By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 11 – The long delayed sentencing of John Lambert who "represented himself to clients as a prominent NY attorney but had never been to law school and wasn’t an attorney" took placed on May 11. Inner City Press live tweeted it here:
Lambert founded Students for Trump.
Judge Caproni: There was a victim named Penn Little who said he wanted to speak. He is here? Is he on the phone? No, he is not here. But I have a question. Why didn't the government identify all the victims? AUSA: We didn't get a warrant for his email...
AUSA: We determined that Mr. Lambert's victims might have been able to assert attorney - client privilege [even though Lambert was *not* an attorney.] The government contacted everyone we identified by PayPal. And there are victims listening in.
AUSA: Mr. Lambert offered his services on UpWork - he was targeting unsophisticated consumers of legal services. "Credit Victim 1" embodies this. Lambert had him drain his 401(k), and he didn't have it during COVID.
US wants sentence of 15 to 21 months.
Now Lambert's lawyer: He has just trying to set up a web marketing company. Somehow it turned into a fake law firm that claimed it was based in Manhattan. His "partner" claimed to be from there.
Lambert's lawyer: I asked myself, how can I represent the founder of Students for Trump? I asked him, and he said he would plead guilty. He met his co-conspirator at Students for Trump. He has been ridiculed in the press and online.
Lambert: I want to apologize to my victims. My soul is left broken. This began in college when I engaged in student activism.
Judge Caproni: You went to schools affiliated with Liberty College. You co-founded Students for Trump. You sat for interviews with all types of media organizations. You are not married and you have no children. I note you have made no effort to repay your victims
Judge Caproni: You could have gotten a job and tried to repay. But you didn't. Fraud is a serious offense. This took a lot of thought. You created a cyber existence to fool people. A serious sentence here may deter other young people from dabbling in fraud.
Judge Caproni: By all indications you stood up to people for an unpopular belief. You stood up to people who shunned Trump. Your narrative of being tricked by your co-conspirator is not credible. Keeping young people engaged in our government is good. Fraud is bad
Judge Caproni: I find the guideline sentence is somewhat longer than necessary. But the sentence urged by the defendant and Probation is too low. I'm going to sentence you to 13 months, then supervised release of three years.
Lambert's lawyer asks for designation to a facility in Pensacola or Montgomery, Alabama.
Judge Caproni: You are to surrender on or before June 25.
I strongly suggested you get vaccinated against COVID-19 before then.
The case is US v. Lambert, 19-cr-571 (Caproni)
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