United States v. Bania, No. 14-2317 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseTo fix a 2004 Teamsters election, Bania and the union president diverted ballots by changing members’ addresses in the database. They collected those ballots and cast falsified votes. After an investigation, they employed the same fraud during a second election. Bania was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and theft from a labor organization (18 U.S.C. 371), four counts of mail fraud (13 U.S.C. 1341 and 1346), and six counts of embezzling, stealing, and unlawfully and willfully abstracting and converting property and other assets of a labor organization (29 U.S.C. 501(c)). In 2009, the court sentenced Bania to concurrent 40-month terms, departing from the low-end of the guidelines, 97 months, and ordered Bania to pay $900,936 in restitution, reflecting salaries paid to co-defendants and expenses of the second election. The court later rejected Bania’s 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel in disregarding Bania’s instruction to appeal. In 2012, Bania completed his prison term. In 2013, the district court denied Bania’s motion for early termination of supervised release because of his outstanding financial obligation. Bania did not challenge that rationale, but argued that the restitution calculation improperly totaled the loss he intended to cause, rather than the loss actually caused. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the decision not to terminate supervised release. Bania filed an unsuccessful “Motion to Terminate Order of Restitution and Order of Forfeiture.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed; the court lacked jurisdiction to hear Bania’s motion. The time to appeal his sentence has long passed.
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