Criminal Defense Attorney in U.S. Federal & Florida and Illinois Courts

Government’s Burden is Preponderance for Sentencing Enhancements

USA v. Morad Abu Sliman, 05-3056. This is an amount of loss opinion. The defendant engaged in a scheme with others involving counterfeit and forged checks.

Held:  The government must prove sentencing enhancements by a preponderance of evidence standard.  Here, the district court determined that the intended fraud amount was reasonably foreseeable to the def, thus he is responsible for these co-conspirator amounts.

Further, the district court may consider any relevant information in sentencing a defendant as long as there is sufficient indicia of reliability to support it’s probable accuracy.

For the full opinions visit the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Web Site.

For more about attorney Michael J. Petro, visit www.mjpetro.com .

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