U.S. v. Miedzianorski

Dist. Ct. did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant-former police officer’s motion for reduction in his sentence under Section 404(b) of First Step Act, under circumstances, where defendant had received life sentence for leading criminal conspiracy that included distribution of illegal drugs, extortion, money laundering, robbery, kidnapping and bribery, and where original sentence was based, in part, on finding that conspiracy involved significantly more drugs than quantity of drugs at issue in charged offenses. While defendant was eligible for relief under First Step Act, Dist. Ct. could properly deny said relief, even though defendant offered apology for his criminal conduct and had demonstrated clean disciplinary prison record, as well as received post-sentencing education, where Dist Ct. could properly find that seriousness of defendant’s crimes and his misuse of his status as police officer over span of many years outweighed defendant’s positive factors supporting his request for sentence reduction. Ct of Appeals further rejected defendant’s arguments that: (1) Dist. Ct. failed to acknowledge all of his mitigation evidence and undervalued certain mitigation evidence; (2) Dist. Ct. improperly failed to recalculate his sentencing guideline range that was based only on drug quantities listed in charged offenses; (3) Dist. Ct. incorrectly analyzed disparity between his sentence and lower sentences received by other defendants; and (4) Dist. Ct. was biased against defendant based on fact that Dist. Ct. had previously served as former prosecutor in U.S. Attorney’s office, as well as Dist. Ct.'s acceptance of government’s arguments.