A US judge handed a 12-year prison sentence on Thursday to Hassan Nemazee, a former fundraiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who admitted to a $292 million fraud of three major banks. Nemazee had pleaded guilty on March 18 to charges of bank fraud and wire fraud over loan transactions involving Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc.
The defendant was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, and ordered to make $292.3 million in restitution to the banks. Nemazee was one of the top "bundlers" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. He typically donated more than $100,000 annually to Democrats including Clinton, now US secretary of state.