United States v. Parris

United States v. Parris

Opinion

 [*745]  MEMORANDUM AND STATEMENT OF REASONS

BLOCK, Senior District Judge:

I have sentenced Lennox and Lester Parris today to a term of incarceration of 60 months in the face of an advisory guidelines range of 360 to life. This case represents another example where the guidelines in a securities-fraud prosecution "have so run amok that they are patently absurd on their face," United States v. Adelson, 441 F. Supp. 2d 506, 515 (S.D.N.Y. 2006), due to the "kind of 'piling-on' of points for which the guidelines have  [**2] frequently been criticized." Id. at 510.

Although I do not consider my sentence to be unusually lenient, I am nonetheless mindful that ] a departure of 300 months from the low end of the advisory guidelines range is a major one and "should be supported by a more significant justification than a minor one," Gall v. United States,     U.S.    , 128 S. Ct. 586, 597, 169 L. Ed. 2d 445 (2007); moreover, since I am of the view that the guidelines range "fails properly to reflect § 3553(a) considerations,"  [*746]  Kimbrough v. United States,     U.S.    , 128 S. Ct. 558, 575, 169 L. Ed. 2d 481 (2007) (quoting Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2465, 168 L. Ed. 2d 203 (2007)), "a closer review may be in order" in the event of an appeal by the government. United States v. Cutler, 520 F.3d 136, 156 (2d Cir. 2008) (quoting Kimbrough, 128 S. Ct. at 575). ¹ For these two reasons, I believe a fuller exposition of how I arrived at my sentence is warranted than normally would be set forth in the space provided in the Statement of Reasons section of the judgment; hence, I am attaching this document to the judgment as the requisite written statement of reasons for the sentences I have imposed. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). As the Second Circuit has  [**3] made clear,] § 3553(c)(2) remains obligatory despite the now-advisory nature of the Guidelines. See United States v. Rattoballi, 452 F.3d 127, 138 (2d Cir. 2006).

Although the jury found each defendant guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, six counts of securities fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit witness tampering and one count of witness tampering, the nature of their crimes -- while clearly deserving of the punishment which I have meted out -- is simply not of the same character and magnitude as the securities-fraud prosecutions of those who have been responsible for wreaking unimaginable losses on major corporations and, in particular, on their companies' employees and stockholders, many of whom lost their pensions and were financially ruined. Yet the sentences entailed in those cases, such as Enron, WorldCom and Computer Associates, were each less, and in some cases markedly less, than the lowest end of the guidelines range in this case.

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