January 22, 2008
Federal probation officials are recommending that Brent Wilkes, the Poway defense contractor who was convicted of bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, should be sentenced to 60 years in prison, according to court records.
Wilkes was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, but that has been put off until Feb. 19 at the request of his lawyer, Mark Geragos. In court papers, Geragos said he needed more time to analyze and challenge the report from the federal probation office, which he received Jan. 15 – later than required under court rules.
The specific reasons behind the probation recommendation are not known, because the reports are not publicly available. However, in a court filing last week, Geragos referred to sections of the report and his objections to them.
[snip]
The lawyer said he would challenge that calculation. In an interview he said probation officials appeared to have totaled up all the federal work ADCS got from the government and attributed all of it to criminal behavior.
[snip]
Geragos also said in the court filing that probation officials said Wilkes' sentence should be increased because he was an organizer or leader of a criminal enterprise. More on the story.
On a side note from TPM:
As Paul Kiel says, this isn't the prosecutor, who is part of the adversary proceeding and often asks for a maximal sentence. It's the probation officer, whose recommendation to the judge is supposed to reflect the sentencing guidelines and extenuating circumstances and whose lead the judge usually follows.
1 comment:
Yeah Baby will be tossing the salad and the days of the hookers will be gone. Now I wonder if Wilkes will call upon his buddies in the White House has he has a great deal of information on them. Oh how the mighty have fallen. They might put him in a cell with tea bag from Prison Break. Now the expensive Hotels will lose an important customer.
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