WASHINGTON— Roger Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison on Thursday for lying to Congress and other crimes, after a tumultuous two weeks in which the government trial lawyers withdrew and President Trump repeatedly criticized the handling of the case.
Mr. Stone, a Republican consultant who has been a political adviser to Mr. Trump for decades, was sentenced to 40 months of incarceration, a $20,000 fine and two years of supervised release by Judge Amy Berman Jackson at a morning hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C. on charges of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.
The sentence was far less than the seven to nine years that trial prosecutors had initially recommended under federal guidelines before Attorney General William Barr and other senior officials overruled their original recommendation, suggesting a lighter punishment. Judge Jackson said following the guidelines would result in a sentence that “would be greater than necessary.”
Judge Jackson acknowledged Mr. Stone’s history of cultivating a public persona as a provocateur and a prankster.
“The problem is that nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t a stunt and it wasn’t a prank. Stone’s conduct displayed flagrant disrespect for the institutions of government as established by the constitution, including Congress and this court,” said Judge Jackson in sentencing Mr. Stone.