The former Port Authority Chairman who pled guilty to using his position to coerce a United Airlines flight to his vacation home in South Carolina was sentenced in federal court.
David Samson was sentenced to a year of home confinement, 4 years of probation, community service, and a $100,000 fine.
“That was not of course the sentence that we requested,” said Paul Fishman, US District Attorney in New Jersey. “We requested that the court sentence Mr. Samson to a meaningful term of imprisonment of 24 months. I have enormous respect for Judge Linares. He obviously struggled with that decision and saw the case differently than we did, and took into account the circumstances of Mr. Samson’s life and experience and thought that was the proper sentence.”
Samson currently resides in the Aiken, South Carolina home that ‘The Chairman’s Flight’ was created for.
“There is some irony to the fact that the goal of the scheme from Mr. Samson’s perspective was to make it easier to get to the house in South Carolina that he like to spend his weekends at, and not he’s sentenced to spending all of his time in that house”
Samson’s defense handed out a written statement after the decision that says his sentence is fair and called his action’s an 'aberrational error in judgment'.