Former Republican Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey entered federal prison on Tuesday to begin serving his 21-month sentence on charges stemming from his federal campaign finance case.
Kelsey was indicted in October 2021 by a federal grand jury in Nashville on five charges related to a conspiracy to violate federal campaign finance laws.
In an effort to benefit his 2016 campaign for Congress, Kelsey conspired with several individuals to move money from his state senate campaign committee through various political action committees.
After initially maintaining his innocence and claiming he was the target of a political witch hunt, in November 2022, Kelsey pleaded guilty to the charges and admitted to the crimes.
However, in March 2023, Kelsey (pictured above) attempted to withdraw his guilty plea on the grounds that he entered the plea “hastily and with an unsure heart due in large part to the stress of simultaneously dealing with a terminally ill father, newborn twins, and a three-year-old daughter.”
Kelsey also argued his “inexperience with the criminal justice system” contributed to his plea agreement, which he further argued “does not amount to a crime.”
Despite his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee denied Kelsey’s motion to withdraw the plea following a lengthy evidentiary hearing that was held in May 2023.
The district court said at the time it did not “believe that a Georgetown-educated lawyer and former State Senator, who served in the Tennessee General Assembly for almost 20 years and chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not understand the solemnity and gravity of entering a guilty plea and agreeing to the Factual Basis section of his plea agreement.”
In 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Kelsey’s sentence and the U.S. Supreme Court denied to hear his case.
Last Tuesday, in response to Kelsey’s last-ditch effort to avoid prison, U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. denied the former state senator’s request to stay out of prison while he fought to get his sentence vacated.
Kelsey is now serving his 21-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Ashland, Kentucky.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
