Former Rep. Duncan Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in federal prison Tuesday for using campaign funds for personal expenditures.
Hunter, 43, must also go on three years of supervised release after his term is up. Hunter was ordered to surrender to authorities on May 29.
The former lawmaker admitted in his guilty plea to a conspiracy charge to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for family vacations, restaurant and bar tabs, clothes and other frivolous expenses over the course of several years, while falsely stating to his staff that the purchases were campaign-related.
Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan to impose a 14-month prison sentence, while Hunter’s attorneys asked for 11 months of home confinement, plus 1,000 hours of community service.
Hunter’s wife and former campaign manager, Margaret, also pleaded guilty last year to misusing campaign funds and was due to be sentenced next month. The couple were charged in 2018 in a 60-count indictment.
Prosecutors say the Hunters were “virtually penniless” and amid dire financial straits, resorted to using campaign credit cards to support “a profligate lifestyle leading to continual debt and an ever-increasing need to find cash to pay bills,” according to a prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum.
Despite the family bank account not carrying a positive balance throughout any single month between 2009 and 2017, prosecutors say the family lived extravagantly, racking up thousands on expensive family trips and scores of other improper personal purchases, according to the memorandum.
It was also alleged that Hunter used campaign funds to pursue extramarital affairs and repeatedly used campaign credit cards or sought reimbursement for expenses that included resort hotel rooms, airfare, a skiing trip and Uber rides to and from the homes of five women with whom he had “intimate relationships.”
Hunter, who a Republican who represented California’s 50th congressional district from 2013-20, had planned to seek another term. He repeatedly and publicly denied wrongdoing and accused the U.S. Attorney’s Office of a politically motivated prosecution. He maintained that two prosecutors on the case attended a La Jolla campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2015, then indicted him two months before the 2018 election due to his public endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
Hunter pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court on Dec. 3, and in a brief statement to reporters, said “I failed to monitor and account for my campaign spending. I made mistakes and that was what today was all about.”
The congressman said in a television interview that he was taking the plea deal for the sake of his three children.
He resigned from Congress in January.
Amid the charges and public allegations, Hunter was re-elected in November 2018 with 51.7% of the vote, despite being indicted three months prior. He was first elected in 2008, succeeding his father, who held the congressional seat for 28 years.