Tennessee Republican sentenced to more than a year in prison

Former Tennessee Republican state Senator Brian Kelsey was sentenced on Friday to one year and nine months in prison in connection with a campaign finance law violation and conspiring to defraud the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in a scheme to bolster his 2016 U.S. Congressional campaign, the Justice Department said in a news release.

Prosecutors allege that Kelsey, 45, of Alexandria, Virginia, was behind a secret effort to illegally funnel money from multiple sources, including his own Tennessee state Senate campaign committee, to his congressional campaign.

Kelsey conspired with others and controlled a Tennessee political action committee affiliated with a members-only club of which he was a member, the announcement says.

The DOJ alleges that Kelsey was involved in a conspiracy that prompted a national political organization to make illegal and excessive contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee by secretly coordinating with the organization on advertisements supporting Kelsey’s federal candidacy, which caused false reports of contributions and expenditures to be filed with the FEC.

The Germantown, Tennessee Republican called the case against him a “witch hunt” before pleading guilty to two felonies last year, The Tennessean reports.

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“The defendants attempted to hide from voters how Kelsey raised and spent campaign money,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement.

“The integrity of our elections is essential to democracy, and voters should know how candidates raise and spend campaign dollars. The Department will continue to work alongside our law enforcement partners to uncover and prosecute campaign finance schemes designed to evade disclosure, and to ensure that violations of these laws carry a high cost.”