The Plea Bargaining Blog

Many in the white collar criminal law community are looking forward to the upcoming movie from Martin Scorsese entitled "The Wolf of Wall Street."  The movie, staring Leonardo DiCaprio, is based on the true story of Jordon Belfort.  Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison in 2003 and ordered to pay $110.4 million in restitution for engaging in an alleged pump and dump stock scheme. Of interest to readers of this blog is an issue that recently arose with regard to Belfort's restitution payments.  From CNN: Despite Belfort's lucrative movie and book deals, and earnings from a new career as a motivational speaker, many of these victims are still waiting for restitution. When Belfort was sentenced in 2003 to four years in prison, Judge John Gleeson ordered him to pay about $110.4 million to a victims fund, in installments equal to 50% of his monthly gross income, after his release from jail. If any major changes in his financial circumstances took place, the per...

Next week is the American Bar Association's second annual International White Collar Crime conference.  This year's event will take place in London, UK on October 7-8, 2013.  The program is below.  A link to the registration materials is here . The ABA Criminal Justice Section and City of London Law Society’s Corporate Crime & Corruption Committee Present the 2013 International White Collar Crime Conference October 7-8, 2013        London, United Kingdom     Hosted at the Offices of Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP Adelaide House, London Bridge Monday, October 7, 2013 – DAY 1 8:00 – 9:00 a.m.              Registration & Coffee/Tea - Meet and Greet 9:00 – 9:15 a.m.              Welcoming Remarks – Mathias Heck , Chair, ABA Criminal Justice Section and Michael Caplan, QC, ...

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the prison experience of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio.  Nacchio spent 54 months in federal prison after being convicted by a jury of selling $52 million in stock as Qwest's prospects began to deteriorate. Mr. Nacchio spent most of his sentence in two Pennsylvania facilities called camps, the lowest level of security offered by the Bureau of Prisons. There are no bars and no walls around the perimeter. Camp inmates can send emails. But they are awakened in the night for security checks. Phone calls are limited to about 10 minutes a day. Visitors are allowed but only every other weekend and some holidays. Prison experts and former inmates say conditions are less comfortable for white-collar criminals than they were in the 1980s, when media stories about leafy prison camps with sparkling athletic facilities surfaced during the savings-and-loan crisis. They say authorities took down tennis nets in at least one camp and cut ...

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has released its policy priorities for the amendment cycle ending May 1, 2014.  A few of the highlights including the following: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994(g), the Commission intends to consider the issue of reducing costs of incarceration and overcapacity of prisons, to the extent it is relevant to any identified priority... Continuation of its work with Congress and other interested parties on statutory mandatory minimum penalties to implement the recommendations set forth in the Commission’s 2011 report to Congress, titled Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System, including its recommendations regarding the severity and scope of mandatory minimum penalties, consideration of expanding the ‘‘safety valve’’ at 18 U.S.C. 3553(f), and elimination of the mandatory ‘‘stacking’’ of penalties under 18 U.S.C. 924(c), and to develop appropriate guideline amendments in response to any related legislation... Possible consideration of ...

The Washington Post is reporting that a man accused of drug running pleaded guilty in Alexandria, Virginia this week to a cocaine conspiracy charge that did not include a specific quantity of narcotics.  The Post believes this is the first case in the D.C. area to utilize Attorney General Eric Holder's new directive on mandatory minimum sentencing for minor drug offenders. From the Post: Marko Bukumirovic, 33, who lives in Severna Park, was charged in May with conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. But in an Alexandria court Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to essentially the same charge without the five-kilogram amount noted — an offense that has no mandatory minimum term. On paper, the case seems to be one of the first public applications of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s directive on mandatory minimum sentencing — the centerpiece of a criminal-justice reform plan that aims ...

According to CNN, Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a military judge.  Manning will also have his rank reduced to private, will forfeit his pay and benefits, and will be dishonorably discharged from the military.  From CNN: Lind convicted Manning in July of stealing 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos and disseminating them to WikiLeaks. He was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges against him, including violations of the U.S. Espionage Act. Prosecutors have said Manning acted as a "determined insider" in leaking classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and should be locked up for at least 60 years. Manning's lawyer contends he can be rehabilitated and should not "rot in jail." "There may not be a soldier in the history of the Army who displayed such an extreme disregard" for his mission, Capt. Joe Morrow, the prosecutor, said Monday during final sentencing arguments. The entire CNN story ...

Jesse Jackson Jr. has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his misuse of campaign funds. According to CNN, Jackson's wife, Sandi Jackson, received 12 months in prison. "I misled the American people," Jackson, 48, said before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed the term, which she said should be served in Alabama. The ex-Illinois lawmaker's wife, Sandi, received a 12-month sentence for her role in her husband's misuse of roughly $750,000 in campaign funds over several years. As the judge read her sentence, Sandi Jackson wept. The pair pleaded guilty in February to various charges -- Jackson to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and false statements; and his wife to filing false tax returns. A smooth politician and the son of Jesse Jackson Sr., a civil rights leader and one-time political heavyweight, the younger Jackson admitted to years of using campaign money to pay for things such as vacations, furs and Michael Jackson memor...