United States v. Pons, No. 15-1193 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePons was charged with wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, and equity skimming, 12 U.S.C. 1715z-19, and was released from custody pending trial. Two months before trial was to begin, he fled the country. He eventually turned himself in to U.S. authorities in Brazil and pleaded guilty to the two offenses. At sentencing the court applied a two-level upward adjustment for obstruction of justice, U.S.S.G. 3C1.1, refused to apply a reduction for acceptance of responsibility, and imposed a within-guidelines prison term of 78 months. The court rejected Pons’s claims that he did not wait to get caught, but instead self-surrendered in a country where there “is no extradition treaty,” that he apologized to the judge for fleeing, and decided to come back “to do what is right.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court did not clearly err in concluding that Pons’s circumstances were not so extraordinary as to warrant credit for acceptance of responsibility; before Pons fled, he did not spare the government the time and expense of preparing the case for trial, he violated a court order in obtaining a passport and “let the marshals run around” for a year looking for him.
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