Former CD 7 Republican Congressionl candidate Gabe Whitley is pleading guilty to federal campaign finance fraud charges.
Whitley claimed to have raised hundreds of thousands of dollar in contributions for the May primary.
He faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years probation.
Whitley will be sentenced on January 28.
Below is the news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office
INDIANAPOLIS- 2024 Indiana congressional candidate, Gabriel Whitley, 27, of Indianapolis, has agreed to plead guilty to lying to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by fabricating contributions purportedly made to his campaign, “Honest Gabe for Congress,” for the purpose of falsely portraying that his campaign had significantly greater support and financial resources than it actually did.
According to court documents, Gabriel Whitley ran in the primary election for Indiana’s Seventh Congressional District and served as the treasurer of his campaign committee. Whitley admitted that he lied to the FEC in three separate reports about hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from supporters and loans from himself. Specifically, Whitley admitted that in October 2023, he falsely claimed that 67 people, whose biographical details he made up, had contributed approximately $222,690 to Honest Gabe for Congress. In January 2024, Whitley again falsely reported contributions from individuals whose biographical details he fabricated. Finally, in April 2024, Whitley falsified a $100,000 loan to his campaign.
Whitley faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He will have a change-of-plea hearing and a sentencing hearing to be scheduled at later times. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Brent Wible, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; First Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Childress for the Southern District of Indiana; and Special Agent in Charge Herbert Stapleton of the FBI Indianapolis Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI Indianapolis Field Office is investigating the case. Trial Attorney Jacob R. Steiner of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Preston of the Southern District of Indiana are prosecuting the case.
All defendants are presumed innocent until they plead guilty or are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
You can read the plea deal below.
