T he recent sentencing of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, demonstrates again that white-collar defendants in the American legal system get off lightly compared to their street counterparts.

The first sentence meted out to Manafort in Virginia would be seen as entirely misguided by almost all legal experts. Judge Ellis essentially trivialized the seriousness of the charges and politicized them in his fully biased and inappropriate remarks during the trial as due only to the special prosecutor’s quest to get to Trump. The punishment amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Manafort’s second sentence in Washington DC given by a more measured jurist was still quite magnanimous given the charges which included witness tampering, and was well under the maximum penalty of 10 years. Public outrage over the sentences is not surprising. A number of issues are at play that assure that most white-collar offenders will get off lightly; or not be caught at all. Read More

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