GOP candidate who drove ‘deportation bus’ sentenced for fraud charges

Michael Williams, the former Republican candidate for Georgia governor who gained notoriety last year after holding a “Deportation Bus Tour” to “sanctuary cities” in the state, has been sentenced on insurance fraud charges. 

The Associated Press reports that the former state senator has been ordered to serve four years of probation, more than 100 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine after he pleaded guilty to making a false report of insurance fraud, false statements and falsely reporting a crime.

{mosads}The sentence comes after Williams was indicted on insurance fraud charges back in December following his claim that computer servers were taken from his campaign office prior to his loss in the state’s May primary.

Williams’s former campaign manager, Seth Weathers, originally said the fraud charges were a “political witch hunt from the beginning and has zero merit.”

On Wednesday, Weathers said told The Hill that he no longer represents Williams and offered no further comment.

A call to Williams’s current attorney was not immediately returned.

Williams had also been accused of lying about the case to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent.

According to The Associated Press, Williams pleaded guilty to the crimes and was sentenced under the state’s First Offender Act. Under the act, those who successfully complete their sentence will not have a conviction and “the charge will be sealed from [their] official criminal history,” according to the Georgia Justice Project.

Williams, who previously served as a co-chairman of President Trump’s presidential campaign in Georgia, gained national attention last year for what he called his “Deportation Bus.” During his campaign for Georgia’s governorship, he said he would use the vehicle to find immigrants in the country illegally “to send them back to where they came from.” 

“We’re not just going to track them and watch them roam around our state,” Williams said of the effort at the time. “We’re going to put them on this bus and send ‘em home.”

In the state’s gubernatorial primary, Williams came in fifth place out of five candidates.