By: Sara Kropf Last week, I wrote about the somewhat surprising fact that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, allocated at the plea hearing that President Trump directed him to make an illegal campaign donation, and yet didn’t have a written cooperation agreement. In fact,...
By: Sara Kropf Much was made this week of the fact that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty without a written cooperation agreement. He pleaded guilty to multiple federal offenses, including tax fraud, campaign finance violations and bank fraud. The...
By Dan Portnov Every CLE panel on sentencing includes a judge. And often the judge emphasizes the importance of presenting your client as a person and not just a defendant. That can be a challenge at a sentencing hearing unless the friends and family who show up in...
By: Sara Kropf Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit—love him or hate him—just wrote a(nother) scathing opinion. He remanded a criminal restitution order, concluding that Bank of America was not entitled to any restitution for fraudulent mortgage loans because...
By: Sara Kropf As I've written about many times before, the loss amount drives many white-collar criminal sentences. The government's view of loss amount plays a significant role in the court's ultimate determination of that factor. the government often takes a very...
By: Sara Kropf Calling all data geeks: The United States Sentencing Commission just issued its “Overview of Federal Criminal Cases, Fiscal Year 2015.” It’s a fairly short summary of the longer “2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics," which is also worth...
By: Sara Kropf The government knows—and exploits the fact—that loss amount is the driver of white collar sentences. In criminal contracting fraud cases, the government has taken the position that the relevant loss is the entire amount of the contract that was...
By: Sara Kropf Last December, Donald Blankenship was found guilty of conspiracy to violate mine safety laws. This is a misdemeanor. He was acquitted of the more serious felony charge against him for false SEC filings. In early April 2016, Mr. Blankenship was sentenced...
Loss calculation drives sentencing decisions in many white-collar cases. The higher the loss amount, the longer the sentence.Courts usually take an expansive view of what counts as a “loss” for sentencing. In a recent Third Circuit case, however, the court rejected...
By: Sara Kropf Several of the cases I’ve featured in my posts over the last year have had significant developments or come to a close. It’s always interesting—and moderately depressing—to see how things turned out. When an FBI Agent Is the Bad Guy First up we have...