NY.- The co-founder of a Steve Bannon-linked fundraising group who vowed to help Donald Trump build a wall along the southern US border was sentenced Wednesday to four years and three months in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. of donor dollars.
Brian Kolfage, a decorated Air Force veteran who lost both legs and an arm during the war in Iraq, had pleaded guilty to his role in diverting We Build the Wall donations.
A co-defendant who had also pleaded guilty, financier Andrew Badolato, was sentenced to three years in jail for his part in the plot. A third man involved in diverting funds from the project, Colorado businessman Tim Shea, will be sentenced in June.
Additionally, Kolfage and Badolato were ordered to pay $25 million to restitute the victims.
Bannon, Trump’s former political adviser, was absent from the case. He was initially arrested aboard a luxury yacht and faced federal fraud charges along with other defendants, but Trump pardoned him during his final hours in office.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last year filed new state charges against Bannon, who is awaiting his trial date. Presidential pardons only apply to federal and non-state crimes. Bannon has called the case “absurd.”
Trump did not pardon Kolfage, Badolato or Shea, leaving them to face years behind bars.
Prosecutors said the scheme was the work of Kolfage, who was the public face of a campaign that raised more than $25 million from donors across the country. He repeatedly assured the public that he would not take “a penny” from the campaign.
As money poured in for the cause, Kolfage and his partner Shea turned to Bannon and Badolato for help in setting up the non-profit organization We Build the Wall, Inc. The four defendants then took steps to divert the money. funds for his personal benefit, prosecutors said.
An attorney for Badolato, Kelly Kramer, called Bannon “the leader and main beneficiary” of the scheme, noting that his own client was paid far less than his pardoned aide.
Although prosecutors acknowledged that Badolato was the least financially profitable of the four defendants, they described him as the “link” between Kolfage and Bannon who helped direct the payments between the two parties.
Kolfage, 41, told Judge Analisa Torres that he was “sorry, disgusted and humiliated.” He added that he did not anticipate the magnitude of the donations they would receive for the cause and soon began to distance himself from his initial goal, which he said was “to bring the country’s failed immigration system into the spotlight.”
“I promised that it was not going to benefit me personally and I broke that promise,” he said.
Torres noted that the defendants not only misled their donors, but also were part of a “chilling effect on civic engagement” by tarnishing the reputation of political fundraisers.
“The fraudsters responsible for We Build the Wall hurt the political class,” he stressed.
Kolfage received more than $350,000 in donor funds, which he used for personal expenses such as boat payments, a luxury van and cosmetic surgery, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Bannon was accused of receiving more than $1 million through another nonprofit organization, and later secretly paying some of that money to Kolfage.
Badolato, 58, and Shea also stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from fundraisers, prosecutors added.
As part of their plea agreement, Kolfage and Badolato agreed not to appeal a sentence within the agreed range: four to five years for Kolfage, and three and a half to four years for Badolato.
A lawyer for Kolfage previously argued that his client should not go to prison due to his lack of a criminal record and his severe disability.
We Build the Wall built sections of a border wall on private land, but the organization has since disappeared.
