A co-founder of Students for Trump, a political youth group, was sentenced to 13 months in jail on Tuesday after pretending to be a lawyer.
Judge Valerie Caproni called John Lambert, 25, “a cold-blooded fraudster who cared not a whit about the victims of his fraud” before delivering the sentence, according to a Tuesday report from the New York Daily News.
Lambert earned $46,654 between 2016 and 2018 pretending to be Eric Pope, a lawyer for the fictitious Pope & Dunn, according to court documents. He even created a website to support the scheme, claiming his firm had protected hundreds of millions of dollars for its clients.
Lambert pleaded guilty to fraud in August 2019.
“Mr. Lambert took his money and did nothing,” Caproni said, according to the New York outlet. “Mr. Lambert did not even have the common decency to make up an excuse and tell the victim to hire another attorney.”
One victim, whose name was redacted from public court filings, said Lambert “told me that I was insane for ever questioning him and that I should be ashamed of myself for questioning his integrity. He berated me on the phone and told me that I was irrational for ever questioning such an esteemed attorney from New York and started demanding that I send him a huge amount of money or that he would not do any more work for me. In truth, he had never done one bit of work for me.”
Ryan Fournier, co-founder of Students for Trump, was also involved in the scheme, according to Lambert’s attorney Gary Peters. The report said the hearing revealed Fournier cooperated with prosecutors.
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The pair founded Students for Trump in 2015, and chapters for the group have popped up all across the country. The organization issued a statement following Lambert’s arrest in April 201`9, which condemned him and stated he cut ties with the group following Trump’s election, according to Politico.
“I lost focus on who I was. My ignorance was a disrespect to the law and my country,” Lambert reportedly said in court. “My life will be forever marked by this poor choice at a young age.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Fournier for comment on the Tuesday report but did not immediately hear back.
