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Judge: No Evidence Of Selective Prosecution For Scholar Dinesh D'Souza

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A New York federal judge said Thursday that he sees no evidence that conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza is being selectively prosecuted.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman announced his finding Thursday in the case against D'Souza, who made the anti-President Barack Obama documentary ``2016: Obama's America.''

D'Souza's attorneys want to seek evidence for such a claim. Berman said they could not do so without evidence to show it was likely.

He cited several cases recently in New York federal courts in which charges were brought against Republicans and Democrats.

D'Souza, of San Diego, is charged with directing $20,000 in illegal contributions to be made in the New York U.S. Senate race in 2012 to candidate Wendy Long, who lost to Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial starts next week.

D'Souza is a former policy analyst under President Ronald Reagan. In October 2012, D'Souza resigned as head of an the King's College, a small evangelical college in Lower Manhattan, after becoming engaged to a woman while still married to his wife.

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