Ron Paul campaign staffers' fate rests with jury

The fate of two former Ron Paul presidential campaign staffers accused of a plotting to secretly pay thousands of dollars to a former Iowa state senator for his endorsement now rests with a federal jury.

Jurors began deliberations Tuesday afternoon in the case of former Paul staffers Dimitri Kesari and Jesse Benton.

Kesari, Paul's former deputy campaign manager, faces multiple charges, including conspiracy and falsely reporting campaign expenditures to the Federal Election Commission.

Benton, Paul's former campaign chair, faces one charge of lying to FBI agents who were investigating the scandal, in which he and Kesari are accused of covering up a plan to pay former state Sen. Kent Sorenson $73,000 to flip his support from former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann to Paul ahead of the caucus.

In closing arguments Tuesday, a federal prosecutor asked the jury to “follow the money trail,” revisiting a series of emails between Kesari and his campaign staffers. Prosecutors presented these documents as evidence to build the case that Sorenson was paid through a third-party audio/video production company to keep payments off public campaign expense reports.

"These guys knew this. It's their campaign. They know how this works," said Jonathan Kravis, the federal prosecutor. "These invoices are about as legitimate as a three-dollar bill."

Kesari’s defense attorney, Jesse Binnall, spent most of his closing argument trying to discredit Sorenson’s testimony last week.

“So much of the dots we have here to connect are based on a man who can’t be trusted,” Binnall said of Sorenson. “Mr. Sorenson has lied so much about this case he probably doesn’t remember what the truth is anymore. It must be exhausting to remember all the different fibs you’ve told about the same story.”

SORENSON: Politics was a 'waste of my life'​

Binnall argued that Kesari was trying to help Sorenson, who needed cash and was concerned for his political future. Sorenson testified for the prosecution, hoping to receive a lighter sentence for his own crimes.

Sorenson pleaded guilty last year to concealing payments he received from the Paul campaign, as well as obstruction of justice. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

“(Sorenson) really wants to please the government with his testimony. He was incentivized to put my client away so he can spend less time in prison,” Binall said.

Sorenson had testified earlier that Kesari, a political friend, raised the stakes over a Dec. 26, 2011, dinner with his wife, after admitting he was worried about Bachmann’s polling and whether he’d be paid. Sorenson took a bathroom break, at which point Kesari allegedly handed his wife a $25,000 check made out to Sorenson’s consulting company.

The former state senator decided to switch to the Paul campaign late in the day on Dec. 28, 2011, Sorenson testified, where he was promised an $8,000 monthly salary. The defense disputed whether the prosecution could prove that the word “filing” in an email between staffers about a $33,000 expenditure was referring to Sorenson’s secret payments, as alleged by the prosecution, or taxes.

“We don’t even know if they’re talking about FEC filings. It could be taxes, for all we know,” Binnall said.

Prosecutors also showed jurors emails they said proved that Benton was involved in attempts at wooing Sorenson into the Paul camp and that he approved invoices for payments to Sorenson. It's proof that he lied to FBI agents when he claimed to know nothing about such payments, the prosecutors have said.

"Who first offered Kent Sorenson $8,000 a month salary? That man was Jesse Benton," Kravis said.

He pointed to emails from Kesari about the payments to Sorenson allegedly disguised as invoices from another company, some of them saying, "approved by Jesse."

"He lies because he knows he's mixed up in something bad. … It's his way of trying to get out of it."

TIMELINE: Kent Sorenson case

Roscoe Howard Jr., Benton’s defense attorney, argued that notes from FBI agent on their interview with Benton were full of typos and other errors. No evidence proves that Benton had knowledge of invoices from the Sorenson payments, he said, adding that the over-worked campaign chair likely couldn’t properly view an invoice on his cellphone anyway — an item he held up for the jury to see.

He painted Kesari as being sympathetic to Sorenson’s financial situation and Benton questioning the decision to pay him.

“Take a look at the emails. The guy putting up the stop sign is Jesse Benton,” Howard Jr. said. “He had better things to do than check on Kent Sorenson. He was trying to get someone elected to the highest office there is.”

The jury will continue deliberations Wednesday morning.