Roger Stone asks court to delay prison sentence over coronavirus concerns

Roger Stone on Monday is asking an appeals court to delay his 40-month prison sentence, citing several coronavirus cases reported in the Georgia facility where he is set to serve his term.

Attorneys for the political consultant and confidant of President Trump on Monday asked the Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit for an emergency stay of a ruling by District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, which placed Stone under house arrest in Florida and ordered him to report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Jesup, Ga.

In an Instagram post Monday, Stone conceded that “the chances are overwhelming that the appeals court will remand the matter back to Judge Jackson,” but called it “vitally important” that “the American people see all of the false claims in her most recent ruling.”

“I want the president to know that I have, in good faith ,exhausted all of my legal remedies and that an only an act of clemency by the [president] will provide Justice in my case where I was charged on politically motivated ,fabricated charges and was denied a fair trial with an unbiased judge,an honest jury and uncorrupted and non political prosecutors,” Stone added.

Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of making false statements, obstructing an official proceeding and witness tampering in a case stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, has said he has asthma and other respiratory issues, but court filings including his medical history are under seal, Politico noted.

Stone’s attorneys have accused Jackson of “wholly ignoring” Stone’s doctor’s advice and “mak[ing] no allowance for the fact that it may not be possible for Stone’s medical conditions, which require close monitoring and strict compliance with the directions of his physician, to remain controlled within a [Bureau of Prisons] facility.”

The federal Bureau of Prisons’s coronavirus dashboard shows three inmates currently infected at the Jesup facility as well as six total positive tests and no staff cases.