MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York federal judge sentenced Colorado businessman Tim Shea to more than five years behind bars Tuesday on convictions for his role in the We Build the Wall fundraiser, a bogus charity that cheated $25 million from private donors who thought they were funding the construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres presided over the hearing, noting when she imposed the sentence that Shea had taken responsibility for his actions “to a certain degree.”
The Obama-appointed judge said Shea’s efforts to deceive donors and then cover up the fraud hurts everyone “by eroding the public’s faith in the political process.”
Shea, 52, was charged with counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and falsification of records.
Each of the three criminal counts carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, but Judge Torres imposed a sentence of 63 months on each count to be served concurrently.
The 63 month sentence was exactly what prosecutors had requested, a downward variance from the 9 to 11.25 year sentencing range recommended by the probation office.
Shea will voluntarily surrender in October.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams applauded the conclusion of the federal We Build the Wall case.
“Timothy Shea abused the trust of donors to ‘We Build the Wall,’ stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to line his own pockets, and attempted to obstruct the federal investigation of his criminal conduct," Williams said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
Prosecutors originally brought the case back in August 2020, indicting Shea and Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign strategist, as well as Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage and venture capitalist Andrew Badolato.
Following guilty pleas from Kolfage and Badolato, and Bannon's presidential pardon from Trump, Shea was the last man standing in the federal case. He went to trial on the three counts in May 2022 but the proceedings ended in a mistrial thanks to a holdout juror. The jury in his October 2022 retrial quickly reached unanimous guilty verdict on all counts.
We Build the Wall began on the public promise that 100% of funds raised would go toward construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. It quickly raised some $25 million in private donations on GoFundMe but built a mere 3 miles of fencing.
The remainder of the fundraiser money, according to charging papers, was kicked back to line pockets of its founders. Prosecutors said Bannon and Kolfage alone used more than $1 million in We Build the Wall donations to pay for a boat, a 2018 Land Rover Range Rover, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery and other assets.
At trial, prosecutors said Shea and his We Build the Wall cohorts treated the fundraiser as a “bottomless piggybank they looted for whatever they wanted to do."
Prosecutors showed bank records at trial illustrating that Shea's wife, Amanda, received money transferred through her husband’s shell company, and quoted her as telling her We Build The Wall cohorts of the charity: “It’ll be a gold mine for sure."
Though Shea's wife held herself out on Twitter as CFO of We Build the Wall, she has not been charged.
Both Sheas made thousands of dollars from We Build the Wall merchandise and also steered donor money into launching Trump-themed energy drink company, Winning Energy, which sells cans that boast “12 oz. of liberal tears," the government told jurors at trial.
Judge Torres ordered Shea to give up $1.8 million in forfeiture, to be paid after his release from prison in monthly installments equal to 15% of his gross income.
Shea told Judge Torres on Tuesday he regrets “all the of the We Build The Wall stuff.”
“I wish I hadn’t been involved in any of that,” he said at the sentencing hearing, standing up with both hands slipped into his pants pockets.
Shea was represented at his sentencing hearing by Thomas Nooter, who took over after Shea’s trial attorney, veteran defense lawyer John Meringolo, abruptly died last November at age 48.
Kolfage, the triple-amputee Iraq war veteran who served as the public face of the We Build the Wall campaign, was sentenced to four years and three months behind bars on his guilty plea.
Although a last-minute pardon from then-President Donald Trump spared Bannon from liability on the federal charges, Manhattan prosecutors brought state charges against the former Breitbart News executive chairman last September.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. Bannon will stand trial in May 2024 in New York state supreme court.
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