Photo Credit: REUTERS / LUCAS JACKSONConservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza avoided prison on Tuesday when a U.S. judge sentenced him to serve eight months in a community confinement center after he pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law.

D’Souza, 53, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan to live in a center, which would allow him to leave during non-residential hours for employment, for the first eight months of a five-year probationary period.

Berman also ordered D’Souza to perform one day of community service a week during probation, undergo weekly therapy and pay a $30,000 fine.

D’Souza, a frequent critic of U.S. President Barack Obama, admitted in May to illegally reimbursing two “straw donors” who donated $10,000 each to the unsuccessful 2012 U.S. Senate campaign in New York of Wendy Long, a Republican he had known since attending Dartmouth College in the early 1980s.

“It was a crazy idea, it was a bad idea,” D’Souza told Berman before being sentenced. “I regret breaking the law.”

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“This downing of the airplane is a small indication of what happens when American power is subtracted from the world,” D’Souza told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner.

It’s an argument that coincides with the theme of D’Souza’s new docu-drama movie, “America: Imagine the World Without Her,” and companion book of the same title.

In print and on screen, D’Souza contends that the progressive moment’s relentlessly downbeat portrait of America emphasizes past failings, portrays national strengths as liabilities, and shuns the country’s essential contributions to global peace, prosperity and freedom.

D’Souza said President Obama, in withdrawing from the international stage and conceding management of global affairs to others, is helping to make the movie’s point.

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Dinesh D’Souza shocked the movie world in 2012 with his anti-President Barack Obama documentary “2016,” which became the second highest-grossing documentary in U.S. movie history. On July 2, he unveiled his new documentary called “America: Imagine the World Without Her.” It has already grossed $5 million in its first week. One fictional competitor, the abortion-promoting comedy “Obvious Child,” barely grossed $2 million in its first month.

But there’s a more dramatic contrast. Film critics are supposed to judge art, but their liberal politics are smeared all over their reviews. Metacritic.com collects and analyzes movie reviews. “Obvious Child” drew a high Metacritic.com score of 75 (out of 100). For D’Souza’s “America,” it was a ridiculously low score of 14.

Then take the highest-grossing documentary in our history, Michael Moore’s 2004 hatchet job “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Editor and Publisher magazine reported nine of 10 newspaper movie critics recommended the film.

The Washington Post gushed over Moore’s prankumentary. “Its trajectory is guided with pinpoint accuracy,” wrote Desson Thomson, and it “obviously skews facts to its own advantage, but that’s what the game is all about. What counts is the emotional power of Moore’s persuasion.”

“Fahrenheit” was loaded with bizarre and unproven charges against former President George W. Bush, most offensively suggesting the Bush family and Osama bin Laden’s family were in cahoots over 9/11. Moore concluded the film with a conspiracy theory: “In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects.” All of that was just fine.

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By Greg Richter.

Conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says it was “wrong” and “stupid” of him to use friends to contribute more to a political campaign than allowed by law. But he still insists selective prosecution was involved.

D’Souza pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal election fraud charges, and could face prison time. He admitted to reimbursing two associates $10,000 each for money they gave to the campaign of New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long, a Republican running for the seat once held by Hillary Clinton.

D’Souza told Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File” on Tuesday night that he had no intent to defraud and never denied making the reimbursements.

“That was wrong,” D’Souza said. “It’s an end-around campaign finance law. I acknowledge responsibility, and I did admit doing that from the beginning.”

Long’s campaign was flailing and he wanted to help her, D’Souza said. “I just chose the wrong and stupid way to do it. I shouldn’t have done it.”

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Photo Credit: TownHall Dinesh D’Souza Pleads Guilty to Violating Campaign Finance Law

By Katie Pavlich.

Author and conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza plead guilty this morning to one count on federal charges detailed in an indictment accusing him of violating campaign finance laws and making false statements. D’Souza admitted in front of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, that he did in fact ask two people to make contributions in their name and later reimbursed them, knowing it was not proper under the law. D’Souza submitted a plea deal on May 19 and the charge of making false statements was dropped. Judge Richard Berman accepted his guilty plea today and set a sentencing date for September 23, 2014. The government argued attorneys would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant, D’Souza, is guilty. There will be no trial by jury in this case.

“Guilty your honor,” D’Souza said, adding that he deeply regrets his actions.

“The plea is now accepted and Mr. D’Souza is now guilty under the indictment,” Berman replied.

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