All federal practitioners know, and all federal defendants should know, that what a defendant actually did can often matter a lot less in the sentencing process than whether that defendant pleads guilty and cooperates with authorities. The latest reminder of this reality comes from the upcoming sentencing of Rick Gates, who was indicted two years ago in a 31-page indictment of available via this link in which he was portrayed as a "partner in crime" with Paul Manafort.
Manafort, of course, fought the charges and after being found guilty (on less than half of the charges given to the jury), federal prosecutors calculated his applicable guideline range as nearly 20 to 25 years in prison and seemed to argue that Manafort deserved a 20-year prison term for his criminal behaviors. (Matters get complicated thereafter because Manafort pleaded guilty to another set of charges and he ultimately received 7.5 years in total imprisonment after two sentencings.)
Gates, in telling contrast, decided to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities. Doing so contributed to a guideline calculation setting this advisory Guidelines range at 46 to 57 months of imprisonment. And, as this Politico article highlights, it has now also led the federal prosecutors not to oppose Gates' request for a sentence of probation and no fine in this 19-page sentencing memo. Here is part of the Politico piece providing highlights:
Rick Gates should be rewarded with probation after serving as a critical high-profile government witness whose testimony helped net convictions against two of President Donald Trump’s campaign aides, the Justice Department and an attorney for the former Trump deputy campaign chairman said in a pair of new court filings.
Gates — who pleaded guilty in February 2018 to financial fraud and lying to investigators — quickly became a fountain of information for Robert Mueller’s investigators, eventually testifying against both former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, Trump’s long-time political whisperer.
The 47-year-old GOP operative spent more than 500 hours with federal and state prosecutors, both before and after he officially flipped on Trump and his allies. He also responded to three congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony. Gates’ voice dominates the final Mueller report, as he recounts details about how Trump and his 2016 campaign coordinated and planned for the release of stolen Democratic emails at critical moments of the White House race.
In a filing Monday, Gates’ attorney pleaded with U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson to give his client probation and impose no fines when she sentences him Dec. 17. “We believe that the parties are in agreement that Mr. Gates has fulfilled every obligation he agreed to (and then some) and that he has devoted enormous energy and commitment to this task while telling the truth and maintaining his composure,” wrote Gates’ attorney, Tom Green.
Federal prosecutors — who inherited the Gates case from Mueller — said in a filing Tuesday that they wouldn’t oppose the request for probation. The former Trump deputy had “provided the government with extraordinary assistance,” wrote Molly Gaston, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington D.C. That included 50 meetings with investigators, during which Gates provided “truthful information” to Mueller and several other DOJ offices, as well as a vow to testify in any ongoing cases. "Gates’ cooperation has been steadfast despite the fact that the government has asked for his assistance in high-profile matters, against powerful individuals, in the midst of a particularly turbulent environment," Gaston added.
Without elaborating, Gaston also said Gates had "received pressure not to cooperate with the government, including assurances of monetary assistance." Gates has already helped the government at several high-profile moments. In August 2018, he incriminated Manafort from the witness stand in several crimes, including multimillion-dollar tax evasion, bank fraud and hiding offshore accounts. A jury later convicted Manafort, who is now serving a 7 1/2-year prison sentence. Gates also appeared last month as a star witness in the trial against Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks in the 2016 presidential race.
For so many reasons, the crimes and subsequent behaviors of Manafort and Gates are unique in many ways. But federal practitioners know well that it is actually quite common for one defendant who goes to trial to be facing a prosecutorial recommendation of decades in prison while a cooperating co-defendant involved in comparable criminal behavior receives a recommendation for only probation.
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