September 4, 2015
Remarkable federal sentencing story pits prosecutors against each other
A colleague alerted me to a remarkable and disconcerting federal sentencing story from the Carolinas, which is reviewed in this local piece headlined “Gang Leader Sought Prosecutor’s Murder: In spite of threat, her superiors sought a lesser sentence.” Here are the basics from the start of the article:
Federal prosecutor Denise Walker, who was forced into hiding for six weeks as a result of a drug dealer’s threats to have her killed, later resigned when her superiors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Raleigh proposed a lesser sentence for the drug dealer and blocked any mention of his murderous intentions in a pre-sentencing report.
Walker had been the lead federal attorney on a task force of law enforcement professionals who flushed out and captured members of a criminal gang. She resigned her position in March 2015 after learning of the intentions of her superiors, U. S. Attorney Thomas Walker (no relation to Denise Walker) and his top deputy John Bruce, to seek a reduction of the mandatory life sentence called for in federal guidelines for Reynaldo Calderon, the gang leaders who threatened to have her killed.
In exchange for Calderon’s cooperation with testimony against one of his associates, the government had proposed a 30-year sentence for Calderon, now age 31. Denise Walker believed Calderon’s cooperation was insignificant and did not warrant any leniency. At the sentencing hearing, at which she testified, she said her superiors downplayed the Calderon threat and even mocked her for being concerned about it. And she termed the proposed lesser sentence and the omission of the death threat in the pre-sentencing hearing “deplorable.”
During the sentencing hearing, however, the judge presiding over the case shared her concern, denied the government’s request for a lesser sentence, and imposed the mandatory life sentence guidelines prescribed.
September 4, 2015 at 09:46 AM | Permalink
Comments
Good work by the judge .
Posted by: Docile Jim Brady in Oregon | Sep 4, 2015 9:54:26 AM
Good work by the (former) Assistant U.S. Attorney! I once saw a case where the DOJ flipped in the opposite direction, concerning a major Mexican drug lord (only 35 years old) who was kidnapped from Belize by the DEA and flown to New York for prosecution. His “relevant conduct” was more than 800,000 kilos of cocaine. The Government had pressed him to plead guilty and debrief on everything he knew, in exchange for a sentence of less than life. He knew that if he had “debriefed”, his entire family would have been killed in Mexico. So, without any agreement with the DOJ, he made a blind guilty plea to the Court, which got him a reduction in his Guidelines for “acceptance of responsibility”, down to 38 years, instead of life. At sentencing, the DOJ argued that he should be denied his 3 points for acceptance of responsibility because he refused to debrief. The District Judge (since elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals) told the DOJ attorney that acceptance of responsibility does not require a defendant to debrief, and he sentenced the man to “only” 38 years.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 4, 2015 10:08:00 AM
So the only evidence of the plot was a jailhouse snitch the govt placed in his cell? I’m underwhelmed.
Posted by: Don’t Ask | Sep 4, 2015 10:12:22 AM
Very interesting case. Very glad this was caught before it became an issue. Thanks for sharing this!
Posted by: Jordan | Sep 4, 2015 11:35:44 AM
A damn good judge, he didnt let the prosecuter bulldoze his way past him.
Sounds like this guy deserves life in prison. He gets caught, then issues a death threat to the u.s. Atty.
Boy oh boy. Im not a genius, but this guy is a total idiot. If I were to choose someone to mess with, a US atty would be last on my list.
Posted by: MidWestGuy | Sep 4, 2015 5:04:11 PM