596,852 Low-Level Offenders Who Got Off Worse Than Paul Manafort, Who Is Blameless And Pure Of Heart

It was hard to pick just 596,852!

Mar 08, 2019

We are still PISSED about Paul Manafort's slap on the wrist/free handjob sentence in the Eastern District of Virginia, handed down by Judge T.S. Ellis, who can go fuck himself.

Yeah, we know it's not over yet, and that DC Judge Amy Berman Jackson is going to sentence Manafort on Tuesday, and that justice may yet be served. We know that judges have the right to disregard sentencing recommendations when they think they're wrong. And we know that, as Ellis said, aside from Manafort's DECADES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, he has led a "blameless" life.

Oh wait, we don't know that, even though Ellis stated it as fact, because we are not a fucking moron and we have read a thing or two about Paul Manafort. Perhaps Ellis hasn't. Perhaps Ellis should be sentenced to "Why don't you read Wonkette occasionally and learn about Paul Manafort, you fuckin' jackass."

GRRRRRR.

Here, for no reason at all, are a shit ton of people who fared worse than Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's campaign manager who was convicted of eight felonies in Virginia, who pleaded guilty to many more in DC -- including conspiracy against the United States, as well as an admission of guilt in the 10 felonies he wasn't convicted of in Virginia because of one numbnuts juror -- before he blew the terms of his cooperation deal by willfully lying to prosecutors and the grand jury,

Frederick Turner!

You might not know Frederick Turner, but Judge T.S. Ellis does.

FYI in 2018, #JudgeEllis sentenced Frederick Turner, 37, to a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison for dealing m… https: //t.co/wGyPBXRIRn
— Laura Coates (@Laura Coates) 1552004091.0

Now sure, mandatory minimums are evil and they require many judges to impose insane sentences that do not fit the crime.

But anyway, Ellis "chafed a bit" at giving that drug dealer 36 years and one month more than he gave Paul Manafort, but it's not like he thought it was an immoral sentence or anything. Hell, other than how the mandatory minimum sentence was "wrong," it had led an otherwise blameless life!

Crystal Mason!

Crystal Mason was convicted of tax fraud in 2011. (So was Paul Manafort, in 2018!) And in 2016, she voted in the presidential election, because, according to her lawyer, she didn't know she wasn't allowed to. Trouble was, she was on probation at the time, from the earlier charge. So she got sentenced to five years in prison for illegally interfering with an election she was not supposed to illegally interfere with, which is one year and one month more than Paul Manafort got.

But maybe if Crystal Mason had just been a white man who meddled in an election by working for the GOP presidential candidate for free while also working for the interests of oligarchs who serve Vladimir Putin, and in the course of that, gave internal polling data to a fucking Russian spy, for reasons still unclear, but that probably involved a handoff to Putin's favorite oligarch Oleg Deripaska in the middle of a historic campaign to undermine American democracy, the judge would have been a little bit more lenient with her.

ALL THESE PEOPLE!

Scott Hechinger, a public defender in Brooklyn, went on a wee tweetstorm in response to the Manafort sentencing, telling stories about his clients and his colleagues' clients and others, all of whom fared worse for much lower level crimes than Paul Manafort did:

My colleague’s client today was forced to plead out to the mandatory minimum of 3.5 years (5 months shy of Manafort… https: //t.co/re7TYnLjAN
— Scott Hechinger (@Scott Hechinger) 1552003775.0

15 years in prison for drug possession. You shouldn’t need more info than that to be outraged. But then learn: Juan… https://t.co/sWyTC5knYe
— Scott Hechinger (@Scott Hechinger) 1552004577.0

16-year-old Kalief Browder was jailed on Rikers for 3.5 years, *pretrial,* for allegedly stealing a backpack. Commi… https: //t.co/kKTsvcCpMU
— Scott Hechinger (@Scott Hechinger) 1552005584.0

Some sentencing disparities from colleagues replying. 15 years for theft of a lawnmower. https: //t.co/qASUSdCq2t
— Scott Hechinger (@Scott Hechinger) 1552006817.0

Maybe if all those people had expensive meathead lawyers who filed sentencing recommendations that said NO COLLUSION, they wouldn't have gotten off so bad.

Hell, maybe if they had rolled up in a wheelchair and cried about their gout while failing to apologize for their crimes ...

HUNG PICKPOCKETS!

No foolin', we said HUNG PICKPOCKETS, because Judge T.S. Ellis said it, before he gave Paul Manafort a big noogie and said GET OUTTA HERE, YOU RASCAL.

OK maybe he was talking about "hanged pickpockets," and not pickpockets with big pantrockets. But the point stands, that Ellis said they used to hang pickpockets.

Although we imagine if pickpockets were old white men with money and they were pickpocketing in service of a hostile foreign power, Ellis would decline to hang them.