State Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, pleaded guilty to devising a scheme to commit mail fraud, U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin in Montgomery announced today.

Hammon used campaign money to pay his personal expenses, Franklin said.

Hammon becomes the fourth state lawmaker to be convicted of corruption charges since 2014.

Hammon has represented the 4

th

district in the Alabama House since 2002. He served as majority leader in the House from the time Republicans took control of the chamber in 2010

in February.

Hammon faces a maximum sentence of 20 years. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson will sentence Hammon in the coming months.

A felony conviction automatically removes Hammon from office.

Hammon had announced in July that he would not run for reelection.

"Self-dealing by elected officials erodes society's confidence in its governmental institutions," Franklin said in the news release. "Self-dealing is precisely what occurred here. Those who donated to Representative Hammon's campaign expected that the campaign would use those resources lawfully and to foster an informative public debate. Instead, Representative Hammon placed those funds into his own personal piggy bank.

"I am proud of my office's efforts to root out this corruption and I am most grateful for the tireless work of the United States Postal Inspection Service, which investigated this case. I hope that this prosecution will, in some small way, restore Alabamians' trust in their state legislature."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross is prosecuting the case.

Franklin said Hammon set up a campaign committee in 2013 to raise money for a reelection campaign. Contributors mailed donations to Hammon's campaign office. Hammon would endorse the checks and deposit them into his campaign bank account. Then he would write a check drawn on the campaign account to himself. Hammon would deposit that check into his personal account and use the money to pay personal expenses. State law prohibits the use of campaign funds for personal uses.

The scheme was carried out between September 2013 and November 2014, the plea agreement says.

Efforts to reach Hammon's attorney, Stephen Shaw, were not immediately successful.

Hammon is probably best known as the sponsor of a bill the Legislature passed in 2011 to crack down on illegal immigration. The bill, HB 56, was called by some the harshest immigration law in the nation.

The law made it a state crime for an unauthorized immigrant to be in Alabama and to seek work in Alabama. It required public schools to check the immigration status of students.

Hammon said the intent was to "attack every aspect of an illegal alien's life." He and other supporters said the purpose was, in part, to help make sure that Alabama jobs went to citizens, not to people in the county illegally.

The U.S. Department of Justice and others sued. In 2013, the state agreed to a settlement blocking seven sections of the law that were found to be preempted by federal law.

Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, who is now House majority leader, released a statement.

"We must not tolerate elected officials who abuse their offices for personal gain, but the guilty pleas that have been entered by Oliver Robinson and Micky Hammon in recent weeks indicate that laws on our books are working, and violations of the public's trust will be punished when they occur," Ledbetter said.

Robinson, D-Birmingham, pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of conspiracy, bribery, fraud and tax evasion.

Last year, a Lee County jury convicted House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, of 12 felony ethics charges.

In 2014, former state Rep. Greg Wren, R-Montgomery, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of using his office for personal gain and resigned from office.

Updated at 1:47 p.m. to add statement from Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter and more information.

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