Updated: Sept. 26, 2014, 2:20 PM EDT
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s ex-wife alleged in a letter sent this week to the federal court that heard his criminal case that D’Souza was abusive, that he lied in his defense against the criminal charges, and implied D’Souza had manipulated the couple’s daughter into making positive public statements about him.
D’Souza pleaded guilty in May to violating federal campaign finance law, admitting that he used straw donors to funnel money to New York Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long. He had also been accused of making campaign contributions in the name of other people — namely, his ex-wife Dixie.
On Tuesday, he was sentenced to five years probation starting with eight months in a community confinement center. But he faced no prison time, despite prosecutors reportedly seeking at least a 10-month prison sentence.
On the day before D’Souza was sentenced, Dixie sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman and, after outlining allegations of lies and abuse, urged him to “impose a just sentence.” The letter was published by the Smoking Gun.
The D’Souzas are in the midst of a divorce battle, according to the New York Daily News, and Dixie has accused D’Souza of infidelity.
To start, Dixie contradicted the claims made by D’Souza’s attorney Benjamin Brafman in his defense. She quoted Brafman saying that she had “implicitly authorized him over the course of their marriage to handle all of the couple’s financial affairs.”
“I cannot allow these statements, and other comments made by the defendant, go unanswered,” Dixie wrote. “Nothing Mr. Brafman said on my behalf was remotely correct. Now I must take this opportunity to speak for myself and truly let the record be complete.”
Brafman did not comment on any specific allegations, but dismissed the letter in an email to TPM.
“Only comment is that the allegations in her letter are according to my client and their (daughter), completely baseless,” Brafman said.
Dixie’s letter discussed at length the $10,000 donation made by D’Souza in her name. She said that D’Souza had told her at one point that he had actually decided not to send the money to Long’s campaign.
“Clearly, that was not true,” she wrote. “In fact, he signed my name on the campaign contribution form without my permission so Ms. Long’s campaign could retain the entire $10,000 campaign contribution.”
Because of this, she said that she believed she was “a victim of my husband’s intentional criminal activities.”
In addition to addressing the illegal campaign contributions, Dixie accused D’Souza of physical abuse and suggested that he might have manipulated their daughter into making positive statements on his behalf.
“It is my husband who has an abusive nature,” she wrote. “In one instance, it was my husband who physically abused me in April 2012 when he, using purple belt karate skills, kicked me in the head and shoulder, knocking me to the ground and creating injuries that pain me to this day.”
“The most painful part of his conduct is his use of our daughter to bolster his character,” she wrote elsewhere in the letter. “Dinesh has allowed, and perhaps encouraged, her to submit a letter to a federal judge that he knows is patently false. I am hurt and dismayed by untrue statements in our daughter’s letter.”
In summary, Dixie labeled D’Souza a liar.
“Dinesh lied to me, he lied to the government, he encouraged others to lie for him, and now he has allowed our daughter to submit multiple false statements to a federal court in order to avoid punishment,” she wrote. “Dinesh D’Souza is not a truthful person.”
