Joanne Richardson was ordered yesterday to serve five months in prison, followed by five months of house arrest and must pay a $3,000 fine for lying to a grand jury that was investigating alleged fraud by TAP Pharmaceutical, The Boston Globe reports. The drugmaker agreed to pay a record $885 million federal fine to settle charges involving kickbacks in the form of education and research grants to docs and hospitals.

Although Richardson’s original sentence was tossed out, US District Judge George O’Toole Jr insisted she go to jail for perjury, despite an unusual defense - her attorney contended that other notable public figures, including former Massachusetts House speaker Thomas Finneran and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a onetime key aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, avoided prison after committing similar offenses, the paper writes.

In January, Finneran pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in exchange for federal prosecutors’ dropping perjury charges in connection with false statements he made under oath in federal court about a House redistricting plan, the paper writes. The plea bargain allowed him to avoid jail time. In July, Bush spared Libby a 30-month prison term after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to FBI agents and a grand jury.

Richardson’s lawyer, Max Stern, says he thought the Libby analogy was particularly apt, because Bush’s photograph hangs in several locations in the courthouse. “If (Bush) says that a man who committed a far greater offense doesn’t have to go to jail, why does this woman with two young children have to go to jail?” Stern tells the Globe.

But O’Toole countered that it would foster cynicism in the judicial system and encourage more perjury if he allowed Richardson, 42, to avoid a prison sentence, the Globe writes. He took on the case after another judge tossed out Richardson’s original sentence, which was slightly different - originally, she was stended to six months in prison, followed by four months of house arrest and the same fine.

Though she will serve one fewer month in prison after her sentence starts Jan. 9, Richardson expressed bitterness in the lobby of the federal courthouse in Boston. She said her two school-age children have suffered during her ordeal and that her father, whom she cares for, is dying of lung cancer. “The sentence he just gave me, he didn’t give to me,” she tells the Globe. “He gave it to my two kids and my dying father.”

A federal prosecutor, Susan Winkler, maintained that lying to a grand jury has an insidious effect on the judicial system and said in court papers that O’Toole’s family hardships were similar to those of other defendants, according to the Globe. O’Toole, a former account manager for TAP, was convicted in January 2004 of one count of perjury for having lied three years earlier to a federal grand jury.

Hat tip to PharmaGossip