Showing posts with label Sentencing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sentencing. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

18 Year Prison Sentence Imposed for Firebombing Church

The Department of Justice announced that on Monday an Ohio federal district court sentenced Aimenn D, Penny to 18 years in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release after Penny pleaded guilty to violation of the Church Arson Prevention Act and using fire and explosives to commit a felony. DOJ described the violations:

According to court documents, on March 25, 2023, Penny made Molotov cocktails and drove to the Community Church of Chesterland (CCC), in Chesterland, Ohio. Angered by the church’s plan to host two drag events the following weekend, Penny threw two Molotov cocktails at the church, hoping to burn it to the ground. Through Penny’s guilty plea, he admitted to using force through fire and explosives, intending to obstruct CCC congregants in their enjoyment and expression of their religious beliefs.

Tuesday, July 04, 2023

Defendant's Beliefs About Psilocybin Were Personal, Not Religious

In State of Ohio v. Sobel, (OH App., June 30, 2023), an Ohio appellate court rejected appellant's claim that his sentence for drug possession was based in part on his statements about his use of mushrooms as part of his religion. The court said in part:

... Sobel failed to establish that he uses psilocybin mushrooms in connection with a sincerely held religious belief. He described the “Church of Freewater” as consisting of three people providing life coaching to drug and alcohol addicted persons in the manner of Tony Robbins (a noted inspirational, self-help, motivational personality). Sobel does not describe any particular religious beliefs or tenets of the organization, other than to help people “be themselves, through mind, body, and spirit.” Freewater’s core belief appears to be allowing people to believe whatever he or she wants to believe....

Sobel also does not describe how the mushrooms are utilized in furtherance of the religion as part of a rite or ceremony. He only states opaquely, “mushrooms are a holy sacrament and [unintelligible] medicine for myself and for the Freewater organization that helps me with past traumas both immediate and ancestral and tap into the divine knowledge that is only accessible with the aid of these divine teachers.” ...

[T]hroughout the proceedings, rather than claiming a religious use, Sobel represented that mushrooms were used to treat chronic pain and PTSD.

Under the circumstances of this case, the alleged belief that was infringed would be most accurately characterized as a personal preference, rather than as a deeply held religious conviction.

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Army Appeals Court: Poisoning Through Vodou Not Protected by Free Exercise Clause or RFRA

In United States v. Lindor, (ACCA, June 14, 2023), the Army Court of Criminal Appeals rejected appellant's claim that his murder sentence violated his free exercise rights under the 1st Amendment and RFRA.  The case involves a Staff Sergeant who, after multiple attempts, succeeded in murdering his wife through the use of rituals and poisons recommended by a Vodou practitioner in Haiti. The court said in part:

[A]ppellant's actions to summon Vodou rituals ... were consistent with his First Amendment right to freely exercise his religious beliefs.... [T]he record contains no indication that they called for any illegal activity or result.... The stipulation's derogatory references to these Vodou rituals—after all, they were categorized as "aggravation" evidence—violated the First Amendment's free exercise clause. The government, consistent with the Constitution's guarantee of free exercise, "cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs and practices."...

However, our analysis does not end there,.... [Appellant] waived his objection to evidence of these particular spells in two ways.... First, the military judge directly advised appellant and his counsel that, if he admitted it, he would consider the stipulation of fact to decide whether appellant was guilty, and, if so, an appropriate sentence; appellant and his counsel agreed. Second, the military judge specifically asked appellant's counsel whether he had any objections to the stipulation; counsel responded, "No, Your Honor."...

Turning to appellant's violence toward RL, we view this as substantially different from the rituals about AD and government officials. We have searched for, but cannot find, any authority to support appellant's tacit argument that the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause can broadly shield one from government action to describe, prosecute, and punish conduct that unlawfully endangers another person's life...

