Fremont Man Sentenced To Prison For Illegal Campaign Donations

FREMONT, CA — Fremont resident James Tong was sentenced to 15 months in prison for funneling tens of thousands of dollars of his own money through other donors into congressional campaigns for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to federal prosecutors. The 74-year-old real estate developer was convicted by a federal jury last October of two counts of making contributions to a federal campaign in the names of other individuals.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Tong provided envelopes of cash to his bank manager and another business associate and directed them to give the cash to individuals in the community, who then used Tong’s cash to write checks in their own names to the campaign for the U.S. congressional candidate Tong was supporting.

Tong was also sentenced to a one-year period of supervised release and a $380,000 fine.