The disgraced former Little Rock attorney Gene Cauley recently wanted a few days off from his 86-month federal prison sentence so he could see his oldest son graduate from high school.
The request was denied.
Cauley, 44, hired James Feldman Jr. of Ardmore, Pa., to file papers earlier this month in U.S. District Court in New York so Cauley could attend the ceremony.
Cauley first made the request to prison officials at Pollock, La., but it was denied. Feldman wanted Cauley to be released on noon May 17 and then he would have returned to prison on May 21.
Cauley’s son was scheduled to graduate May 18 in De Queen.
“Because it is difficult for Mr. Cauley’s family to travel so far, he has not seen his children in approximately 27 months,” the filing said.
Cauley was first sent to a federal prison in Colorado, about 900 miles away from his family. About six months ago, Cauley was transferred to the Pollock, La., prison, which is closer to Arkansas, but still would mean a five-hour drive for his family, Feldman said in the papers.
If the request had been granted, Cauley would have covered the travel costs and stayed with his second wife at their Hot Springs home.
Paul Monteleoni, the assistant U.S. attorney, filed a response and said the request should be denied. For one thing, Monteleoni said, the federal prison system is the agency that makes the decision to issue furloughs, not judges.
Besides, the “inability to attend family events such as high school graduations is an inherent incident of incarceration in any event,” he wrote.
Cauley, who specialized in class-action securities cases, is scheduled to be released from prison in April 2016. In November 2009, he was sentenced to prison for stealing $9.3 million from a client trust account. He was ordered to repay the money, but he has barely made a dent in restitution.