Finally behind bars

Nearly five years after completing the most corrupt term of public office in Nevada history, more than four years after admitting as much to federal authorities, and nearly three months after finally being sentenced by a judge, Erin Kenny is where she should have been all along -- in prison.

The crooked former Clark County commissioner reported to a minimum-security facility north of Phoenix on Tuesday morning to begin a 30-month sentence.

Some of her former constituents, whose quality of life suffered with every bribe Kenny took, will remain displeased with her relatively short stay at Camp Cupcake.

For these taxpayers, a longer term in a tougher lockup -- one that would, to borrow a quote from the money-grubbing Kenny, have had her "on my knees begging" for mercy and routine comforts from her fellow inmates -- would have been much preferable.

After all, the "cooperation" Kenny offered in exchange for pleading guilty was nearly worthless to the government's cases. She famously testified that a bout with vertigo had caused her to forget many details about her corrupt activities. She angrily asserted that she had suffered penalty enough for her crimes, even as prosecutors gave her VIP treatment at the federal courthouse, allowing her to avoid the media and the public.

Kenny's sentencing was delayed years because prosecutors said her testimony was crucial to their corruption case against real estate consultant Donald Davidson. But the jurors who heard the Davidson case this summer deadlocked on 18 of the 24 counts against him because they questioned Kenny's credibility.

Then, when Kenny finally appeared before U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to learn her fate, she offered no apology for her years of wrongdoing.

If anyone deserved to be shamed to tears, to be shown no leniency at all, it was the icy, defiant Kenny.

But for those who justifiably questioned whether Kenny would ever see the inside of a prison cell, Tuesday's news was heartening. Kenny will no longer have the ability to freely spend her bribe money, much of which she was allowed to keep as a result of her guilty plea. Instead of sleeping in her posh, million-dollar home (paid for in part with her ill-gotten loot), she'll be bedding down with another felon for the next 21/2 years.

And the book isn't closed on Kenny -- not by a long shot. The IRS is all over her assets. As the Review-Journal reported Sunday, she is being sued by a man who alleges she and other corrupt county officials unlawfully torpedoed his plans for a new strip club in 2001 at the behest of competing strip club owner -- and imprisoned briber -- Michael Galardi.

Kenny's days evading justice are done. And when she emerges from prison in 2010, she'll learn anew that although crime can pay quite a nice salary, karma's a bear.