Today is the deadline set by a federal judge for former Augusta Commissioner Sammie Sias to report to prison.
Chief U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall sentenced Sias on June 20 to three years in federal prison and ordered him to report by 2 p.m. today.
As of 10:30 a.m., Sias, 69, was not in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, according to the bureau’s inmate locator.
Sias requested the Federal Correctional Institution at Estill, S.C., approximately 80 miles southeast of Augusta, and the court recommended it. It’s unclear if space is available there, however. Estill was heavily damaged by a 2020 tornado, and the bureau states its current inmate population is 69.
Sias has spent no time in custody since he was accused in 2019 of lying to a federal investigator and destroying thousands of computer files sought in an FBI probe of public spending.
After a jury found him guilty July 29, 2022, Sias remained free and not sentenced for nearly a year while he filed an appeal that was rejected by the district court May 31.
Sias filed a notice of his appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals June 30, but his court-appointed attorney, Jesse Owen, has not completed it. Facing an appeals deadline, Owen filed an “out of time” motion seeking to submit documents after the deadline.
Owen said his role as a public defender in the federal system and as a conflict attorney in Richmond, Burke and Columbia counties kept him from filing the documents on time.
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