Maryland Federal Judge Gives Significantly Reduced Sentence in $1,000,000 Mail Fraud Case

On June 27, 2008, Silverman Thompson partner Andrew C. White convinced U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz to ignore the federal sentencing guidelines in a mail fraud case in United States District Court in Baltimore, Maryland. Silverman Thompson’s client was a senior former official at a Maryland bank who had pleaded guilty to engineering a complex three-year fraud scheme which resulted in a loss to the bank of over $1,000,000. At the sentencing hearing, prosecutors with the United States Attorney’s Office argued that the client should receive a sentence of between 41-51 months in federal prison. Under Judge Motz’s sentence, however, the client will spend approximately ten months at a federal prison camp. Silverman Thompson attorneys convinced the Court not to apply the federal sentencing guidelines because of several factors including the client’s difficult family circumstances, his exemplary conduct both before and after the offense, as well as the length of the FBI investigation into the theft.