Soderquist and Step-Daughter Agree to Plead Guilty
The Northwest Indiana Gazette
January 19, 2016
According to court documents filed today, Keith Soderquist and his stepdaughter Miranda Brakley have agreed to plead guilty in US Discrict Court in Hammond. The former Mayor and his wife were convicted after a trial in September 2015 and still face sentencing in that case. Those charges related to the misuse of campaign finance accounts and the theft of funds from the Lake Station Food Pantry. The Government laid out a pattern of travelling to a casino in Michigan where the Soderquists lost large sums of money.
These guilty pleas stem from the theft of to one count of theft from a program receiving federal funds. Under $10,000 by Miranda Brakley and the actions of Keith and Deborah Soderquist in covering up that theft.
Charges against Deborah Soderquist will be dismissed according to the Court documents. Keith Soderquist will plea guilty to one count of accessory after the fact which carries a prison term of up to 5 years. Soderquist’s sentence will be imposed consecutively, meaning any time he actually is required to serve in this case will be after the first sentence is completed. Although there is a possibility of up to 5 years in prison, it seems likely that he will see a matter of months added on to his sentence under the plea agreement.
Under the terms of Brakley’s the plea agreement, Brakley faces up to ten years in prison. That is not likely either, however, as the plea agreement specifically refers to a sentence of home detention:
” if my sentence falls into Zone C on the U.S.S.G. sentencing table, the government’s recommendation will be to the minimum under that section, a sentence of imprisonment that includes a term of supervised release with a condition that substitutes community confinement or home detention for one-half of the minimum term of imprisonment;”
Under Federal Law, all factors to be included in the sentencing cannot be fully determined until a pre-sentence investigation is completed. Depending on those factors, the Government could ask for a sentence of imprisonment followed by a period of home detention or solely home detention. See the full plea agreement below.
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