LA man gets 10 years in prison for role in collecting donations for fraudulent political action committees

A downtown Los Angeles man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a scheme to solicit millions of dollars in contributions to two bogus political action committees, officials announced Tuesday.

Matthew Tunstall, 36, previously pleaded guilty in federal court in Austin, Texas, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to cause false statements to the Federal Election Commission; and one count of money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

He was sentenced on Monday.

Court documents show that from 2016 through at least April 2017, Tunstall and two others operated two PACs — Liberty Action Group PAC and Progressive Priorities PAC — that solicited contributions from the public via robocalls and radio and internet advertisements.

The two PACs represented that the contributions would be used to support the presidential nominees of the two major political parties, respectively. Instead, the co-conspirators used the funds to enrich themselves and to fund additional fraudulent solicitations. Specifically, the PACs raised about $4 million in contributions during the 2016 election cycle and subsequent months, prosecutors said.

To conceal the origin and nature of the proceeds, Tunstall and Robert Reyes Jr., 40, of San Juan Bautista, Calif., instructed a third-party vendor to withdraw roughly $353,000 from the two PACs in excess of the payments for services rendered, then deposit the excess payments into accounts held by shell companies that they controlled, court papers show.

Reyes was sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in the scheme. Kyle Davies, 31, of Austin, Texas, was sentenced to five years of probation, federal prosecutors said.