Posted on 10/29/2019 2:14:01 PM PDT by ransomnote
A Texas entrepreneur was sentenced to 36 months in prison today for fraudulently soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions through several scam-PACs that he founded and advertised as supporting candidates for the Office of the President of the United States during the 2016 election cycle.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge Christopher H. Combs of the FBI’s San Antonio Division made the announcement.
Kyle Gerald Prall, 40, of Austin, Texas, previously pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew W. Austin of the Western District of Texas. He was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman. In addition to the prison sentence, Prall was ordered to pay $548,428 in restitution and to forfeit $205,496.68 in proceeds obtained from his offense.
According to admissions made in connection with his plea, in 2015 and 2016, Prall created several political committees—including Feel Bern, HC4President and Trump Victory—which he advertised online to solicit contributions purportedly in support of presidential candidates in the 2016 election. Prall advertised that the contributions would be used to support the candidates in various ways, including paying for transportation for voters to the polls; paying for training for volunteers to make phone calls and canvass neighborhoods to support the respective candidates; paying to help voters obtain appropriate identification documents; and making contributions directly to one of the candidates and to other organizations supporting his campaign. In reality, Prall did not intend to, and did not, use the contributions for these purposes and instead transferred much of the money to himself through sham LLC accounts and used the other funds to generate additional contributions to his fraudulent political committees. Specifically, Prall admitted that of the $548,428 in contributions, he transferred $205,496 to himself through sham LLCs that he created for the purpose of moving the money, while contributing less than $5,100 to political causes. Additionally, Prall used the political committees’ debit cards to pay for his personal travel and entertainment expenses, such as travel to Jacksonville, Florida, and Belize; hotel stays in Miami Beach, Florida, and Austin, Texas; and to pay for food, Hookah, alcohol and bottle service, “club dances performed by entertainers,” room service, minibar charges, a deep-tissue massage, and a pet-cleaning fee.
The FBI’s San Antonio Division is investigating the case. Deputy Chief John D. Keller and Trial Attorney James C. Mann of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.
Specifically, Prall admitted that of the $548,428 in contributions, he transferred $205,496 to himself through sham LLCs that he created for the purpose of moving the money, while contributing less than $5,100 to political causes. Additionally, Prall used the political committees’ debit cards to pay for his personal travel and entertainment expenses, such as travel to Jacksonville, Florida, and Belize; hotel stays in Miami Beach, Florida, and Austin, Texas; and to pay for food, Hookah, alcohol and bottle service, “club dances performed by entertainers,” room service, minibar charges, a deep-tissue massage, and a pet-cleaning fee.
This was a straight up scam, but there are other entities that claim to represent a point of view, but use the funds to support other causes.
My wake up call was after 9/11, when they ran a marathon on TV to raise funds to "support the families." There was a quick scroll by of the causes, very late in the marathon, and it was the usual list of leftie causes, planned parenthood, gun control groups. etc.
Now that’s bipartisanship.
I hope that lap dance at a premium strip club was worth three years of hard time.
Heard there were some “tea party groups” that were strictly financial scammers of the same sort of “PAC”
Had the money been given directly to political campaigns, it would have been spent pretty much the same way. Maybe a few more bribes to pollsters and media stooges and less Belize.
“Good post, and should serve as a cautionary tale to ALL Freepers. Contribute directly to the. candidate at his or her web site.”
Agree. I think most of us know enough not to give the RNC any money, but we also need to steer clear of PACs too.
Spot on.
I guess he saw what Hillary was doing and thought “why not?”
Watching Hillary convinced me that that’s the easiest money to be had: set up a website decrying racial and ethnic injustice, climate warming, economic injustice and hurtful words, kickback and watch the cash roll in. Then of course, take the prescribed percentage, distribute it to the least effective leftist non-profits and keep the rest. Those idiots, now poorer, will hate the rich even more. As a middleman you’d be choking the cash conduits to the enemy.
Lenny Bruce ran this scam in Miami, walking around with a cleric’s collar. After he had milked the town he rote out a check and moved along. Totally legal; they couldn’t lay a hand on him.
Doing well while doing good: it’s the dream career.Just one thing: we’re not the Clintons. That’s where that guy got it wrong.
If I were not so lazy I’d do exactly what you described, except use the proceeds for something subversive, such as free classes on critical thinking skills, how to read journalese, interpret fake statistics, etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.