United States v. Buncich, No. 20-2569 (7th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this Case
Buncich, while serving as Sheriff of Lake County, Indiana, received thousands of dollars from local towing companies that received lucrative towing contracts within the county. A jury convicted Buncich of wire fraud and bribery in 2017, and he was sentenced to 188 months in prison. Following an earlier appeal that vacated three counts of conviction, he was resentenced to 151 months.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed that sentence, rejecting arguments that the district court erred in its Sentencing Guideline calculation, that the court failed to explain its guideline findings sufficiently and made other procedural errors, and that the sentence was substantively unreasonable. The court upheld the “benefit calculation” under U.S.S.G. 2C1.1(b)(2), which requires an offense-level increase if “the value of the payment” or “the benefit received or to be received in return for the payment” exceeded $6,500. The probation officer estimated that the benefit received was $108,650. The combination of the presentence report, the exploration of the benefit-received issue at the two sentencing hearings, and the district court’s resolution in favor of the presentence report’s view are sufficient to permit meaningful review. The sentencing judge understood his obligation to independently decide whether the Guideline sentence achieved the goals of section 3553(a).
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.