Put plainly, we decline to characterize appellant's violent misconduct toward RL as the free exercise of religious belief.... [A]ctivities that harm others are not protected by the free exercise clause. To characterize appellant's chosen techniques to plan, express, and actuate his intent to murder RL as the free exercise of his religious beliefs would expropriate the free exercise clause of any principled, reasonable meaning. The United States Constitution's framers and the various ratifying conventions plainly and deliberately did not contemplate that one could seek protection in the clause for an act that violated another's right to be free from malicious violence.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Judge's Religious Comments Did Not Violate Defendant's Rights

 In State of Ohio v. Loftis, (OH App., May 19, 2023), an Ohio state appellate court held that a judge's references to religion during a sentencing hearing for defendant who was convicted of sexual battery did not violate defendant's due process rights or the Establishment Clause. During the sentencing hearing, the trial court judge said in part:

... [T]he diminished influence or role of organized churches and faith or religion in the world, that whole diminishing concept isn’t boding well for the community. No surprise maybe if you read Revelation, if you do Biblical prophecy, you are all going to end up in a big dumpster fire at some point in time, so the trend is exactly what we are seeing....

The statutes, the law, every social moray[,] every religious system at least in terms of the New Testament years have said there is a duty to protect children. Some societies sacrifice children, but that’s thousands of years ago. It’s the other way around. Is that lost? Yeah, totally it’s lost. That doesn’t mean the expectation is not there....

The appellate court said in part:

 ... [T]he trial judge’s comments did not suggest that he was referencing his own religious beliefs as a guideline for his sentencing decision. Instead, his comments were limited to espousing his belief that the lack of a religious foundation leads to improper behavior. 

More importantly, we conclude that the trial court complied with the applicable provisions of R.C. Chapter 2929. The record affirmatively demonstrates that the trial court relied upon the proper statutory factors....

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Last Defendant In Poway Synagogue Tax Fraud Scheme Sentenced

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced on Friday that attorney Elliot Adler, the eleventh and last individual being prosecuted for the tax fraud scheme connected with Chabad of Poway, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, fined $20,000, and ordered to forfeit gold coins purchased with funds used in the fraud. According to the announcement:

Beginning at least as early as 2010 and continuing through October 2018, Adler participated in a so-called “90/10” tax scheme with Rabbi Goldstein. Specifically, Adler gave money to Rabbi Goldstein that purported to be a donation to Chabad of Poway. Goldstein then secretly funneled ninety percent of the funds back to Adler, keeping ten percent of the funds as his fee. None of the donated funds was actually given to the Chabad as a charitable donation. Adler then falsely claimed that the fraudulent donations were tax-deductible on his tax returns, allowing him to reduce his personal income tax liability by approximately $500,000 (cumulatively) for tax years 2011 through 2017.

(See prior related posting.)

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Waiver In Plea Agreement Precludes Appeal Of Ban On Possessing Antisemitic Material

In United States v. Holzer, (10th Cir., April 25, 2022), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the appellate waiver provision in defendant's plea agreement precludes him from appealing Special Condition Nine of his supervised release which he contends infringes his freedom of religion, thought and expression. The court explains:

Defendant Richard Holzer was arrested and criminally charged after federal undercover agents determined that Holzer had taken substantial steps towards bombing a synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. Holzer subsequently pleaded guilty, pursuant to a written plea agreement, to one count of intentionally attempting to obstruct persons in the enjoyment of their free exercise of religious beliefs through force, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 247(a)(2) and (d)(3), and one count of maliciously attempting to damage and destroy, by means of fire and explosives, a synagogue, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i). The district court sentenced Holzer to a term of imprisonment of 235 months, to be followed by a fifteen-year term of supervised release. The district court also ordered Holzer to comply with eleven special conditions of supervised release, including Special Condition Nine, that prohibits him from acquiring, possessing, or using any material depicting support for or association with antisemitism or white supremacy.

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Diocesan Religious Education Director Sentenced To 20 Years For Sex Abuse of Minor Girl

The Tennessean reports that under a plea deal, the former director of religious education at a Murfreesboro (TN) Catholic parish was sentenced to twenty years in prison for sexual abuse of a girl, beginning when she was 13 years old.  Defendant, Michael D. Lewis, pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape for abuse that took place between 2014 and 2016.

