BY HOWARD WILKINSON

Cincinnati car dealer Walter Sweeney III was among the 29 people President Bush pardoned this week for their criminal convictions.

Sweeney, owner of Walt Sweeney Ford in Westwood, was pardoned for a 1993 federal criminal conviction on a charge of attempting to evade his 1987 federal income taxes.

A plea agreement with federal prosecutors led to a sentence of one year probation and a $10,000 fine. Like many of those pardoned by the president Tuesday, Sweeney never served time in prison.

At the time, federal prosecutors said Sweeney – who was then an independent car broker – filed a joint return in 1987 claiming income of $28,055 when he earned $66,794. Instead of paying $17,145 in federal income taxes, prosecutors said, he paid $4,121.

Sweeney paid the back taxes and penalties, his lawyer said in 1993.

Efforts to reach Sweeney for comment today were unsuccessful.

Presidents usually grant pardons at the end of each year, although Bush has granted fewer than most in his seven years in office. He has granted 142 pardons and commuted five sentences since taking office in 2001.

Washington was buzzing Tuesday when the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney released the president’s 2007 list and it did not contain the name of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff who was convicted in the case of the leaked identity of a CIA operative.