Posted on 09/14/2018 10:19:08 AM PDT by vg0va3
Happens all the time in drug conspiracy cases where you get these monetary amounts and drug quantities that jack the Guidelines range sky high--but you negotiate a deal to plea a "conspiracy to distribute mis-branded products" under §371 and are capped at five years.
The Guidelines are only advisory, not mandatory. I have to explain to my clients prior to sentencing all of the time not to freak out when the judge says your Guidelines are 188-235 months because he can't give you more than 60 months whether he wants to or not. That's what is happening here.
Based on my reading of the agreement, Manafort can't get more than 60 months on each count, and he'll get credit for any time already served. Hopefully this helps explain it. I wasn't trying to be rude--I would never expect a non-defense attorney to understand a federal plea agreement. That language can be really confusing to someone just reading it at its word. Just remember--the statute controls, and if it was just a plea to §371, then 5 years is the most he can get.
Now, in theory, since it was two counts, the judge could give him consecutive five year sentences for a total of 10, so his absolute maximum exposure is 10 years on both. However, that is rare, and he'll likely get concurrent terms on both, and probably not a lot of time anyway. Just my guess.
In closing, I totally agree that this whole thing is a political witch hunt and Mueller is a complete farce.
Thanks you!
Absolutely NO problem! Happy to clarify and apologize if I came off wrong. In the end, my guess is he’ll get 24-30 months tops, if even that. They REALLY don’t care about Manafort. This was all a show trial. If he wasn’t involved with Trump, they never would have even charged this stuff. However, they need to get a conviction to save face and Manafort likely did break a bunch of technical laws that could, in theory, get him a ton of time if he lost a jury trial, so they negotiated this deal. Of course the press will run with it and blame Trump for everything, but what else is new?
But Manafort laundered $30 million and cheated $15 million on taxes. That is of course all separate from Trump as are all these other things, but how is that nothing?
Or Greg Craig.
Thank you for the information. That make sense to why they agreed to 10 years.
They haven’t actually agreed to anything. The absolute most he could get is 10 years if the judge maxed him on both and ran them consecutive. Highly unlikely, IMO.
“Conspiracy Against The United States”
What a joke when we have overwhelming evidence of that by the leftist in OUR government, even people ADMITTING that they were conspiring to deny the people the right to a fair election.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.