WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship with a close friend convicted of defrauding insurance companies and testified on his behalf, even as the candidate has called for such crimes to be punished harshly. 
 
 This Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015 photo shows the office building, owned by BenCan LLC, and INBS LLC, in Mount Lebanon, Pa. Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken Dec. 1, 2005, Dr. Ben Carson, center, flanked by Dr. Al Costa, right, and then Pittsburgh Steelers running back, Jerome Bettis pose at the The Pittsburgh Carson Scholars Fund 2nd Annual... (Associated Press) 
 
 Pittsburgh dentist Alfonso A. Costa pleaded guilty to a felony count of health care fraud after an FBI probe into his oral surgery practice found he had charged for procedures he never performed, according to court records. 
 
 Though the crime carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison, Costa was able to avoid prison time after Carson helped petition a federal judge for leniency. 
 
 That's different from the position Carson took in 2013 as he prepared to launch his presidential campaign, saying those convicted of health care fraud should go to prison for at least a decade and be forced to forfeit "all of one's personal possessions." 
 
 At Costa's 2008 sentencing hearing, Carson described the dentist as "one my closest, if not my very closest friend." 
 
 "We became friends about a decade ago because we discovered that we were so much alike and shared the same values and principles that govern our lives," Carson told the judge, adding that their families vacationed together and that they were involved in "joint projects." 
 
 "Next to my wife of 32 years, there is no one on this planet that I trust more than Al Costa," Carson said. 
 
 Costa has served on the board of Carson's charity, the Carson Scholars Fund, and continues to lead the charity's fundraising efforts in the Pittsburgh area to provide $1,000 college scholarships to children in need. 
 
 Before his criminal conviction and the revocation of his license to practice dentistry, Costa built a multimillion-dollar fortune through commercial real estate. Investments Carson and his wife made through Costa earn the couple between $200,000 and $2 million a year, according to financial records that Carson was required to file when he declared his candidacy. 
 
 Costa also continues to promote his involvement with Carson's charity as part of his real estate business, prominently featuring the logo of the Carson Scholars Fund on the company's website. His son has worked with Carson's presidential campaign and a political committee founded by the retired neurosurgeon. 
 
 Doug Watts, the campaign's spokesman, said Wednesday he was unable to immediately respond to specific questions about land deals involving Carson and Costa. The AP contacted Watts on Tuesday and again Wednesday. 
 
 "I will confirm they are best friends and that they do hold business investments together," Watts said. 
 
 Costa did not respond to messages seeking comment. 
 
 The breadth of the two men's business ties has not been previously reported, partly because details can be obscured in property and incorporation records. Costa's company and its affiliates own properties in at least five states and overseas. 
 
 In 2007, a few months before Costa was charged, records show that a pair of corporations was established in Pennsylvania called BenCan LLC, and INBS LLC. Carson and his wife are listed as the sole members of the companies. Though the Carsons live outside Baltimore, the mailing address on the incorporation forms was Costa's home address in Pittsburgh. 
 
 BenCan and INBS then paid more than $3 million to purchase an office building in suburban Pittsburgh. The mailing address for the corporations listed on the deed matches the office of Costa's real estate firm, Costa Land Co. 
 
 That September, federal prosecutors charged Costa, accusing him of fraud committed over a nearly five-year period, according to court records. Investigators determined that Costa's dental practice charged more than 50 patients for procedures that had not been performed, resulting in a loss of more than $40,000 to insurance companies. 
 
 After Costa pleaded guilty, 40 of his family members, friends and dental patients wrote letters to the judge as character witnesses. Carson was one of three people who also testified at Costa's 2008 sentencing hearing, stressing his friend's charitable works and vouching for his personal integrity. Also testifying on Costa's behalf was Jerome Bettis, a beloved former Pittsburgh Stealers running back who had helped bring home a Super Bowl trophy to the city two years earlier. 
 
 The government urged the judge to make an example of Costa. 
 
 "Reduction of a sentence based on good works by a wealthy person can create the appearance that a defendant's financial resources and prominent connections can skew the justice system in ways not available to persons of lesser means," a prosecutor told the judge. 
 
 In the end, Costa got no prison time. He was sentenced to one year of house arrest and 100 hours of community service, and ordered to pay more than $294,000 in fines and restitution. Costa later got 12 months shaved off his three-year probation. 
 
 Though Costa was assigned to serve his sentence in his 8,300-square-foot mansion in nearby Fox Chapel, his lawyers repeatedly returned to court to seek permission for him to travel. A few months after starting his sentence, Costa asked to travel to the White House as one of 10 invited guests at a June 2008 ceremony where President George W. Bush presented Carson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 
 
 The judge denied that request, though Costa was later allowed to take a month-long trip to the Italian coast while on probation to handle what his lawyer described as urgent business at a resort he owns. 
 
 Carson's appeal for leniency toward Costa contradicts the draconian criminal penalties he called for in his 2013 political treatise, "America the Beautiful." In his book, Carson wrote that anyone found guilty of health care fraud should face what he called the "Saudi Arabian Solution." 
 
