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Kimmel’s first day of prison pushed back to March
14-Jan-09 – Gary Kimmel has been given more time before he must report to prison. The Marina City resident, sentenced to 37 months for money laundering, now has until March 2. At a status hearing on Tuesday morning, Kimmel attorney Paul Zido told the judge his client needs more time to sell or at least rent the last of his condominium units at Marina City. Over the objection of Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder, Zido asked for and received a 45-day stay of execution of the court judgement. “The defendant has one asset, his family,” Zido told Honorable Blanche M. Manning. He said Kimmel needs to either sell or rent the condo unit in order to provide for his family, which Zido says is living in “a small village” in the Philippines.
Santos no help in the end, Kimmel must pay $342,000 There was no budging on the issue of restitution. Kimmel must pay $342,000, which had been the tentative amount of forfeiture since November. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Kimmel has raised $327,132.18, mostly from the sale of condo units at Marina City. That would leave a balance of $14,867.82. Assuming Kimmel makes up the difference, he will get to keep the three connected units on the 56th floor of the east residential tower. On Tuesday, the asking price for the property was $867,500. The argument that a recent Supreme Court decision should reduce, if not eliminate, restitution apparently did not find a receptive audience. On June 2, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Santos that restitution in cases of money laundering is determined based on profits, not just gross receipts. Although Manning appeared to agree at sentencing on November 20 that the Supreme Court ruling was applicable, by a status hearing on December 18 her enthusiasm has clearly waned. In a position paper filed on January 9, Julie Ruder called the argument “gamesmanship” and said that Kimmel was “trying to whittle away the concessions he made in the plea agreement as much as possible, while retaining the benefits conferred by the government.” She said a sentence based on a minimum $342,000 value of laundered funds is consistent with the Supreme Court decision. Although he would not comment on the failure of the Santos argument, Kimmel attorney Joseph Lopez defended to Marina City Online his overall strategy. “Doc was between a rock and a hard place,” said Lopez. “If he withdrew his plea, the government threatened to add more charges. So, we may have won the battle and lost the war.” He said Kimmel did not want to plead guilty but with the prospect at the time of a much longer prison sentence, potentially eight or nine years, “the downside was so risky he felt compelled.” Lopez feels the 37-month prison sentence, which could be as short as 25 months, is acceptable given the likelihood of a much longer sentence had Kimmel gone to trial and lost. Says Lopez, “Remember, even Martha Stewert went to jail on a relatively minor crime compared to the charges against Kimmel.”
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