Former Trump campaign manager and life- long sleazeball Paul Manafort was sentenced this evening to less than 4 years (47 months) in prison for tax and bank fraud. Republican U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis (appointed by Ronald Reagan) chose to sentence Manafort to a much shorter stretch than he could have received under federal sentencing guidelines (up to 24 years), offering some peculiarly clueless testimonials to Manafort's character (saying he'd "lived an otherwise blameless life"). What amoral rock has Ellis been living under?
Manafort still faces a second sentencing hearing on March 13 in the District of Columbia in front of Judge Amy Berman Jackson on two conspiracy charges; he faces up to 10 years on those counts. Judge Jackson will decide whether Manafort will serve that time consecutively or concurrently with the 47 months the Reagan judge just handed down. Let's hope Jackson does the right thing and throws the book at Manafort, something the Reagan judge opted not to do.
BONUS: Reactions --
A below-guidelines sentence would’ve been perfectly fair but 47 months is a joke. Steal millions from US Government, violate bail, get convicted by jury, fake cooperate, lie to prosecutors, refuse to accept responsibility - and get an enormous break. That’s an unjust sentence.— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) March 8, 2019
Manafort’s 47-month sentence in ED Va is outrageously lenient. Judge Ellis has inexcusably perverted justice and the guidelines. His pretrial comments were a dead giveaway. The DC sentence next week had better be consecutive.— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 8, 2019
FYI in 2018, #JudgeEllis sentenced Frederick Turner, 37, to a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine: "I chafe a bit at that, but I follow the law. If I thought it was blatantly immoral, I'd have to resign. It's wrong, but not immoral." #PaulManafort— Laura Coates (@thelauracoates) March 8, 2019
it's a good thing that Paul Manafort was only a rich white millionaire selling out his country and enabling despots and making life worse for millions of people, and not, say, a black man selling loose cigarettes on a street corner, because there are serious consequences for that— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) March 8, 2019
People are sometimes sent to prison for longer than 47 months for non violent marijuana offenses.— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) March 8, 2019
For context on Manafort’s 47 months in prison, my client yesterday was offered 36-72 months in prison for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room.— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) March 8, 2019
Maybe we should have seen this coming --
REMINDER: The extraordinary bias of the judge in the Manafort trial https://t.co/t15fBjPG3n "He disparaged the prosecution's evidence, misstated its legal theories,"— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) March 8, 2019
BONUS II: Here's a primer on the "otherwise blameless life" led by Manafort.
Old white guy, white collar crime, Republican judge. Do the math. Manafort will be in and out while many people of color who are currently serving time for minor drug possession charges will be still in prison.
ReplyDeleteI hate the stupid system.
donnah -- exactly. Ellis saw someone much like himself in Manafort about whom he managed to conjure more good than any neutral observer could and acted accordingly. It's sickening.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite comparison is how that black woman in Texas who accidentally cast a (one) illegal vote got 5 years, and this white boil on the buttocks of democracy got less than 4.
ReplyDeletebluzdude - yeah, that's a particularly galling comparison. ("White boil on the buttocks of democracy" -- wish we'd thought of that!)
ReplyDeleteAfter reading other opinions on Ellis, it appears he's slapping back at Mueller and Special Counsel with this paltry sentence. Many of his quotes in his verdict decision show blatant hostility to the charges against Manafort from Mueller. Ellis should have been excused from this case. He should turn in his gavel and robe, because he's not fit to be a judge.
ReplyDeletedonnah - you're right. He had to walk back some comments during the trial that exposed his bias against the Special Counsel, saying he was just going after Manafort to squeeze him on Trump/ Russia. The jackass is a known crank and should never have been given a trial of this importance to preside over.
ReplyDelete