United States v. Isler, No. 19-1891 (8th Cir. 2020)
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The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's 42-month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets and one count of making a false statement to the FBI, related to his access and use of confidential company information belonging to his former employer, DuPont, Inc.
The court held that defendant's sentence was procedurally reasonable where the district court committed no error in its factual findings as it related to its decision to vary upwards in imposing defendant's sentence; the district court committed no error in its application of the Guidelines to formulate defendant's sentencing range; and the district court did not rely on clearly erroneous facts as a basis to increase defendant's sentence. The court also held that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court did not err in considering defendant's traffic infractions and past drug conviction in fashioning his sentence. Furthermore, the district court did not err by utilizing its wide latitude in assigning weight to specific sentencing factors, and nothing in the record demonstrates that the district court imposed a disproportionate sentence for defendant's crimes.
Court Description: [Shepherd, Author, with Loken and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. In a case where defendant stole trade secrets from his former employer and shared them with his new employer, the district court did not err in determining that the seriousness of the offense was not captured in the advisory guidelines calculation and in varying upwards to impose a 42-month sentence; the court considered defendant's arguments regarding the government's inability to prove the amount of loss; the district court did not rely on clearly erroneous facts as a basis to increase defendant's sentence as the court's findings are amply supported by the record; sentence imposed was not substantively unreasonable.
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