Interestingly, the govt's sentencing submission apparently included an upwards adjustment for obstruction of justice.
Judge: With respect to the obstruction of justice, based on the record that I have reviewed in writing, I find that it is an appropriate upward adjustment in this case, and therefore, again, reject the objection on that basis, so that the guideline -- the guideline numbers that I have recited are appropriate ...
The govt's sentencing submission delivered a guideline range of 87-108 months, including this upwards adjustment, and the prosecutor argued strongly for a sentence in this range.
Matt's father also addressed the court, apparently bewildered that other people involved in this were not prosecuted etc while his son seemed to have taken the fall for them.
Obviously one sympathsizes with Matt's dad - but the transcript does indicate that Matt actively obstructed justice in some way, and the prosecutor speaks generally of bad things done by Matt both before & after the indictment. On the other hand, the mitigating factors offered by the defense seem weak: Matt led astray by nasty Californians; his efforts to change IHUB with the Bag Holder Induction Page thing etc etc.
All consistent with Matt having only himself and the attorneys he chose to blame & in the end he was perhaps lucky not to get double his sentence.
The redacted portion is a sidebar called by Matt's attorney - no indication what it was about but a fair guess is stuff to do with Matt's assistance or lack of it with other cases - eg Joey M.
Finally - the judge's address was embarrassingly weak, no? What's with the irresponsible computer genius crap? No fundamental difference between this and eg some cabal rigging the Amsterdam market in the 17th century.
