Criminal Case Revised

Nicole Cuilis
Criminal Case Revised

The New Jersey District Court’s sentence for a Brooklyn, N.Y. man convicted of identity theft and fraud was deemed reasonable by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in a December 13, 2006 ruling.
Shalon Dragon, 31, was sentenced by New Jersey District Court Judge Faith S. Hochberg to 44 months in prison on October 25, 2005. According to the court opinion written by Circuit Judge Barry Van Antwerpen, Dragon and the government had originally agreed that 37 to 46 months was an “appropriate guideline range.”
Dragon and his attorney, K. Anthony Thomas, called for a lesser sentence of 37 months citing the parsimony provision, which serves as legal grounds for defendants to have their sentences reduced. Dragon argued that he was a young man and would eventually be deported back to native country of Grenada at the end of his sentence.
K. Anthony Thomas, an assistant federal public defender who defended Dragon, said that the case would not go any further and that, there was clearly no decent among the judges.
This case has consequently weakened the concept of parsimony provision which was originally upheld in the case United States v. Booker.
Dragon’s case began on June 13, 2005 when he was arrested and pled guilty to one count of unlawful use of a means of identification of another with the intent to commit a felony. Dragon had allegedly conspired with his co-defendant, Casmore Durham, in an identity theft and fraud scheme. They obtained and used false identification to makes purchases on the accounts of 43 Macy’s credit card holders at Macy’s Department Stores in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Dragon and Durham’s scheme purportedly resulted in a loss of $106,990.23 for Macy’s. This scheme, which lasted from January 2001 up to Dragon’s arrest on December 19, 2003, involved purchasing merchandise and gift cards with the stolen identities.
Dragon and Durham were supposedly stopped by an officer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department in Jersey City, New Jersey after a New Jersey Transit bus driver reported their erratic driving. The officer reportedly noticed the Macy packages and questioned Durham, the driver, as to where they bought the items. The officer grew suspicious when Durham kept changing his story.
The opinion commented on how Dragon and Durham were taken into custody and then arrested when a check revealed that each had two outstanding warrants.
A search of the black Lexus that Durham and Dragon were driving revealed several fake New York non-driver identification cards in the names of various individuals and records of personal information corresponding to the names on the identification cards.
Police also found receipts from Macy’s stores located in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, 19 boxes of Timberland boots, five Macy’s shopping bags containing new merchandise, and a shopping bag containing two cellular phones.
Writing for the appeals panels, Van Antwerpen said that Dragon issued a statement on May 1, 2004 that confessed his involvement in the scheme, and the fact that he had obtained the personal information of 45 hospital patients from a contact he had at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Dragon and the government then entered a plea after his statement in which Dragon would be sentenced according to the seriousness of his offense, and in light of Dragon’s previous criminal history. Dragon had committed the offense while on probation for previous fraud offenses for which he had been given lenient sentencing. Both the New Jersey District Court and The Appeals Court did not see Dragon’s claims under the parsimony provision as valid.
The Third Circuit’s opinion in the Dragon case describes the parsimony provision as follows:
The court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater that necessary to comply with the purposes set forth…
A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law and to provide just punishment for the offense;
B) to affords adequate deterrence to criminal conduct;
C) Protects the public from further crimes of the defendant; and
D) To provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner

According to the court opinion, The New Jersey District Court justified their sentence issued in October 2005 by emphasizing “the complexity of the fraud scheme, the vulnerability of the victims, and Dragon’s lengthy criminal history of fraud offenses,” wrote Van Antwerpen.
“Mr. Dragon, you’re right you’re a young man, but you’re a young man that’s found a pretty nifty way to get extra cash with very little danger to yourself,” the District Court said.
Dragon and his attorney argued for a less sentence saying the parsimony provision had not been adequately considered and that his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial had been violated.
The Courts of Appeals said this was not the case according to United States v.Cooper. This case established the fact that the court was not responsible for searching out grounds on which to reduce a sentence, and that the Booker guidelines are merely advisory.
Van Antwerpen noted that according to U.S. v. Cooper, the courts must merely review sentences for reasonableness. “The District Court did not commit error, let alone plain error in reaching Dragon’s sentence,” he wrote.
The case would go any farther in the courts according to Dragon’s attorney.