Salvatore DiMasi

66-year-old DiMasi was convicted last year of steering state contracts to a software firm in exchange for payments of $65,000. He's serving an eight-year sentence in Lexington, Ky. DiMasi was once one of the state’s most powerful politicians, serving as House speaker from 2004 to 2009. He resigned in late January 2009 after House Democrats reelected him as their leader despite the state and federal corruption investigations that had engulfed him. He was convicted last June for pocketing cash from Cognos, a software company that was seeking multimillion-dollar contracts from the state, and was handed the toughest federal sentence ever given a Massachusetts elected official.