U.S. District Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District of New York (see profile) did everything but send conservative commentator and Obama critic Dinesh D’Souza to prison for funneling illegal campaign contributions to a college friend who was running for the U.S. Senate.
After chastising D’Souza for failing to truly accept responsibility for making $20,000 in illegal contributions to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012, Berman sentenced the columnist and documentary filmmaker to five years’ probation, eight months in a halfway house and one eight-hour day per week of community service for five years.
