‘Mercenary’ donor gets 12 years in campaign finance scheme
A once high-flying political fundraiser who prosecutors said gave illegal campaign contributions to Joe Biden, Lindsey Graham and a host of other U.S. politicians was sentenced Thursday to 12 years behind bars.
Imaad Zuberi, who was accused of ingratiating himself with politicos in both major parties and peddling the resulting influence to foreign governments, pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, campaign finance violations and failing to register as a foreign agent.
He also was ordered to pay nearly $16 million in restitution and a nearly $2 million fine. He reports to prison May 25.
Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips for a stiff sentence, calling the scope of Zuberi’s scheme unprecedented. The Los Angeles businessman’s crimes included unregistered lobbying for governments with spotty human rights records like Sri
Lanka and Turkey as well as a Ukrainian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, prosecutors said.
Phillips noted the sophistication of Zuberi’s straw donor scheme and also spoke of the role such campaign finance investigations play in preserving the integrity of American elections.
Zuberi, 50, maintained his wrongdoing had been limited and asked to be credited for years of cooperation with federal and local law enforcement. His attorneys noted he already has paid more than $10 million in restitution.
“I’m deeply sorry and, of course, humiliated,” Zuberi told the judge. “I have no excuse for what I’ve done.”
Some of Zuberi’s cooperation remains under seal. Phillips, citing national security interests, closed the courtroom for part of Thursday’s proceedings to discuss classified information Zuberi filed in an effort to reduce his sentence. Zuberi’s attorneys asked Phillips to credit him for a list of law enforcement leads and intelligence he provided to the federal government, according to people familiar with the court filings.
Zuberi, a Pakistani-American who has extensive business dealings overseas, was in frequent contact with a CIA officer over the years and bragged to associates of his ties to the intelligence community, The Associated Press reported last year.
Zuberi had been planning to assist federal authorities in a corruption investigation of an unnamed mayor in California, his attorneys wrote in a newly unsealed memo. He was even “preparing at an FBI office for a recorded conversation” when that effort was called off after news broke that federal prosecutors in New York were investigating the $900,000 contribution Zuberi made to former President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, the records say. Zuberi has admitted obstructing that federal investigation.
Portions of the newly unsealed documents were redacted, in part, because of ongoing criminal investigations. These documents also demonstrate how Zuberi built a widespread network of contacts, thanks in part to his prodigious political giving. That included six-figure donations to the ObamaBiden ticket in 2012 and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.
No one who accepted tainted money from Zuberi has been accused of wrongdoing, and Biden, through a spokesman, has said he had no knowledge of Zuberi’s illegal acts when they met, mostly at donor roundtables when Biden was vice president.