Veteran sentenced to prison for US border wall fraud scheme

Brian Kolfage has been sentenced to four years in prison for pocketing donations collected to build Donald Trump’s border wall.

The co-founder of a fundraising group that pledged to help Donald Trump build a wall along the southern border of the United States was sentenced on Wednesday to four years and three months in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors.

Brian Kolfage, a decorated Air Force veteran who lost both his legs and an arm in the Iraq War, previously pleaded guilty to his role in siphoning donations from the We Build the Wall campaign.

A co-defendant, financier Andrew Badolato, was also sentenced to three years for complicity in the effort. He also pleaded guilty. A third man involved in siphoning money from the wall project, Colorado businessman Tim Shea, will not be sentenced until June.

Kolfage and Badolato were also ordered to pay $25 million in restitution to the victims.

Absent from the case was Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top political adviser. He was initially arrested aboard a luxury yacht and charged with federal fraud along with the other men, but Trump pardoned him during his final hours in office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed new state charges against Bannon last year. He is waiting for trial. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes, not state offenses. Bannon has called the case “nonsense”.

Kolfage, Badolato and Shea were not pardoned by Trump, leaving them facing years in prison.

Prosecutors said the plan was masterminded by Kolfage, who served as the public face of the effort as it raised more than $25 million from donors across the country. He repeatedly assured the public that he “wouldn’t take a dime” from the campaign.

With the money flowing into the business, Kolfage and his partner, Shea, turned to Bannon and Badolato for help setting up a non-profit organization, We Build the Wall, Inc. The four defendants then took steps to funnel the money to themselves for personal gain, prosecutors said. .

Kolfage, 41, told Judge Analisa Torres he was “repentant, disgusted and humiliated.” He said he hadn’t anticipated the scale of donations pouring in for the cause and soon found himself drifting from his initial goal, which he said was “to shine a spotlight on the country’s broken immigration system”.

“I made a promise not to profit personally and I broke that promise,” he said.

Torres said the defendants not only defrauded their donors, but also contributed to a “chilling effect on civic participation” by tarnishing the reputation of political fundraising.

“The fraudsters behind We Build The Wall have wounded the political body,” she said.

Kolfage received more than $350,000 in donor funds, which he spent on personal expenses, including boat payments, a luxury SUV and cosmetic surgery, prosecutors said in a lawsuit.

Bannon was accused of raising more than $1 million through a separate non-profit organization and then secretly paying a portion back to Kolfage.

Badolato, 58, and Shea also stole hundreds of thousands from fundraisers, prosecutors said.

As part of a plea deal, Kolfage and Badolato agreed not to challenge a sentence within the agreed range: between four and five years for Kolfage and three and a half to four years for Badolato.

A lawyer for Kolfage previously argued that his client should avoid jail time given his lack of criminal history and severe disability.

Some sections of a border barrier were built by We Build the Wall on private land, but the nonprofit has now been disbanded.