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A federal judge denied Roger Stone’s request for a new trial, nearly two months after the political consultant was sentenced to 40 months in prison for witness tampering and lying to Congress.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected Stone’s claim that there was misconduct and political bias on the jury he faced during trial. Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was sentenced in February.
Stone’s attorneys claimed that a juror didn’t disclose her alleged biased against Trump and shouldn’t have been allowed to serve on the jury.
Jackson said that Stone’s attorneys failed to prove that.
“The defendant has not shown that the juror lied; nor has he shown that the supposedly disqualifying evidence could not have been found through the exercise of due diligence at the time the jury was selected,” Jackson said, according to NBC News.
Stone was an adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign and remained close to it even after he left the campaign in an official capacity.
In November, Stone was found guilty of lying to Congress during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The investigation showed that Stone had a connection to WikiLeaks, which leaked documents that hurt former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Federal prosecutors also claimed that Stone tried to intimidate New York radio host Randy Credico so he wouldn’t cooperate with federal investigators.
Federal prosecutors originally recommended a sentence of seven to nine years in prison for Stone, based on the aggravating factors of his crime.
However, the Department of Justice walked back the recommendation and suggested a shorter one after Trump complained about Stone’s trial, tweeting that it was “a horrible and very unfair situation.”
The lesser sentencing recommendation prompted the entire prosecution team to resign.
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