Steve Bannon, a former top White House aide to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty Tuesday in New York in connection with the defrauding of hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters who contributed more than $15 million to a purported effort to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Bannon, 71, was sentenced to three years of conditional discharge after pleading guilty, meaning he will not serve any time in prison. The sentence was part of a plea agreement by Bannon.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge April Newbauer also barred the conservative provocateur from serving in an official capacity or fundraising for charitable groups and not-for-profit corporations that hold assets in New York.
Bannon pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree scheme to defraud. He originally was charged in 2022 with six criminal counts of money laundering, conspiracy, and a scheme to defraud.
The guilty plea came three weeks before the scheduled start of Bannon’s trial in the case.
And it came a month after Trump was sentenced to unconditional discharge in the same court for his conviction in his criminal hush money case. Trump was convicted at trial last May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Bannon briefly served as a senior White House advisor in Trump’s first term as president, before being fired in April 2017.
Bannon originally was charged in federal court with crimes related to swindling donors to the “We Build the Wall” organization’s crowdfunding effort, which raised more than $25 million during Trump’s first term.
Bannon and three other men were accused of pocketing donations, while the group managed to build a paltry three miles of fencing along the southern border.
He was awaiting trial in that case in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and was free on a $5 million bond when Trump pardoned him on the last night of his first term in the White House on Jan. 19, 2021.
Trump does not have the power to pardon Bannon for the case in Manhattan Supreme Court because that is a state court. Presidents can only grant executive clemency in federal cases.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., whose office prosecuted Bannon in the state case, in a statement Tuesday said, “This resolution achieves our primary goal: to protect New York’s charities and New Yorkers’ charitable giving from fraud.”
“New York has an important interest in rooting out fraud in our markets, our corporations, and our charities, and we will continue to do just that,” Bragg said.
Bannon was convicted at trial of a felony contempt of Congress charge in July 2022. That case related to his willful failure to comply with subpoenas demanding his testimony and records by the House select committee that was investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump.
He was sentenced to four months in jail in that case but remained free for nearly two years while pursuing appeals. After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request that it hear his appeal, Bannon reported to jail to serve his sentence last July.
Three other men who were originally charged with Bannon in the federal case were convicted in that case and sentenced to prison.
One of them, Timothy Shea, was convicted at trial in October 2022, and later sentenced to five years and three months in prison. The two other defendants, Brian Kolfagfe and Andrew Badolato, pleaded guilty and were respectively sentenced to four years and three months in prison, and three years in prison.
By CNBC News
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
