Feds: Abramoff Associate Kevin Ring 'Not Entitled' To Leniency

[Bill USA]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/feds_abramoff_associate_kevin_ring_not_entitled_to.php?ref=fpb

Federal prosecutors maintained in a filing on Thursday that Jack Abramoff crony Kevin Ring should face 17 to 22 years in jail because he is "is not entitled to the benefits, or leniency, enjoyed by his co-conspirators who stood in a very different position in 2005 to 2008 than he does in 2011."

Ring's lawyers had argued that the tough sentence the Justice Department has sought against him -- which exceeds the time served by all 20 other defendants in the conspiracy combined -- was a form of retaliation for his decision to go to trial and not plead guilty like many of his co-conspirators.

A judge said at a hearing on Tuesday that a 17 to 22 year sentence would be "a pretty big penalty for exercising a constitutional right."

But in a filing Thursday, federal prosecutors maintained that Ring's sentence would be justified. They said his "insupportable" argument was essentially that it is "retaliation" if the government "ever seeks a higher sentence than the sentence to which it agreed for any of his co-conspirators." From the prosecutors' case:

"Thus, Ring's broad proposition is that the Government's recommended sentence for a defendant's co-conspirator creates a ceiling by which the Government's sentencing recommendation for that defendant can never exceed, even if that defendant's co-conspirator pleaded guilty years earlier in the investigation, cooperated against others, was convicted of different and fewer offenses, pleaded to a narrower factual basis than the conduct for which that defendant was convicted, and executed a plea agreement that bound the Government's sentencing recommendation, and that plea agreement was executed under a different legal regime."

[saras]

1. The others didn't deserve leniency either, but they had us by the short hairs.

If we tried to give them all the sentences they deserved, there would have been no testimony and no trial.

[sabrina 1]

2. I don't agree with this. The sentence should be for the crime only

and not for someone deciding not to plead guilty. It is not a crime to plead not guilty, although you'd never know it as this kind of retaliation by prosecutors has been allowed for so long.

I could see giving a lighter sentence to someone who feels remorse and provides valuable information that might prevent other crimes. But punishing people for pleading 'not guilty' has forced many innocent people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit.

[sabrina 1]

3. Dupe n/t