ST. LOUIS — Federal prosecutors said Thursday that John Rallo, the businessman at the center of former ѿý County Executive Steve Stenger’s bribery conviction, has fully recovered from COVID-19 and should not be released from federal prison.
Rallo, 55, sent a handwritten note to U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber dated Aug. 11 seeking compassionate release after he tested positive Aug. 2. Rallo wrote that another 100 inmates at the Marion Prison minimum security satellite camp had tested positive, and his cellmate, 39-year-old Taiwan Davis, had died Aug. 5 from virus complications.
An attorney for Rallo wrote that he has been in solitary confinement since his arrival at federal prison in Marion, Illinois.
Rallo argued his thyroid cancer and blood disorder made him susceptible and he should be allowed to serve the 15 months remaining on his 17-month sentence under home confinement with his wife and children in Salt Lake City.
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After the letter, Rallo attorney Curtis Poore of the Limbaugh Law Firm in Cape Girardeau filed a request with the court seeking supervised release and home confinement for the 15 months remaining on Rallo’s sentence. Poore claimed that Rallo “was seriously ill for several days and continues to experience symptoms primarily related with breathing difficulty.”
But Hal Goldsmith, the Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted Stenger and Rallo, wrote that “a review of the defendant’s medical records suggests otherwise.”
John Rallo, who federal prosecutors say gave campaign donations to Stenger in exchange for real estate deals and a sham contract with economic development agencies, is the final person to be sentenced in an investigation that rocked regional politics.
After a rapid test Aug. 2 came back positive, Rallo was put into isolation per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. From Aug. 6 through Aug. 11, he reported no symptoms and told prison medical staff he was feeling fine each day.
Following his Aug. 11 exam, “the medical staff determined that defendant’s COVID-19 virus was resolved and, per CDC guidelines, defendant was released from isolation back to his normal housing,” Goldsmith wrote.
Only one inmate at the Marion prison camp remained positive for COVID-19 as of Aug. 25, according to prosecutors, and “106 inmates, including defendant, had fully recovered.”
“Defendant fails to identify any ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons’ that qualify for a reduced sentence under the statute, much less satisfy the separate requirement of showing that he is no longer a danger to community,” prosecutors wrote.
Rallo, formerly of Ballwin, pleaded guilty along with Stenger, his chief of staff Bill Miller, and former ѿý Economic Development Partnership chief Sheila Sweeney in a pay-to-play scheme. Rallo contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Stenger’s election campaign in exchange for a $130,000 sham marketing contract and other favors through the economic development agency.
Stenger, a Democrat, reported to a federal prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota, in September to serve a 46-month sentence that was reduced to 27 months. Miller was sentenced in September to 15 months in federal prison but was recently released from U.S. Penitentiary McCreary in Pine Knot, Kentucky. The conditions of his release were unclear. Sweeney did not receive a prison sentence.
