Another high-profile Connecticut Booker variance

As detailed in articles here and here, today former Connecticut NAACP leader Ben Andrews was sentenced to 30 months in prison “for helping steer hundreds of millions in state pension fund investments, but the once influential Republican steadfastly maintained his innocence.”  Because the reported guideline range was 57-71 months, District Court Judge Ellen Burns had to depart or vary to impose this sentence.  Here’s the AP account:

Andrews faced up to about six years in prison according to federal sentencing guidelines, but Burns said his “lifetime of devotion” to civil rights work merited a more lenient sentence.

Andrews and his supporters said that wasn’t enough.  They wanted him to receive a sentence in line with the yearlong term former Gov. John G. Rowland received for unrelated corruption.

The basic story of Rowland’s sentence can be found in this post, and a collection of commentary on that sentencing is here.  Of course, news of another white-collar defendant getting a reduced sentence has me again speculating, as I did here, that this group of offenders is doing particularly well in the post-Booker world.

UPDATE: Peter Henning at White Collar Crim Prof Blog has more news and commentary on the Andrews sentencing in this post.