Sentencing — mail fraud

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — mail fraud

An 84-month sentence for mail fraud was not unreasonable.

“In sum, the district court’s mistake (if any) lay in its word choice rather than any misapprehension as to the beginning and duration of the charged scheme. We therefore discern no need to remand the case for clarification on this point. It was a plausible inference that Schmitz’s history of fraud began well before the charged scheme did; and we do not think there is any real possibility that the sentencing judge blurred the distinction between the two in evaluating the pertinent sentencing factors. For example, standing alone, the charged scheme, which lasted well over six years, was both serious and lengthy, as the court said it was. In short, there is no real possibility that the court was mistaken about the duration of the charged crime, let alone that such an error affected the court’s evaluation of the Guidelines and statutory factors and its choice of sentence.”

Affirmed.

11-3269 U.S. v. Schmitz

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Rovner, J.