Outrageous inequality in sentencing

This is based on reporting by HuffPost's Sam Levine.

Paul Manafort was sentenced this week in the first of two trials he underwent for various financial crimes involving millions of dollars he failed to pay in taxes.   In other words, the usual "white collar crime" does actually have consequences for the American people.

Every dollar he failed to pay means other Americans have to make up for with the taxes they pay.

Manafort's crimes?   false income tax returns, unreported income in foreign bank accounts, and bank fraud.   Typical "white collar" crimes -- except for the amount (millions) and the decades over which he defrauded our government, and the fact that he lived a lavish life style of ostrich skin jackets, alligator leather shoes, and multiple mansions.

Now, this was only the first of two trials.   Manafort pled guilt and made a plea agreement to cooperate with prosecutors in the second trial.   He was thrown into jail for witness tampering and non-cooperation -- although we don't know at this point whether he eventually did tell everything he knew as Donald Trump's campaign chairman -- probably not, since Trump is speaking about him very sympathetically and hinting at giving him a pardon.

So what sentence did Manafort get from this first trial?     Less than four years, when they subtract the time he's already spent in jail.   Federal guidelines recommended in this trial would have been a minimum of 19 and 1/2 years.     The judge said a lighter sentence was warranted, in part, because Manafort has "lived an otherwise blameless life."

That is patently outrageous.   Manafort has not lived an otherwise blameless life.   He has spent his life scheming and manipulating and cheating and living off ill-gotten gains from foreign dictators -- facilitating and profiting from their robbing their own people and violating human rights.   Let's hope the judge in the other case is a bit more realistic and gives him the maximum 10 years recommended in that case.

Now, for comparison, consider the case of Crystal Mason, who is incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas.   She was sentenced to five years for tax fraud and had already served three of those years.   (The amount was not mentioned in Levine's article, but I'm sure it was not the multi-millions Manafort avoided.)

Mason was at home on supervised release, a form of probation, when the 2016 presidential election was held.   Her mother encouraged her to vote;   and, not knowing that as a felon she was no longer eligible, Crystal did vote using a provisional ballot.

Her illegal voting (ignorance of the law is not an excuse) constituted a violation of her supervised release, which sent her back to federal prison with an added 10 months to her federal time.    In addition to that, the "voting fraud" constituted a state crime in Texas, for which she was sentenced to serve another five years in state prison.

 Compare the two crimes, the motives, and the sentences.   Manafort may very well get a pardon from Trump.   Crystal Martin, an African-American woman in Texas without the means to hire a "million-dollar lawyer" will likely serve her time. -- a total of almost 12 years.

Yes, there is shameful inequality in our criminal justice system.    This is only one example -- an especially outrageous one.   It represents both racial and socioeconomic inequalities.   It also is political.   Republicans are desperate to find actual cases of "voter fraud" to back up their empty claims that we need stricter voting laws because voter fraud is rampant.

Memo to Republicans:    The system currently in place worked.    She apparently was not on the voter rolls as an eligible voter, and they let her vote with a provisional ballot.  When it was checked into, everyone discovered she was ineligible.    Her vote didn't count.    So five years for that simple mistake she made from being uninformed?

So this is the best they can do?    A woman, ignorant of the law, simply went to vote.   And got a 10 months federal sentence and a five year state sentence.

Yes, outrageous.

Ralph