CRIME & COURTS

Sorenson testimony could be key in Paul operatives' trial

Grant Rodgers
grodgers@dmreg.com

The outcome of a trial for two Ron Paul campaign operatives accused of breaking election law could hinge on the credibility of former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, the very man for whom they're accused of hiding payments.

Lawyers gave opening statements Tuesday in the federal trial of Jesse Benton and Dimitri Kesari, both top players in Paul's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. A grand jury in August indicted Benton and Kesari on charges dealing with a plan to pay Sorenson $73,000 for famously flipping his support from former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann to endorse Paul ahead of the caucus.

Sorenson will be a main witness for prosecutors, testifying about how Paul's presidential campaign committee paid him through a third-party film production company to illegally hide the payments from journalists and caucusgoers, said Richard Pilger, a prosecutor and director of the election crimes branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, in his opening statement.

Both Pilger and a defense lawyer used their openings to paint contrasting pictures of the former lawmaker for jurors: One as a contrite truth-teller and the other as a liar hoping to shorten a prison sentence for his own crimes. Sorenson pleaded guilty last year to concealing payments he received from the Paul campaign, as well as an obstruction of justice charge. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

MORE: Timeline of Kent Sorenson case

The prosecutor told jurors it's true that Sorenson "absolutely" hopes a judge will give him a lighter sentence in exchange for his testimony. But Sorenson is still a credible source, backed up by countless emails between campaign officials expected to be presented at trial, Pilger said.

"He accepted responsibility for what he did," Pilger said.

But Jesse Binnall, a lawyer for Kesari, told jurors in his own opening to be skeptical of Sorenson, who resigned from the Iowa Senate in October 2013 after an independent investigator found he broke ethics rules by taking money from the Bachmann campaign before he joined the Paul camp.

"When you hear from Mr. Sorenson, you're going to hear from someone who has a bit of a strained relationship with the truth," he said. "You're going to find that you're not going to believe anything that comes from (Sorenson's) mouth, at the end of the day. His credibility is shot."

The trial, expected to unfold over nine days, caps a controversy that began on Dec. 28, 2011, when Sorenson, who started the election season as Bachmann's state campaign chair, switched his allegiance to Paul at a campaign rally.

Emails obtained by prosecutors show that Benton, the Paul campaign's chairman, was involved in October conversations to pay Sorenson $8,000 per month if he'd switch campaigns, Pilger said in his opening.

During a Dec. 26, 2011, dinner in Altoona, Kesari, a deputy campaign manager, gave Sorenson's wife a $25,000 check from the account of his own wife's jewelry store, Pilger said. The campaign also prepared to make a $25,000 wire transfer to Sorenson but scratched it after Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly questioned Sorenson on-air about allegations that he was paid by the Paul camp for his support one day after the switch.

Sorenson replied that he was "absolutely not" offered money and that expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission would prove him right. That public denial of payments forced the Paul campaign operatives to find another way to get Sorenson money off-the-books that would not appear in an FEC report, Pilger said. Paul himself is also expected to testify at the trial that he never would have approved of such an arrangement.

"They cared more about winning than they did following the law or even the values of their own candidate," he said.

Pilger told jurors that Benton, Kesari and campaign manager John Tate all knew about the scheme, which involved paying monthly invoices to a film production company whose owner unwittingly agreed to act as a "pass-through" company for payments to Sorenson. After receiving payments from the Paul campaign, the production company would dole out cash to a company controlled by Sorenson, Grassroots Strategy.

Kesari faces multiple charges, including a conspiracy count, while Benton only faces a charge for allegedly lying to FBI agents investigating the case. In a pretrial ruling, U.S. District Judge John Jarvey dismissed all charges against Tate and several charges against Benton.

During his opening, Pilger said that Benton lied to FBI agents in July 2014 by denying any knowledge of payments to Sorenson. Emails shown to jurors will prove otherwise, the prosecutor said.

But defense attorney Meena Sinfelt in her opening portrayed Benton's claims to the FBI as meaningless. Benton received hundreds of emails per day while working for the campaign, often answering them on his smartphone, she said.

"How many of you remember what you paid on your taxes last year?" she asked jurors. "How many of you can remember the email that you got from your son's teacher two years ago?"

Sinfelt encouraged jurors to listen for evidence about the questions agents asked Benton and decide whether they might have been vague.

Binnall, the attorney for Kesari, shifted blame for any impropriety from the Paul campaign to Sorenson in his opening. It was Sorenson who suggested using the method of being paid through a third party after the state senator used a similar system for being paid by the Bachmann campaign, he said.

"Mr. Sorenson didn't want to get kicked out of office," said Binnall, referencing Iowa Senate ethics rules that bar sitting senators from receiving payments from a campaign.

The lawyer also told jurors Kesari — a friend and adviser to Sorenson — wrote the check in the Altoona restaurant after the state senator confided in him about money problems his family was having.

Editors note: The original version of this story indicated two events happened in December 2012. The story has been corrected to show they happened in 2011.