Rick Perry Faces Criminal Charges For Power Abuse, Prosecutors Want 99 Years In Prison Recently, the Texas grand jury announced an indictment of governor Rick Perry, which could land him between 5 and 99 years in prison. His crime? Vetoing funding for a state agency. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat tasked with overseeing the states Public Corruption unit, was recently arrested for drunk driving. Following the incident, Perry attempted to convince Lehmberg to resign. Democrats protested the resignation, in fear that Perry would replace her position with a Republican. Forced to take action, Perry carried out a threat to veto funding for her agency. The basis for the indictment is weak at best, but Perry is accused of violating two laws. The first is a statute that claims that misusing government property, services, personnel, or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has come into the public servants custody or possession by virtue of the public servants office or employment as an offense. According to the prosecutor, the veto threat was a misuse of these powers. The other statute Perry is accused of violating is the prohibition of anybody in government from influencing or attempting to influence a public servant in a specific exercise of his official power or specific performance of his official duty, or influencing or attempting to influence a public servant to violate the public servants known legal duty. However, that same statute also specially exempts an official action taken by the member of the governing body. Still, prosecutors claim that vetoing the bill is an official action, but threatening the veto is not. What do you think? Will Perry be sent to prison? 