Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 60-month term of incarceration on single counts of wire fraud, mail fraud and tax fraud arising out of defendant’s theft of over $600,000 of his employer’s funds, even though applicable sentencing range, as determined by parties and adopted by Dist. Ct., was 21-to-27 months incarceration. Sentence was reasonable given serious financial blow defendant inflicted on small family business over long period of time, and Dist. Ct. gave adequate consideration to defendant’s mitigation evidence regarding defendant’s service to his church and others. Dist. Ct. erred, though, in attempting to recalculate upward applicable sentencing guideline range as means to further explain instant sentence, where said attempt came after defendant had filed notice of appeal, since Dist. Ct. lacked jurisdiction to do so.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 240-month term of incarceration on drug and firearm charges, even though defendant claimed that Dist. Ct. did not adequately address his main mitigation argument that he was entitled to reduced sentence because he had unreasonably inflated sentencing range caused by application of section 851 recidivism enhancement. Defendant properly qualified for section 851 enhancement based on his prior felony convictions, and record showed that Dist. Ct. implicitly considered defendant’s mitigation argument after noting that longer sentence was required due to defendant’s extensive criminal history.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 262-month term of incarceration on drug distribution charge, even though defendant urged Dist. Ct. to impose below-guidelines term of 110 months. While defendant argued that Dist. Ct. did not adequately address his claim that instant sentence was overly harsh since defendant had spent only six months in prison prior to instant conviction, record showed that Dist. Ct. adequately considered and rejected said issue, after noting that defendant had extensive criminal history that required lengthy sentence. Ct. also found that defendant’s 1992 conviction for aggravated discharge of firearm under 720 ILCS section 5/24-1.3(a)(1) qualified as crime of violence under sentencing guidelines.

Dist. Ct. erred in sentencing defendant to 160-month term of incarceration on unlawful possession of firearm charges, where said sentence was based in part on 4-level, “other felony offense” enhancement under section 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) of USSG. Dist. Ct. improperly applied both trafficking enhancement and “other felony offense” enhancements, where both enhancements were based on same conduct concerning defendant’s transfer of firearms to third-party, with knowledge that third-party was going to resell said firearms. Ct. rejected govt. claim that application of “other felony offense” enhancement was proper since defendant’s transfer of firearms occurred in connection with felonies other than firearm trafficking offense.