Surrounded by family and friends, former Valdosta Mayor John J. Fretti was sentenced for felony false statement Wednesday morning in Lowndes County Superior Court.

Southern Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Harry Altman sentenced Fretti to three years of probation which are pursuant to the terms of the First Offender Act, a $1,000 fine, restitution to the City of Valdosta in the amount of $4,194, the inability to run for the position of mayor while on probation, supervision fees and a $50 crime lab fee.

Resignation from his position as mayor was also part of the sentence. Fretti voluntarily resigned on Friday, Sept. 2, a week after entering a plea to felony false statement, a charge stemming from an investigation into allegations he double-billed the city and state for travel expenses.

The sentence was issued in a matter of minutes. Fretti’s parents and wife were noticeably affected by the events. Local businessman Roy E. Taylor, Sr., and his attorney, J. Holder Smith, were also in attendance. Taylor originally made the double-billed travel expenses public.

“I certainly think Judge Altman gave a sentence that he thought was appropriate under the circumstances,” said Southern District Attorney David Miller. “In any sentence you don’t just look at the circumstances of the offense, but you look at the person’s entire history and background, and given his long-standing service to the city, I certainly have no criticism of the judge’s sentence. Quite frankly, with the mayor resigning on his own, I think he performed a community service there. He didn’t force the judge to have to order him to resign. I did not make his resignation a part of the guilty plea agreement because I felt that the mayor deserved the privilege to make that decision on his own instead of me forcing it on him.”

On Aug. 26, 2011, Fretti entered a guilty plea to felony false statement as a result of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation probe into his travel reimbursements. The mayor waived his right to a grand jury indictment and a jury trial and entered his guilty plea under the U.S. Supreme Court case of North Carolina vs. Alford.

Miller presented this statement of facts in August:

“In a statement to the GBI, the mayor said that at the June 3, 2009, Georgia Department of Community Affairs meeting, a DCA staffer noticed that he had not written down mileage on his request, and inquired whether he drove a city vehicle. He told her no, that he drove his personal vehicle. She asked him why he did not claim the mileage and he told her that he did not know, when in fact, he knew that she had been claiming mileage on the form for him, and she did so using Mapquest for the mileage.

“As a result, the mayor knowingly signed DCA vouchers claiming per diem and mileage for the trips to DCA meetings between June 3, 2009, and June 2, 2010, and also returned to Valdosta and claimed mileage reimbursement from the city for the same trips. Additionally during these trips, he accepted the $105 per diem from DCA, while charging all of his lodging and food expenses to the city.”

Fretti was unavailable for comment after the sentence was issued.