Of all the defendants in this case, Steve Patterson delivered the most churlish statement, showing an unwillingness to recognize the degree to which he is the author of his own fate. If the government had not agreed that he is a minor participant in the crime, his statement at sentence could have been a problem for him.
He said that he’d been waiting over a year for this moment. “The contempt that I once had for this case I no longer have. I have had to endure whispers in the community… endure exaggerated and often wrong press coverage. I stand here today embarrassed, humiliated, and fearful. … I am an embarrassed man with much to be embarrassed about. [Here my notes don't sufficiently convey the degree to which his regret was in terms of his personal embarrassment and his perception that he's been treated unfairly by onlookers in the community and press.]
“If I had a choice to live in … paradise or go back and redo the mistakes and stupidity, I would redo what I did. I have had an opportunity to relive what I did and what I didn’t do and it’s what I didn’t do that bothers the most. In the end I did the right thing. I faced up to my responsibility fully and cooperated fully.”
He had a long rhyme from his Grandmother and a quote from Winston Churchill…
Meh.
Mr. Sincerity. I saw his troupe headed from the courthouse toward the Square … right in front of your office. He displayed what I read as an air of inexplicable smugness … like the kid who ratted out the others and saved himself from the principal’s paddle. How in the world anyone ever brought him in as a business associate is beyond me. He seems to be one of those guys who overdoses on Hai Karate aftershave every morning and believes the world owes him gratitude for his mere presence.
“Believes the world owes him gratitude for his mere presence.” Ben Cole if you were getting a million dollars a year for what you knew on whom, how would you feel about your on mere presence. Patterson has a right to act smug, he now has gotten away with everybad thing that he’s done to heighten corruption in Mississippi, for two years and pocket change.
asshole.