White Party's Pet Negro Dinesh D'Souza Spared Jail Time & Sentencing Guidelines in Felony Fraud Conviction
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From [HERE] Conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine for campaign finance fraud stemming from his use of straw donors to contribute to a U.S. Senate candidate in New York in 2012.
D'Souza, 53, raked in millions on a book and documentary film premised on the theory that President Barack Obama secretly works to subvert Western states in order to advance his father's supposed anti-colonialist leanings.
Entertainment Weekly called that film, "2016: Obama's America," the highest grossing conservative documentary ever made, a "nonsensically unsubstantiated act of character assassination."
The conservative darling styles himself as a defender of Christian morality and an opponent of people he casts as oppressive liberals in Washington.
When the FBI fingered D'Souza for a campaign finance fraud in support of Wendy E. Long - a friend from his days at Dartmouth College, who was running to unseat Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat - he initially maintained he was being selectively prosecuted for his controversial views. [MORE]
A federal judge rejected his persecution claims, and D'Souza pleaded guilty on the morning earlier this year when he was scheduled to go to trial.
In doing so, D'Souza admitted to contributing $10,000 to Long's campaign, making half of the donation in his name, and the other half in that of his wife, Dixie.
Months later, D'Souza urged his assistant and a "woman with whom he was romantically involved" to act as straw donors to support the Long campaign, prosecutors said in a written statement. Court papers revealed this lover to be Denise Odie Joseph, a married right-wing blogger. The New York Daily News reported that her husband Louis Joseph also donated.
Joseph and the secretary made $20,000 donations to the Long campaign, which D'Souza reimbursed.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that D'Souza tried to undermine "the integrity of the campaign finance process."
"Like many others before him, of all political stripes, he has had to answer for this crime - here with a felony conviction," he said.
He noted that Judge Berman remarked during today's sentencing hearing that D'Souza's claims of selective prosecution were 'all hat, no cattle.'"
At the time of D'Souza's plea, Berman said advised him that he could face up to two years in prison - in fact, federal sentencing guidelines call for 10 to 16 months, but the decision is nevertheless left to the judge's discretion.
In sentencing D'Souza to probation, Judge Berman mandated the author and filmmaker spend eight months in a community confinement center, perform a mandatory eight-hour day of community service every week of his five-year term of probation, attend weekly counseling sessions, and pay a $100 special assessment on top of his $30,000 fine.
