Just a quick bulletin: archconservative and Defender of the Faith Dinesh d’Souza has been spared jail time. According to The Smoking Gun, he’s just been sentenced to five years’ probation for violating campaign finance laws:

For the first eight months of his probation term, D’Souza will have to live in a “community confinement center” in San Diego, ordered Judge Richard Berman, who also fined D’Souza $30,000 and directed him to undergo “therapeutic counseling.” D’Souza will also have to perform one day per week of community service during his probation term. [JAC: He can otherwise go to work but has to sleep in the house.] In remarks before announcing D’Souza’s sentence, Berman said that he did not believe the defendant had accepted responsibility for his crime. “I’m not sure, Mr. D’Souza, that you get it,” said Berman, who referred to D’Souza’s claim that he was a victim of selective prosecution.

There are more juicy details at The Smoking Gun, including allegations of abuse by his ex-wife, who wrote a letter to the judge that was read in court.

In truth, I thought he’d get some jail time, but according to lawyer Ken White at Popehat, this sentence is pretty much what is expected for d’Souza’s crime:

The sentence isn’t remarkable at all. Both sides agreed on the sentencing range under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Though the recommended sentence under those guidelines was 10-16 months, the judge had discretion to go lower or higher. Probation with a term of home detention or “community confinement” is a very common approach to a nonviolent first offender with a low guideline range. For a 53-year-old with no record, this is roughly in the middle of the array results I would expect. In a case like this I would have shot for probation conditioned on home confinement but told the client that a short term in custody or a term in “community confinement” was a strong possibility. You may see it as unreasonably lenient or hash, but federal criminal practitioners won’t.

And so it goes. I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other.

h/t: Michael