Paroling, Recommitting, and Supervising Federal Prisoners: Fraud Offenses That Involve Multiple Millions of Dollars in Losses

Résumé

The U.S. Parole Commission is establishing a dollar amount range of $1 million to $5 million for Category Six fraud offenses in the paroling policy guidelines at 28 CFR 2.20. Frauds that cause losses of over $5 million will be rated Category Seven. At the present time, the Category Six offense severity rating is assigned to all frauds exceeding $1 million. In some cases, decisions above the Category Six guidelines are found warranted because the dollar losses greatly exceed those associated with ordinary cases of theft/forgery/fraud that are rated Category Six. The conversion of the open-ended dollar criterion for Category Six offenses into a range of $1 million to $5 million will provide the Commission with an appropriate benchmark to determine when dollar amount losses are so excessive as to require the offender to serve more prison time than indicated by the guidelines. This will permit increased consistency in the Commission's decisionmaking.