Ron Sailor Jr was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for money laundering and defrauding the church he once led as pastor.

Ron Sailor Jr was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for money laundering and defrauding the church he once led as pastor.“I understand I could have taken a very different route,” Sailor, 33, told U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp before sentencing. “I’ve repented before God for my mistakes.”During an hour-long sentencing hearing, Sailor’s family and friends described one side of the former four-term Democratic lawmaker while prosecutors described another. But Sailor didn’t challenge prosecutors’ descriptions of his crimes.Sailor showed leadership qualities as a teenager when speaking to youth groups organized by the NAACP, the judge was told. As pastor, Sailor energized his congregation. As legislator, he inspired members of his constituency.“Ron had an outstanding life in every way,” Sailor’s father, Ron Sailor Sr., a pastor and former TV and radio personality, told Camp. “He helped people in many ways.”But last December, Sailor, who represented parts of DeKalb and Rockdale counties, was ensnared in an undercover drug sting at an Atlanta hotel.During meetings with a man he believed to be a drug dealer, Sailor agreed to launder $375,000 in illicit drug proceeds into money that appeared to have come from legitimate sources, prosecutors said Tuesday. But when he was arrested, Sailor learned that the “dealer” was, in fact, an undercover agent.
Sailor quickly acknowledged wrongdoing to federal prosecutors and went even farther, agreeing to help with a corruption investigation by apparently implicating other public officials in wrongdoing. Prosecutors have not brought any charges or outlined the nature of the corruption.When Sailor pleaded guilty in March to money-laundering charges, his help in the corruption probe appeared certain to yield him greatly reduced prison time at sentencing.But federal prosecutors soon learned that Sailor was not finished committing crime.In the days before his plea, Sailor fraudulently obtained a $250,000 loan using his own church, Greater New Light Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta, as collateral. Sailor used the proceeds from the loan to cover various personal expenses, including debts.“His conduct with respect to money became amoral,” Sailor’s lawyer, Bruce Maloy, said. “He found himself in a downward spiral and, I don’t mean this as a pun because he was a pastor, he began robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Sailor always intended to repay the money, Maloy insisted.But Maloy said when the undercover agent proposed money laundering, “it didn’t stop [Sailor]. It wasn’t even a speed bump in the road.”Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Hathaway questioned whether Sailor was truly remorseful for what he did, or simply remorseful he got caught.“At the same time he was working with the government and looking the FBI in the eye and saying he was going to cooperate, he was working a new scheme,” Hathaway said.Camp told Sailor if he had hooked up with a real drug dealer and arranged to launder the cocaine profits, “you would have done a great deal of damage to your community.”
Camp ordered Sailor to repay $147,802 to his church and serve 240 hours of community service after his release from prison.
After the sentencing hearing, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias described Sailor as a man of great potential whose conduct “went way off the rails.”