The differences in the Manafort and Jefferson sentences

So it ended up being 7-1/2 years, two consecutive sentences for stealing tens of millions of dollars and avoiding taxes of over $6 million.

Let’s contrast this with another felon who received 13 years for similar violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as well as concealing just $90,000 from the IRS. However, this latter ex-con was simply trying to obtain a telecom contract. The former criminal attempted to keep a ruthless dictator in power in Ukraine and undermine U.S. Foreign Policy at the same time.

Pop quiz, if we told you that one of the two was a Harvard graduate and a decorated public intellectual, renowned for his encyclopedic knowledge of arcane federal statutes, which criminal would you believe it to be? Probably not the “Black Guy” who received the steeper sentence for the less intense, but similar, crime.

One was an influential presidential adviser and the other a highly respected member of Congress, yet the federal jurist in question did not tell Bill Jefferson that he had led “a blameless life,” even though he was equally never previously indicted or convicted. No, Judge T.S. Ellis threw the book at the former U.S. Representative from New Orleans, giving him 13 years in contrast to Manafort’s 47 months. At least when U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sent to the former Trump Campaign Chairman to prison for an additional 43 months, she excoriated Manafort at length for his repeated lies and what she described as efforts “to play down his crimes”.

Still, the former presidential adviser ended up with 5 1/2 years less in jail for his activities in Ukraine than the Congressman received for trying to swing a telecom contract in West Africa.

Other than putting $90,000 in the freezer, what’s the difference? The ‘whiteness’ of the ice?

At least Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr has moved another indictment against Paul Manafort for Mortgage Fraud, so the former Trump Campaign Chairman might actually end up with 13 years in prison. Of course, if convicted, he will have had to have committed a far greater range of crimes to get the same length of sentence.

Call it Black Irony.

This article originally published in the March 18, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.