Thursday, January 21, 2021
Most have heard the cliché “don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.” For many criminal defendants, however, a significant factor in the time served is not just the crime committed, but rather the so-called “trial penalty.”
A “trial penalty” describes situations where a defendant chooses to proceed to trial instead of accepting whatever plea deal the Government had offered and receives a significantly lengthier sentence than she would have received had she not gone to trial. Often the “trial penalty” results in a defendant receiving a much lengthier sentence than those received by more culpable co-conspirators who accepted a plea.
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Among the more than 140 people receiving pardons or having their sentences commuted by President Trump on his last day in office were several with healthcare ties, including practitioners.
Paul Behrens, Thaddeus Bereday,
Peter Clay,
Todd Farha, William Kale
Trump pardoned the five former executives of WellCare Health Plans, who were found guilty of defrauding Florida s Medicaid program. The defendants in this case falsely and fraudulently schemed to submit inflated expenditure information in the company s annual reports . in order to reduce the WellCare HMOs contractual payback obligations for behavioral health care services, the Justice Department said.
The White House labeled their case a case study in overcriminalization.. Notably, there was no evidence that any of the individuals were motivated by greed.
Who has Trump pardoned? A full list OLD
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January 20, 2021, 3:58 AM·20 min read
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Donald Trump, pictured on December 7, 2020, has been pardoning allies before leaving office next month (AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump used his final hours as president to issue a slew of 143 pardons and commutations of sentence to friends and allies as he prepared to reluctantly hand over power to his Democratic successor Joe Biden.
A meeting with his inner circle at the White House on Sunday saw Mr Trump finalise the clemency list, a source told CNN.
Despite much speculation, he ultimately decided against issuing pre-emptive pardons to himself or members of his family or to the likes of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or