A former New York state senator was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison for seeking to obstruct a federal investigation into whether he had embezzled proceeds from sales of foreclosed properties. John Sampson, 51, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn, where the Democrat had been a state senator from 1997 until his conviction in July 2015 on charges that he obstructed justice and made false statements.
