In United States v. Parris, S2 05 Cr. 636 (FB) (E.D.N.Y.) -- a pump-and-dump case -- brothers Lennox and Lester Parris were convicted of securities fraud and witness tampering.
The Parrises issued false press releases -- this time concerning a penny stock company in which they were the sole directors. Following the issuance of the press releases, the stock price nearly doubled and volume surged. The Parrises profited by causing their company to issue unregistered shares to two stock-promotion firms that, in turn, sold the newly issued stock to the public for a total of approximately $4.9 million. Those companies then transferred $2.56 million to a bank account controlled by Lester Parris. Similar to Ware, when the SEC began investigating, the Parrises were involved with submitting a false statement in an effort to cover up their activities.
In August, Judge Frederic Block determined that the offenses resulted in a gain of more than $2.5 million, involved 250 or more victims, employed sophisticated means, and involved obstruction of justice. Because the Parrises went to trial, they did not receive any reduction for acceptance of responsibility. The advisory guidelines range was extreme: 30 years to life in prison.
Judge Block rejected the guidelines and sentenced each defendant to five years’ imprisonment. Judge Block called the guidelines range “draconian” and complained that the guidelines did “not provide realistic guidance.” Notably, the government agreed that an appropriate sentence might be “significantly less” than the applicable guidelines range.
Judge Block directed the parties to search nationwide for the sentences ordered in similar cases. Based on his analysis of these cases, Judge Block concluded that defendants in securities fraud cases responsible for losses of $100 million or less generally received sentences of less than 10 years After considering this, along with various other factors, Judge Block sentenced the Parrises to five years’ imprisonment.
Now. tell me about those "MANDATORY MINIMUM sentences in the Federal system again.
