Not exactly. Dinesh pled guilty. His post-conviction argument has been to complain that some Democrat celebrity wasn’t prosecuted for doing the same thing, not that he was innocent.
Dinesh had hidden excess campaign donations by using friends as proxies and then reimbursing them. If he had openly over donated (what the Democrat donor had done) he might have gotten off by claiming it was a simple mistake, but hiding it indicated intent and killed that defense.
Back in the 1990s Dinesh had acquired the nickname “Distort D’Newsa” from his coworkers at the conservative college paper the Dartmouth Review. When he then ventured into professional journalism he tried currying favor by attacking paleoconservatives as racists. This happened pre internet but people who know Dinesh’s past aren’t surprised when he finds himself in more hot water while claiming victimhood.
Dinesh saw his big break when he managed to get Sam Francis fired from the Washington Times.
He’s been a parasite with all of the political conviction of the Vicar of Bray ever since.