 "Why don't people steal very often in Saudi Arabia?" Carson asked. "Obviously because the punishment is the amputation of one or more fingers. I would not advocate chopping off people's limbs, but there would be some very stiff penalties for this kind of fraud, such as loss of one's medical license for life, no less than 10 years in prison, and loss of all of one's personal possessions." 
 
 Despite the tough-on-crime message, Carson and his wife kept their investment with Costa in the years since his conviction. Tax bills for the Pittsburgh office building owned by the couple are mailed to Costa Land Co. A recent lease for a portion of the property was signed on the Carsons' behalf by the president of Costa's company. 
 
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 Associated Press researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report. 
 
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 Follow Biesecker at http://Twitter.com/mbieseck ||||| Mr. Carson may also struggle to claim the outsider mantle. Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, also planned to formally enter the Republican race on Monday, making an online announcement in contrast to the staged kickoffs of Mr. Carson and the other declared candidates. 
 
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 Nor will he have the spotlight for long: On Tuesday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas plans to announce his second presidential campaign in his native Hope, Ark. 
 
 One challenge for Mr. Carson is whether he can appeal beyond the grass-roots conservatives who initially flocked to him, delighted by his eye-gouging of the president. It is a rhetorical style he has pledged to eliminate as he seeks broader support. 
 
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 But Mr. Carson may attract early attention because of the national focus on the death of a black man who was injured in police custody in Baltimore, where Mr. Carson lived and worked for 35 years. 
 
 He draws an aggressive contrast with Democrats over antipoverty issues, and in speeches has told of how his mother, a cleaning woman, struggled to stay off welfare because everyone she knew who took government aid never escaped it. 
 
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 In an interview before his announcement, he said that “personal responsibility, hard work and compassion for our fellow human beings” were the keys of climbing out of poverty. Mr. Obama, by contrast, he said, “seems to believe more in a utopian view of cradle-to-grave care.” 
 
 Mr. Carson’s biography will feature prominently in his campaign. His mother, Sonya Carson, had only a third-grade education, but he went on to graduate from Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School, and at age 33 was named chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, becoming the youngest person, and the first black doctor, to hold the title. 
 
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 He burst onto the political scene in 2013 with a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that denounced the country’s “moral decay” and Mr. Obama’s health care law. The Wall Street Journal followed with an editorial, “Ben Carson for President.” 
 
 An independent political action committee seeking to draft him to run demonstrated his small-donor appeal by raising $13 million. It announced it had recruited leaders in all 99 counties in Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest. 
 
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 Mr. Carson’s campaign announced monday morning that he would leave from his announcement for Dallas, where his mother, who was in failing health, has become critically ill. Originally scheduled to to travel to Iowa for three days of speeches and campaig stops, he plans to campaign there Tuesday and Wednesday, said Armstrong Williams, a senior adviser. 
 
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 Mr. Carson must devise a coherent policy message and convince voters that he is fit for political leadership with no governing experience. He spent five hours at the conservative Heritage Foundation recently taking tutorials on domestic and foreign policy. 
 
 He has also undergone media training to round the edges off his incendiary language. In 2013, Mr. Carson was forced to withdraw as a commencement speaker at Johns Hopkins after linking same-sex marriage to pedophilia. He has pronounced the president’s health care law the worst thing to happen in American “since slavery.” And in March, he issued an apology after declaring that the experience of men in prison proved that homosexuality was a choice. 
 
 “I’ve come to recognize that when you use certain terms, people can no longer hear anything else you say,” Mr. Carson said in the interview before his announcement. “As you’ll notice in the last several weeks, I’ve been able to get my points across without inflammatory language.”
– "Next to my wife of 32 years, there is no one on this planet that I trust more than [Alfonso] Costa," Ben Carson said at a 2008 sentencing hearing for the man he calls his best friend. "We discovered that we were so much alike and shared the same values and principles that govern our lives." Carson may have to elaborate on those shared values and his loyalty to Costa, a former dentist convicted of charging for never-performed procedures, the AP reports. Records examined by the AP show the men have been entwined for some time, including Costa's ongoing involvement with Carson's children's charity and his son's role in Carson's election campaign. Most notable, though, is the money Carson has made with commercial real-estate investments via Costa, earning Carson and his wife between $200,000 and $2 million a year, per candidacy financial records. The AP notes Costa's ongoing links to Carson—who's always sworn the case against Costa was bogus, notes Mother Jones—are in the spotlight because Carson came out in 2013 with harsh words for those convicted of health care fraud, saying such convicts should go to prison for at least a decade and have to give up "all of one's personal possessions"—what the AP notes he called the "Saudi Arabian solution" in his 2011 book America the Beautiful. Carson's campaign spokesman told the AP Wednesday that he couldn't give any details on specific questions, but he did confirm that Carson and Costa "are best friends and ... do hold business investments together." And where Carson spent his most recent vacation to Italy in September? At Costa's luxury villa on the Amalfi coast, per Mother Jones. Read the full AP report.