By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Former Woonsocket Rep. Gerard Martineau, once the number-two man in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, was sentenced on Friday to 37 months in prison on federal corruption charges.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lisi ordered Martineau to surrender himself at a federal prison to be designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons by 2 p.m. on March 14. She also assessed a fine of $100,000.
The judge and prosecutor Gerard Sullivan both held out the prospect of a future sentence reduction because, Sullivan said, Martineau is cooperating with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Operation Dollar Bill probe into corruption at the Rhode Island Statehouse.
Wanting to send a message to other public officials “who may be thinking about engaging in the same sort of self-dealing,” Lisi rejected a plea for leniency by Martineau attorney William Devereaux, who asked for a mixed sentence of prison time and community confinement.
Lisi said a jail term is called for to “promote respect for the law and serve as a general deterrent.”
Martineau, she said, used his public office “in the most perverse way — to line his own pockets. That is really what this case is about.” 
When public officials succumb to such temptations, Lisi said, “the entire fabric of our system of government falls apart.”
Nonetheless, Lisi went along with Sullivan’s recommendation that Martineau get the lowest end of the federal sentencing guidelines — which in this case ranged from 37 to 46 months — because the former House Majority Leader showed “sincere remorse” and because “this is an individual who, by anyone’s measure, has accomplished much good in his life, personally and professionally.”
In his entreaty to the judge, Devereaux called Martineau “a good and decent man who did a wrong thing.”
But subsequent to that, Devereaux argued, “he waived indictment and pled guilty. He didn’t lie to investigators, he didn’t conceal or obfuscate. He has done nothing but recognize the seriousness of his offense and tried to do the right thing.”
A family man and onetime leader of his community, Martineau now has become “publicly humiliated and stands as a convicted felon,” Devereaux said. “He has paid a significant price.”
Before he was sentenced, a tearful Martineau told Lisi that “the events of the past several months have been devastating beyond my comprehension.” He said he was “ashamed and disappointed” that his actions “contributed to distrust in the legislative process.”
He asked that his “overall performance” be “judged in a positive light.”
Last November, Martineau entered a guilty plea to two counts of fraud for depriving the citizens of Rhode Island of his honest services as a legislator.
He admitted taking a total of $911,435.24 through the Upland Group — a company of which he was the sole owner, which operated out of his former Woonsocket home — from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island and CVS pharmacy.
That sum were ostensibly for paper bags, while at the same time Martineau was using his position to advance legislation important to those companies.
According to court papers, Martineau billed Blue Cross $195,000 for 10 million paper promotional bags. Prosecutors say that on some occasions, he billed the company just days or weeks before the beginning of a legislative session.
The insurer paid $175,500, ignoring the last invoice for $19,500, which Martineau submitted after leaving the General Assembly.
Only about 2 million of the bags were even produced over the four-year period between 1999 and 2002.
Late last year, Blue Cross fired four executives and agreed to pay $20 million into a trust run by the Rhode Island Foundation that will fund affordable health care programs in a deal with the U.S. Attorney to avoid charges against the company.
Martineau also acknowledged taking $716,435.24 from CVS for plastic and paper bags over the same period. He was charged with transactions that took place only after he formed the Upland Group, not for those Martineau facilitated previously as a salesman for another firm.
Two CVS executives, Carlos Ortiz and John Kramer, are charged with bribery and conspiracy for their dealings with former Sen. John Celona, now serving federal time for honest services fraud. The investigation is continuing.
Prosecutor Sullivan noted that the total of more than $900,000 was “knocking on the door” of the next step up in sentencing recommendations, which is triggered over the $1 million mark.
Sullivan had asked for a fine of $400,000, which was calculated as approximately half of Martineau’s estimated net worth. But Lisi moderated that to $100,000, citing Martineau’s “obligation to his minor children” — he has one son in college and another in a private high school — and noting that “much of his net worth was accumulated outside this scheme.”