On May 5, a federal jury in Iowa found three former Ron Paul staffers guilty of conspiring to hide thousands of dollars in secret payments to an Iowa state senator in exchange for his endorsement of then-Senator Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign. The jury heard evidence at trial that the three staffers, without Senator Paul’s knowledge, bribed then-Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson to endorse Paul by arranging for payments of $73,000 from campaign funds. The staffers logged the payments in campaign accounts as campaign video-production expenses, and provided those records to the Federal Elections Commission and the FBI. Sorenson had already pleaded guilty in August 2014 to causing a federal campaign committed to falsify its expenditures and to obstruction of justice. Both Sorenson and the staffers are awaiting sentencing. United States v. Benton, 15-cr-00103 (S.D. Iowa). DOJ Press Release
