Dinesh D’Souza Sentenced to Eight Months in Community Confinement Center and Five Years Probation
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Outspoken Obama critic and conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, 53, was sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center, five years probation, one day of community service a week during that probation and ordered to pay $30,000 for breaking campaign finance law during the 2012 election, after pleading guilty in May.
D’Souza admitted to illegally reimbursing two “straw donors” who donated $10,000 each to the unsuccessful 2012 U.S. Senate campaign in New York of Wendy Long, who ran against Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. D’Souza and Long have known each other since they attended Dartmouth College in the early 1980s.
Campaign finance regulations at the time limited individual donations to $5,000 maximum during an election cycle, however prosecutors stated that D’Souza asked two friends and their spouses to contribute $10,000 each to Long’s failed campaign and then reimbursed them.
D’Souza told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, before sentencing, “It was a crazy idea, it was a bad idea. I regret breaking the law.”
Prosecutors were seeking a 10 to 16 month sentence for the author and commentator, dismissing the defenses arguments that D’Souza was “ashamed and contrite” about his crime and deserved probation with community service.
D’Souza was caught in an FBI sting and prosecuted by Obama donor Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara is considered a favorite to become attorney general should there be a Hillary Clinton administration.
D’Souza will spend the first eight months of his five year probationary period in the community confinement center, which will allow him to leave during non-residential hours for employment. He reported to the center this afternoon.
According to this free legal dictionary, a community confinement center is “a condition of probation or supervised release,” and involves “residence in a halfway house, restitution center, community treatment center, mental health facility, alcohol or drug rehabilitation center, or other community facility.”
There is no doubt in my mind that Lady Justice’s blindfold has slipped under this administration. D’Souza was prosecuted for giving unfair advantage to a long time friend’s political campaign, and IMHO if he broke the law, he broke the law. I don’t have a problem with him – I even agree with him most of the time – but the law is the law. However, and this is a BIG HOWEVER, the same Justice Department that went after him declined to prosecute members of the New Black Panther Party for threatening white voters with nightsticks at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 – a far more agregious election crime in my opinion. And, Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was itself fined $375,000 in 2013 for failing to disclose millions of dollars in contributions and missing deadlines for refunding millions in excess contributions. No one was prosecuted for that. And let’s not forget we have both our Attorney General Eric Holder and former IRS employee Lois Lerner being held in contempt of Congress right now, and we all know they will never be held accountable for anything. Yup, Lady Justice no longer seems to be blind! ^ NK