Sentencing guidelines called for up to 24 years in prison.
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairperson Paul Manafort was sentenced on Thursday by a US judge to less than four years in prison - far shy of federal sentencing guidelines - for financial crimes uncovered during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election.
Manafort, brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair because of a condition called gout, listened during the hearing as Ellis extolled his"otherwise blameless" life in which he"earned the admiration of a number of people" and engaged in"a lot of good things".Manafort was convicted after prosecutors accused him of hiding from the US government millions of dollars he earned as a consultant for Ukraine's former pro-Russia government.
Legal experts expressed surprise over the sentence."This is a tremendous defeat for the special counsel's office," former federal prosecutor David Weinstein said. Legal experts said the light sentence from Ellis could prompt US district judge Amy Berman Jackson to impose a sentence closer to the maximum of 10 years in the Washington case, and order that the sentence run after the current one is completed rather than concurrently. Jackson was appointed by Democratic former president Barack Obama.Before the sentencing, Manafort expressed no remorse but talked about how the case had been difficult for him and his family.
Ellis had faced criticism by some in the legal community for comments he made during the trial that were widely interpreted as biased against the prosecution. Ellis repeatedly interrupted prosecutors, told them to stop using the word"oligarch" to describe people associated with Manafort because it made him seem"despicable", and objected to pictures of Manafort's luxury items they planned to show jurors.
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