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

Poway Synagogue Rabbi Sentenced To 14 Months In Custody For Fraud

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced that yesterday a California federal district judge sentenced Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein -- rabbi of Chabad of Poway during a much-publicized shooting in 2019-- to 14 months in custody for his part in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme.  Goldstein plead guilty to fraud charges in 2019. (See prior posting.) He was also ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution.  According to the U.S. Attorney's Office:

[W]hile Rabbi Goldstein was director of the Poway synagogue, he received at least $6.2 million in phony contributions to the Chabad and affiliated charities and secretly refunded up to 90 percent of the donations to the “donors.” After Rabbi Goldstein provided these donors with fake receipts, they illegally claimed huge tax deductions for these nonexistent donations, and the rabbi kept about 10 percent ... for himself....

Rabbi Goldstein also admitted that he defrauded three different Fortune 500 companies by tricking them into matching supposed charitable donations of their employees....

Rabbi Goldstein ... also helped his brother ... conceal approximately $700,000 in income by allowing him to use Chabad bank accounts to deposit his income, thereby hiding it from the IRS.  As his cut, Rabbi Goldstein kept 10 percent.... 

... Goldstein and another defendant ... used false information and fabricated invoices and other records to pretend to be eligible for emergency funds, grants or donations, and private loans [from FEMA and the state of California].

According to The Forward's report on the sentencing, prosecutors had recommended a much more lenient sentence-- 8 months of home confinement and 4 years probation.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

9th Circuit: Religious References At Sentencing Hearing Were OK

In United States v. Hong, (9th Cir., March 17, 2020), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court did not violate defendants' free exercise rights at a sentencing hearing in a fraud case, saying in part:
The district court did not plainly err in describing how the Hongs used religion to carry out their fraudulent scheme, in commenting on video footage showing Grace Hong speaking to a church group, or in mentioning the spiritual harm suffered by the Hongs’ victims. The Hongs point to no binding legal authority precluding a sentencing court from considering the religion of the victims or noting the spiritual impact of an offense on the victims. 

Friday, April 27, 2018

Rabbi Freundel's Voyeurism Sentence Reduced For Good Behavior

According to the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, the prison sentence of Rabbi Barry Freundel has been shortened by more than a year.  Under a plea agreement, in 2015 Freundel was sentenced to six and one-half years in prison on 52 counts of voyeurism.  Freundel had secretly videotaped 150 women in the changing room of the mikveh (ritual bath) at Washington's Kesher Israel Synagogue. (See prior posting. JTA reports that the sentence reduction for good behavior was granted because Freundel participated as an instructor in an educational program for inmates.  Freundel's new release date is Aug. 21, 2020.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Judge Wrongly Relied On Defendant's Christian Religious Background To Enhance Sentence

In Miller v. People of the Virgin Islands, (VI Sup. Ct., Aug. 9, 2017), the Virgin Islands Supreme Court remanded for re-sentencing a case in which defendant plead guilty as an accessory after the fact to embezzlement of funds from a hospital.  The Supreme Court concluded that the sentencing judge wrongly relied on defendant's religion to impose a longer sentence that the one recommended in defendant's plea agreement. The sentencing judge had referred to defendant's "claims to Christianity and her theology degree" in explaining the longer sentence.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Court Says Jihadist's Religious Faith Was Not Reason For Life Sentence

In Shnewer v. United States, ( NJ, March 2, 2016), a New Jersey federal district court rejected a claim by a jihadist who was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to kill United States military personnel that his religious beliefs were improperly used in determining his sentence.  As reported by NJ Advance Media, at issue was the sentence imposed on Mohamad Shnewer, a key figure in a foiled plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix and other military installations. In rejecting Shnewer's claims, the court said in part:
This Court did not use Mr. Shnewer’s devout Muslim faith to help this Court reach the conclusion that it would sentence him to ... life imprisonment, but rather ... this Court believed that Mr. Shnewer could not be rehabilitated and therefore posed a threat if released based upon his violent radical Islamic beliefs. This did not run afoul of the Constitution and did not amount to this Court using Mr. Shnewer’s devout Muslim faith to determine his sentence. 

Monday, June 09, 2014

Judge's Religious References In Sentencing Did Not Prejudice Defendant

In State of North Carolina v. Earls, (NC App., June 3, 2014), a North Carolina appellate court held that a defendant who was convicted on charges of rape, incest and taking indecent liberties with a child was not prejudiced by the trial judge's references to the Bible and divine judgment in sentencing him to 45 to 55 years in prison. [Thanks to Alliance Alert for the lead.]