Paul Manafort given (only?) 47 months in prison at first federal sentencing

I worried that my prediction this morning that Paul Manafort would get 100 months at his first federal sentencing was a little low.  Turns out, I was way too high: he got only 47 months today.   Here are some details from The Hill:

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to 47 months in prison, well below the amount recommended in sentencing guidelines. The sentence handed down by Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, was significantly less than the 19.5 to 24 years advised in federal guidelines.

Ellis, in remarks from the bench, described Manafort’s financial crimes as “very serious” but said the guideline range was “not at all appropriate,” and pointed to significantly more-lenient sentences handed down in similar cases.

Manafort, who turns 70 next month, appeared in court in a wheelchair and wore a green jumpsuit. His prison sentence will include time served, meaning nine months will be knocked off for the time he has already spent in jail. As a result, he will be incarcerated for three years and two months.

He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and up to $24 million in restitution.

“You’ve been convicted of serious crimes -- very serious crimes -- by a jury,” Ellis said to a packed courtroom after a lengthy sentencing hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Va., that lasted nearly three hours. However, he added, “I think that sentencing range is excessive. I don’t think that is warranted in this case.”

Manafort’s attorneys earlier this month asked for leniency, citing their client’s age, poor health, low risk of reoffending and assistance in Mueller’s probe. On Thursday, defense attorney Thomas Zehnle pointed to other cases in which defendants received much less prison time for similar crimes.

In remarks shortly before receiving his sentence, Manafort described himself as “humiliated and ashamed” of his behavior and for the pain he had caused his family. He thanked Ellis for a fair trial twice and asked him for compassion. “My life professionally and financially is in shambles,” Manafort said. “To say that I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement,” “I intend to turn my notoriety into a positive.”

However, Manafort did not express remorse for his actions -- something Ellis noted before handing down the punishment. “I was surprised that I did not hear you express regret,” said Ellis. “That doesn’t make any difference on the judgment that I am about to make … but I hope you reflect on that.”

Manafort was convicted by a jury in August of eight criminal charges -- five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to report foreign bank accounts. The financial crimes were uncovered during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. His case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia marked the first criminal trial in the Mueller probe. But as the defense noted, Manafort’s crimes had nothing to do with Russian election meddling or collusion with the Trump campaign....

To avoid a second criminal trial on separate charges in Washington, D.C., Manafort reached a plea deal with Mueller that involved his full cooperation with federal prosecutors. But the federal judge presiding over his case in D.C. found that he lied to investigators and a federal grand jury about subjects “material” to Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Manafort was initially scheduled for sentencing in early February, but Ellis postponed the hearing to let Judge Amy Berman Jackson in D.C. determine whether Manafort’s misstatements were unintentional, as he had argued. Ellis said at the time he thought Jackson’s ruling could impact his own sentencing of Manafort.

Sentencing in the D.C. case is scheduled for Wednesday. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for conspiracy against the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses. Jackson will decide whether he should serve those years consecutively or concurrently with the ones handed down by Ellis.

Manafort could walk free from federal punishment if President Trump decides to pardon him, but it’s unclear whether the president plans to pursue that avenue. The New York Times recently reported that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is planning to bring state charges against Manafort regardless.

A few quick points in reaction:

1.  Though I do not know exactly when Manafort will get out, I can confidently predict he will not serve exactly 47 months for two reasons: (a) he may get consecutive time at his next sentencing next week (and I suspect he will), and (b) he will surely earn good-time credits and perhaps have others means of getting released earlier as an elderly offender. (Good-time credit alone could get him seven months off possibly resulting in his release before the end of 2021 on the sentence he received today).

2.  I have already seen lots of Twitter commentary complaining this sentence is way too lenient, but I sense many of the complaints really stem from folks rightly seeing a lot of other sentences as way too harsh.  Title 18 USC § 3553(a) calls upon a federal judge to impose a sentence "sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with" traditional sentencing purposes.  I have a hard time developing forceful arguments that a nearly four-year prison term for a nearly 70-year-old man, plus a $50,000 fine and $24 million in restitution, is not sufficient in response to a nonviolent crime.

3.  Roughly a decade ago, when Bernie Madoff got a max sentence of 150 years, I speculated in this post about prosecutors using that high number as a sentencing benchmark in all sorts of other white-collar cases.  Now I am thinking that Paul Manafort has produced a new kind of white-collar sentencing benchmark that now should be of great use to defense attorneys.  Notably, not only was Manafort facing a guideline range of 19.5 to 24 years, but he went to trial and never fully accepted responsibility or even showed remorse.  "If unremorseful Manafort only merited 47 months in prison," so the argument should go from many defense attorneys, "this white-collar defendant should get even less."