Prosecutors seek up to nine years for ex-Trump adviser Roger Stone

Prosecutors recommended that longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone receive seven to nine years in prison.

Roger Stone leaves court last November with wife Nydia. Picture: AP

Prosecutors have recommended that longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone receive seven to nine years in prison on charges related to his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign, in what could be the longest ­sentence to stem from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Stone was found guilty last year of witness tampering, obstruction of a congressional proceeding and lying to congress. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

“Stone was not compelled to testify falsely before congress,” federal prosecutors in Washington wrote in a sentencing recommendation filed on Tuesday (AEDT). “He could have told the truth, or he could have declined the invitation to testify altogether. Instead, Stone chose another option: he lied to congress and then he tampered with a witness who could expose those lies. Stone’s goal, at the outset, was to obstruct the committee’s search for the truth.”

The witness tampering charge, which involves Stone’s effort to pressure a New York comedian to describe himself as Stone’s intermediary to WikiLeaks, carries a 20-year maximum penalty, though first-time offenders often get far less time. The comedian, Randy Credico, asked federal district judge Amy Berman Jackson in January not to send Stone to prison, calling a prison sentence not justice but cruelty.

“Mr Stone, at his core, is an insecure person who craves and recklessly pursues attention,” he wrote. “Prison is no remedy.”

Multiple defendants in Mr Mueller’s investigation received sentences of a few weeks in prison for lying to investigators or other crimes. Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has received the longest prison term to date of about 7½ years for tax and bank fraud.

The sentencing request for Stone came a day after another prosecutor in the same office sought to delay the sentencing of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, requesting more time to address concerns raised by Flynn, who is now trying to withdraw from his 2017 guilty plea. One of the lead prosecutors in Flynn’s case did not appear on the filing.

Flynn’s case has been in limbo. Last year he fired his longtime law firm, Covington & Burling, retaining in its place con­servative lawyer and television commentator Sidney Powell. Since hiring Ms Powell, Flynn has sought to withdraw his guilty plea, a move that if successful would send his case to trial.

In a motion last month, Flynn’s new team argued that he would not have pleaded guilty if his lawyers had provided him with all of the information they knew about his case.

“The multiple instances in which Mr Flynn’s former lawyers’ conflicts of interest and actions fell completely short of professional norms, thus depriving him of the constitutionally mandated effective assistance of counsel, nullified his opportunity to make informed decisions about his own case, and it grossly prejudiced his defence,” the filing said.

A Covington spokesman said: “Under the bar rules, we are limited in our ability to respond publicly even to allegations of this nature, absent the client’s consent or a court order.”

In that case, government prosecutors on Monday asked the court to have Flynn’s former lawyers at Covington give statements or testify.

On Tuesday, federal district judge Emmet Sullivan cancelled Flynn’s sentencing hearing, which had been scheduled for February 27. He asked for both sides to discuss the privilege waiver and file additional materials later this month.

The Wall Street Journal