New Haven Independent

“I ask you, your honor, to sentence me for [my son’s] actions, because I am the one who is most responsible,” Robert Jacbos, the bondsman at the center of New Haven’s police-corruption scandal, said to Arterton at his Tuesday morning sentencing, as Melissa Bailey reported in this story.

Ultimately, Arterton acquiesced. “I’m going to take him up on that,” she said later.

When all was sentenced and done Tuesday — minutes before 6 p.m., following nearly seven combined hours of sentencing hearings - Arterton sent Paul Jacobs, 48 and Phil Jacobs, 49, both of Woodbridge, to four months in the slammer, followed by four months of house arrest and two years of supervised released, for the federal felony offense of conspiracy to commit bribery. Robert Jacobs (pictured below, walking down Church Street during a recess) had encouraged both his sons to join a business arrangement that involved routinely bribing a cop.

Although each hearing saw different arguments and involved separate circumstances, Courtroom No. 2 at the U.S. Federal Court on Church Street was, as the judge put it, above all a “family affair.” Wives sobbed. Sisters comforted brothers. A mother begged for mercy not only for a husband but also for a son. A father watched as his children suffered for crimes they would not have committed had he not set the wrong example. And a family, once afforded the highest respect in Connecticut legal circles, attempted to come to terms with a name badly tarnished.

“It is the court’s hope,” Arteron concluded the three hearings, “that this result will… rebuild this family — odd as it sounds.”

‘Genuine Remorse’

Philip Jacobs’ sentencing hearing was brief — 45 minutes — but his point, at times, was complex and deeply psychological.

On one hand, he expressed an unequivocal apology, saying that he feels “deep regret and remorse” and has “learned from my mistakes.” But his attorney, Ross Garber, simultaneously sought to relieve him of the burden of wrongdoing, painting him as the unassuming victim of the respect and deference he afforded a father who ultimately exercised bad judgment and exerted corrupting influence on his son.

“Phil Jacobs reveres his father,” Garber began, going on to argue to a visibly skeptical judge that he did not “know what he was doing was wrong.”

Judge Arterton questioned Garber on that one point. She found it unlikely that he did not know what he was doing was wrong — and the government agreed, citing a taped conversation in which he seemed to realize this much. Nonetheless, Arterton would agree that his father’s influence was the main reason he violated the law.

The defense rested on two other main arguments, which prosecutor Nora Dannehy did not dispute: that Phil Jacobs cooperated unequivocally with the government and that he is an unusually devoted father.

Unlike his brother Philip Jacobs engaged in “tenacious” cooperation with the government including upwards of 15-20 phone calls and wiretaps that he conducted on the government’s behalf.

“He was not asked a question he declined to answer,” said Garber.

His cooperation led to the arrest of two court officials, judicial marshal Jill D’Antona and court clerk Cynthia McClendon. Both have been convicted by guilty plea of participating in a bail-bonds corruption scheme with the Jacobs family. D’Antona escaped jail time; McClendon is due to be sentenced on Sept. 3.

Phil’s wife Amy Jacobs spoke on his behalf. She focused on her husband’s devotion to his children, including how he walked them into school each morning and kissed them goodbye.

“Our children have learned from their father the difference between right and wrong,” she said. “Please let them know from Your Honor that there can be mercy as well.”

But as Arterton prepared to hand down his decision, it seemed for a moment — perhaps the tensest of the afternoon — that “mercy” was not on her agenda.

“It is precisely your fear and agony of a sentence of incarceration that becomes the way in which the message gets through,” she said, bracing Jacobs’ family for a decision that would, despite the defense’s request, exceed probation and possibly reach the state guideline of 18 to 24 months. “Corruption in all its forms is a serious crime.” Sisters and brothers and in-laws looked at one another with stares of agony.

But then came the sentence: Four months, with self-surrender on July 8, followed by two years of probation. (The statute guideline, she said, was “vastly excessive.”)

Jacobs’ wife began to sob, whether out or relief or pain — or both — was unclear. Soon, though, she was smiling, walking hand-in-hand down Church Street with her husband.

As the 2:30 church bells rang, Paul Jacobs began a new life chapter as he turned the corner onto Elm Street, disappearing from the sight of the federal courthouse.

‘Least Culpable, Least Repentant’

Later Tuesday, Paul (pictured) came before the judge. His father, who appeared in good sprits, remained in the courtroom gallery; so, too, would the spirit of his plea from earlier in the day.

Paul Jacobs’ hearing dragged on about three hours, as the court delved into discussion over his medical condition of diabetes and his peculiar change of heart on his guilty plea. Jon L. Schoenhorn, the lawyer he hired after replacing his former attorney, also questioned whether the conspiracy that Paul Jacobs in particular committed conspiracy that was “outside the heartland” of truly malevolent conspiracy — if not on the “edge of the continent.”

“Merely seeking withdraw a guilty plea does not mean one does not accept responsibility for his actions,” he argued further.

But taking a cue from the prosecution (“Like his brother and father,” Dannehy had said, “it all came down to money” for Paul), Arterton took issue with his change of plea.

“At best you spun the facts,” she told him.

Jacobs ultimately said he was “deeply sorry” for withdrawing the plea. Explaining his change of heart, he told the judge that in a moment of hazy thinking, he had wanted “a clean record” and could not fathom himself being a convicted felon for the rest of his life. Since then, he said, he came to terms with the inevitable.

Still, one factor weighed in Jacobs’ favor. As Schoenhorn put it, “of all the individuals in this conspiracy, Paul Jacobs was the least culpable”; his “greed,” he continued, “appears to be lacking.”

Schoenhorn painted his client as a minor player in the scheme who only committed wrongdoing once. The government, though, contended in response that he had been active in the bribery scheme since the 90s, before the family’s actions were investigated by the federal probe.

After a nearly twenty-minute recess — and following emotional testimony from Paul Jacobs’ wife and mother — Arterton handed down a sentence she said she first agonized over given, in particular, the “scale” of factors that distinguished the respective crimes and behaviors of Paul and Philip.

“While you are the least culpable,” she said, “you have been the least repentant, exercising the worst judgment” since the original indictment.

Ultimately, she could not justify sending two brothers two prison for unequal amounts of time; competing factors, she said, balanced in the end.

“Your sentence should not be less than Philips’, but it will not be more,” she said.

As his wife began to sob nearby — just as her sister-in-law had — Paul Jacobs, set to self-surrender on Aug. 13, varied between a straight face and smiles.

“It will be nice,” he said, “to get on with my life.”