Former Congressman Duncan Hunter Gets 11 Months in Prison
Former Congressman Duncan Hunter Gets 11 Months in Prison
(Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to using his election campaign fund as a piggy bank for what prosecutors said was his family’s “profligate” lifestyle.
The San Diego lawmaker and former Representative Chris Collins of New York were the first members of Congress to support Donald Trump’s candidacy for president in 2016. Both are now heading to prison, with Collins having been sentenced in January to 26 months for insider trading.
In sentencing Hunter Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan said he was guilty of “abuse of his position and of the public trust.”
Hunter told the judge he takes “full responsibility for any funds spent by me or anyone in my campaign.” His wife, Margaret, is set to be sentenced April 13 after she pleaded guilty to the misappropriation of campaign funds. Hunter asked Whelan to show sympathy for “the mother of my children, my two daughters, and not give her any time in custody.”
Hunter, 43, resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in January following his guilty plea. The Republican lawmaker had won reelection in 2018 representing a district around San Diego even after he was indicted. His insistence on his innocence and his attacks on federal prosecutors during his reelection campaign drew the ire of Justice Department lawyers in their recommendation that he get a 14-month prison term.
“Our very democracy is at risk when a criminal like Hunter wins an election by weaponizing the tropes of fake news and the deep state,” said prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego. “This is not a mere philosophical debate in the 50th Congressional district; it is a fact. Hunter’s false narrative about being an innocent politician framed by a partisan Justice Department influenced his 2018 reelection to Congress.”
Hunter stole about $250,000 over eight years to pay for household groceries, school tuition for his children, golf outings and dinners with his friends as well as luxury vacations for his family.
Hunter’s defense highlighted his military service and his work for veterans as a Congressman.
“Weighing the misconduct in this case against Congressman Hunter’s years of service, the balance tips heavily in his favor,” his attorney, Devon Burstein, in a written appeal for leniency.
Hunter enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and he completed three combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was first elected to Congress in 2008 when he ran for the Southern California district that he been represented by his father.
At Tuesday’s hearing, another of his lawyers, Paul Pfingst, said Hunter’s service as a Marine left him traumatized with physical and emotional issues that led to the demise of the couple’s marriage and contributed to his criminal mismanagement of his campaign funds, even as his staff was warning him about illegal spending.
Whelan denied a request from Hunter’s lawyers that he be allowed to serve his time in home detention and ordered him to surrender for prison by May 29. Prosecutors had wanted him jailed immediately.
The case is U.S. v. Hunter, 18-cr-03677, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California (San Diego).
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