U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith today sentenced former Jefferson County Commissioner Chris McNair to five years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $850,000 for his role in a massive sewer system bribery scandal. Last year a federal jury in Birmingham found McNair guilty on federal bribery charges, and earlier this year McNair pleaded guilty to other bribery charges in a related case.According to his plea and his conviction, McNair solicited and accepted more than $140,000 in bribes from Jefferson County sewer contractors. Using phony invoices, the contractors paid for work on McNair’s photography studio, which they then billed to the county. At other times, the contractors would give envelopes full of cash
In March, the former county sewer chief, Jack Swann, was sentenced to eight and half years on similar and related bribery charges.
