Ex-Trump aide Paul Manafort's light sentence underscores unfair justice system in US

Legal experts and politicians in the US say the light prison sentence handed to Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former election manager, highlights the country's prison inequality and a justice system that favors wealthy white people.

US District Judge T.S. Ellis imposed the 47-month sentence on Manafort on Thursday during a court hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, a surprisingly lenient sentence that was far less than government guidelines.

Manafort was convicted by a jury last August of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.

Ellis disregarded federal sentencing guidelines that called for a 20-year term, effectively a lifetime sentence for the 69-year-old Manafort.

Manafort was also slapped with a $50,000 fine. That was the bare minimum recommended by federal guidelines, which had suggested a fine of up to $24 million.

His crimes were revealed during US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 US presidential election and any possible coordination between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Mueller's prosecution team clearly wanted a more severe punishment for Trump's former election chairman.

Legal experts expressed surprise over the sentence. “This is a tremendous defeat for the special counsel’s office,” former federal prosecutor David Weinstein said.

Manafort’s sentence was less than half of what people who plead guilty and cooperate with the government typically get in similar cases, according to Mark Allenbaugh, a former attorney with the US Sentencing Commission. “Very shocking,” he said.

Much of the outrage came from lawyers, in particular public defenders who often represented those from underprivileged backgrounds.They used Manafort’s case as an example of racial disparity in the US justice system.

“There are a lot of defendants who are going to prison for a lot longer for offenses that are far less serious,” said Duncan Levin, an attorney who specializes in financial crimes. “This sentence is leaving me and a lot of people who do this every day scratching our heads.”

A study of US sentencing data last year found that when black men and white men commit the same crime, black men receive a sentence almost 20 percent longer on average.

PressTV-Trump ex-aide Manafort sentenced to 47 months in prison

US President Donald Trump’s former election campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been sentenced by a federal judge to less than four years in prison.

The unexpectedly light sentence was also met with a wave of anger from many minority politicians. US Senator Cory Booker, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, channeled his party's fury.

"This news came out about Paul Manafort, and I'm really ticked off about this," said an agitated Booker while appearing on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

“One of my friends says we have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent," he said.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the outspoken Democrat who is US Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, tweeted that Manafort’s sentence showed that “in our current broken system, ‘justice’ isn’t blind. It’s bought.”

“Paul Manafort getting such little jail time for such serious crimes lays out for the world how it’s almost impossible for rich people to go to jail for the same amount of time as someone who is lower income,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez, a Hispanic American.

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