{"id":2573,"date":"2025-10-15T21:43:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2573\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:43:06","slug":"reading-city-council-reacts-to-francis-acostas-sentence-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2573\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading City Council reacts to Francis Acosta’s sentence | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading City Council members who served with Francis Acosta reacted to his sentence by a federal judge in Philadelphia on Monday.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Acosta took an $1800 bribe to change a city ethics law. Acosta pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges on Aug. 5, 2015. He was sentenced Monday<\/a> to serve two years in prison, spend three years on supervised release, perform 200 hours of community service, and pay an $1,800 fine.<\/p>\n

Acosta appeared remorseful and apologized to the city for his actions. It was also a somber day for city council members.<\/p>\n

“You know, we are all disappointed, but I don’t think anyone is more disappointed than Francis himself,” said Jeff Waltman, the current president of the Reading City Council.<\/p>\n

Waltman added that he hoped Acosta would have received a lighter sentence.<\/p>\n

“I think this is the saddest of days for the city of Reading, certainly for Francis and his family,” said Councilwoman Donna Reed.<\/p>\n

Council members, however, said the sentence serves as an important reminder.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s also a bellwether moment in that the obligation of the public trust, betraying the voter’s trust in you is probably one of the most heinous things a public official can do,” said Reed.<\/p>\n

Council members said perhaps Acosta was a casualty of a bigger scenario involving other players.<\/p>\n

Acosta’s lawyer said the bribe came from former Mayor Vaughn Spencer. Spencer has not been charged.<\/p>\n

Contacted by 69 News on Monday, Spencer declined to comment on Acosta’s case, per the advice of his attorney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading City Council members who served with Francis Acosta reacted to his sentence by a federal judge in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[279,2306,139,50,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-2573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks","tag-fbi-probe","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}