Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, recommended that a lobbyist who admitted to embezzling more than $1 million from his employer’s political committee receive no more than 24 months in prison, according to a sentencing memorandum filed Thursday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jonas Murphy, the now-former director of government affairs at the National Venture Capital Association, pleaded guilty in December for crimes related to stealing from the trade association’s political committee, Venture PAC. Murphy spent the money on items such as an automotive club membership, jewelry and clothing, according to the sentencing memo.
NOTUS first revealed Murphy’s embezzlement, detailed in a plea deal signed on Dec. 11, 2025. According to the plea deal, Murphy’s crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and fine of $250,000.
Murphy must be held accountable for his actions, Pirro wrote. But, she added, “he has done everything he can to right the wrongs that he caused,” including fully cooperating with federal investigators and paying back all the money he stole from Venture PAC — plus $2,000 to cover accounting and legal fees.
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“There is no question that Murphy’s conduct before he came clean was abhorrent. His actions since then, however, have been commendable,” Pirro wrote.
Pirro’s memo includes new details about what motivated Murphy: In a statement to his probation officer, Murphy claims he embezzled the money to impress a romantic partner.
“I allowed personal insecurity and emotional dependence to cloud my judgment. I became caught up in a romantic relationship and wrongly believed that I needed to provide gifts or financial support to maintain that person’s love. I was afraid of being abandoned and feared I would never find love again,” Murphy wrote.
But while Murphy said his “fear contributed to my decision-making,” that fear “does not excuse what I did.”
“I alone am responsible for my choices,” he wrote in the statement to his probation officer.
His probation officer has recommended Murphy receive five years of probation and no time in prison, according to the memo.
Murphy’s lawyer, G. Allen Dale, declined to comment.
In recent weeks, Venture PAC amended numerous financial disclosure reports it filed with the Federal Election Commission between December 2023 and June 2025. During this period, Murphy made 211 unauthorized transfers to personal bank accounts disguised as fake refunds to donors and payments for services, according to the sentencing memo.
Venture PAC “spent the ensuing months seeking restitution from its former treasurer, resolving the reporting issues, preparing and filing a series of amended reports including the ones referenced in your [inquiries] to correct the public record, and implementing procedures to prevent a recurrence of these problems,” according to a letter the PAC sent Tuesday to the Federal Election Commission.
The commission had sent Venture PAC multiple letters inquiring about unauthorized payments and warning that it may take legal action.
About three-fourths of the $1.3 million that the PAC reported spending between Dec. 1, 2023, and June 20, 2025, was later classified as “unauthorized disbursements” to Murphy, according to a NOTUS analysis of Federal Election Commission records.
The National Venture Capital Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the trade association fired Murphy in July 2025, the memo says he went to work for a hotel in Delaware, where he still works.
Murphy also worked for a real estate company “but apparently was terminated from that job when the real estate company was contacted by a reporter following his guilty plea” — a reference to inquiries NOTUS made with the company in March.
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