Roger Stone Found Guilty of Obstruction, False Statements, and Witness Tampering

 Roger J. Stone, Jr., of Florida, was found guilty by a jury today of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related offenses. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu and Timothy R. Slater, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

           Stone was found guilty of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress, and tampering with a witness. The verdict followed a trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Stone faces a prison sentence of up to five years for counts one to six and up to 20 years for count seven. He will be sentenced on February 6, 2020, by the Honorable Amy Berman Jackson.

           According to the government’s evidence, in January 2017, the United States House of Representatives Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence (“House Intelligence Committee”) announced an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including allegations that Russia was involved in the publication of documents related to the presidential election by WikiLeaks in 2016.

On September 26, 2017, in testimony to the Committee, Stone made a number of false statements relating to the identity of a person he had referred to in August 2016 as his “back-channel” or “intermediary” to the head of WikiLeaks; whether he had asked that person to do anything on his behalf; whether he had written communications with that person; whether he discussed that person with anyone involved with the Trump campaign; and whether he had written communications with third parties about the head of WikiLeaks.

On October 13, 2017, Stone sent the House Intelligence Committee a letter falsely stating that the person he had referenced in August 2016 was an individual named Randy Credico.

Stone then engaged in witness tampering by urging Credico either to corroborate this false account, or to tell the Committee that he could not remember the relevant events, or to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before the Committee. Credico ultimately invoked his Fifth Amendment right in response to a Committee subpoena