Former Circuit Judge Michael Maggio has appealed his federal bribery conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, saying he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.
Maggio, a former judge in the 20th Judicial Circuit, which includes Faulkner, Searcy and Van Buren counties, pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in January 2015.
Earlier this year, Maggio unsuccessfully sought to withdraw the plea. On March 24, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller sentenced Maggio to 10 years in prison and two years of supervised release.
In an appeal filing Tuesday, Maggio's attorney, John Wesley Hall, writes that there was "no factual basis" for the guilty plea and that the judge's decision not to allow its withdrawal amounted to "abuse of discretion."
"Maggio contends that there is no federal jurisdiction over his alleged bribery offense because whatever federal funds were received by his judicial district had nothing whatsoever to do with his act in a civil trial that is his alleged bribery; the government can show no nexus," Hall wrote.
In his plea agreement with the U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock, Maggio admitted to accepting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for lowering a Faulkner County jury's judgment against a Greenbrier nursing home.
The filing Tuesday says that Maggio "now disputes that there was any quid pro quo for his action as a state trial judge in [lowering the judgment] in exchange for a campaign contribution." The document contends that lowering the judgment was "legally proper."
In the filing, Hall also called the length of Maggio's sentence "unreasonable."
The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Maggio out of the judicial office in 2014 because of issues unrelated to the bribery case.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Debra Hale-Shelton contributed to this story.