Grifty "Students For Trump" founder pleads guilty to wire fraud for pretending to be a lawyer
John Lambert is a 23-year-old from Tennessee who has done a lot in his short years on this earth: in addition to co-founding "Students for Trump," he also co-founded a fake law firm called Pope & Dunn, where he pretended to be a lawyer called Eric Pope (law degree: NYU; finance degree: U Penn; years of legal experience: 15), and defrauded clients of $46,000.
Lambert was charged in April and now he has pleaded guilty, admitting to wire fraud with an unnamed co-conspirator. Under his plea deal, he faces up to 21 months in prison.
"John Lambert represented himself to clients as a prominent New York attorney with a law degree from an elite law school. But Lambert's de facto career was one of a grifter: he had never been to law school and certainly wasn't an attorney. Today, Lambert admitted to his crimes and faces time in prison for his misdeeds," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said.
Lambert achieved notoriety during the presidential campaign for the group he founded with classmate classmate Ryan Fournier at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., in 2015. They made frequent media appearances and ran a Students For Trump Twitter account featuring photos of bikini-clad women and pics of themselves at political events.
Students for Trump founder pleads guilty to posing as lawyer in $46K scam [Stephen Rex Brown/New York Daily News]
(Image: Screenshot of rally video)