Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza was sentenced by a U.S. federal judge to serve eight months in a community confinement center after he pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law, Reuters reported.
D'Souza, a frequent critic of U.S. President Barack Obama, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan to live in a center, which would allow him to leave during non-residential hours for employment, for the first eight months of a five-year probationary period.
The 53-year-old D'Souza was also ordered to perform one day of community service a week during probation, undergo weekly therapy and pay a $30,000 fine.
The director and star of "2016: Obama's America," which painted a bleak picture of the nation's future if the Democratic president was reelected, was indicted in January on charges he illegally donated more than $20,000 to the unsuccessful 2012 GOP Senate campaign of Wendy Long, a Republican he had known since attending Dartmouth College in the early 1980s, through two "straw donors."
Two friends and their spouses were asked by him to contribute $10,000 each to Long's campaign, after which he reimbursed them, prosecutors said. At the time of election cycle, donations were limited to $5,000 maximum due to campaign finance regulations.
One friend was Denise Joseph, who was engaged to D'Souza while he was still married to another woman.
He originally pleaded not guilty but reversed his plea on the eve of a trial back in late May, Deadline reported. "It was a crazy idea, it was a bad idea," D'Souza told Berman before being sentenced. "I regret breaking the law."
Prior to the sentence hearing, prosecutors had sought a 10- to 16-month prison sentence, rejecting defense arguments that D'Souza was "ashamed and contrite" about his crime and deserved probation with community service.
"The case has prompted criticism among some conservatives who accused the government of selectively prosecuting D'Souza because of his political views," according to Reuters.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, an Obama appointee who brought the case, said in a statement that "like many others before him, of all political stripes, he has had to answer for this crime - here with a felony conviction."
