonald’s and the Butzel Family Center on the east side. Jackson also testified he delivered Conyers an envelope outside a Mr. Fish restaurant, though he didn’t know what the envelope contained.

An FBI agent testified about another 2007 incident at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in which he saw what he believed was cash passing hands from Rayford Jackson to Riddle to Conyers.

Rayford Jackson, Synagro’s Detroit partner on the sludge deal, refused to cooperate with investigators and got the maximum five-year sentence. He is now locked up in a federal prison in upstate New York.

James R. Rosendall Jr., the former Synagro vice president who assisted investigators by making secret audio and video recordings, was sentenced to 11 months. He has yet to report to prison.

Lennie Jackson was not charged but could face trouble for violating parole from his drug case.

Riddle’s trial ended in a mistrial in February. His retrial is set for July.

FOX 2 tried to speak to Monica Conyers Wednesday night at her Detroit home, and she was not happy to see them.