Mercy sought for former judge
Minimum sentence isn?’t justified in arson case, federal prosecutors say
by Mary Beth Lane
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Saturday, November 13, 2004
By night, he was downing six ''heavy duty'' drinks and smoking pot. By day, Don S. McAuliffe was ruling from the bench of Fairfield County Municipal Court, according to a sentencing memorandum by his attorney.
By his own description, the judge was depressed intermittently for a ''long time,'' and in 2001, began taking Prozac. Then McAuliffe got involved with a business partner and ?— ''totally out of character'' for the judge ?— the two plotted to set fire to his home and collect the insurance, wrote defense attorney Sam B. Weiner in a 15-page memorandum.
Weiner has asked the presiding judge to show mercy on McAuliffe, who in February was convicted by a federal jury of an arson-for-profit scheme in which he burned down his Millersport house along Buckeye Lake and fraudulently collected $235,000 in an insurance payout.
U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley was scheduled to sentence McAuliffe yesterday but delayed it because Weiner?’s co-counsel, Larry Thomas, had a scheduling conflict.
McAuliffe, 59, has been awaiting sentencing since Feb. 13. McAuliffe likely faces 15 to 17 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, though Weiner has said previously that he would seek ''down in the 10-year range,'' which is the minimum.
He was convicted of using a fire to commit a felony and conspiracy, two counts of money laundering and two counts of mail fraud.
A former Pickerington law director, McAuliffe took the bench in 1997, and by 1998 had increased his drinking and marijuana smoking ?— a pattern that continued until his 2003 arrest, Weiner wrote.
Weiner asked Marbley for a ''downward departure'' from the sentencing guidelines range ''that would both punish the defendant and show him mercy.''
He said his client?’s age and judicial background could jeopardize his life in prison, and his elderly mother deserves comfort and support in her final years. Weiner also wrote that McAuliffe?’s role in the arson plot was unlike anything he had done before.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys David M. DeVillers and Kevin W. Kelley opposed the requested departure, and disputed Weiner?’s suggestion that McAuliffe?’s record was previously unblemished. McAuliffe '' . . . admits, in his sentencing memorandum, that he has used ?‘marijuana on a nightly basis?’ since 1998,'' the prosecutors wrote. ''This marijuana use was going on at the same time that the defendant was presumably sentencing others for similar crimes as a Municipal Court judge.''
Also, they wrote, McAuliffe was previously involved in a publicly funded settlement of a job-termination complaint that benefited his girlfriend, who was his court probation officer. McAuliffe also had been investigated for alleged domestic violence against his first wife, they wrote.
''The defendant?’s record as a Municipal Court judge is far from ?‘unblemished,?’'' DeVillers and Kelley wrote.
Minimum sentence isn?’t justified in arson case, federal prosecutors say
by Mary Beth Lane
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Saturday, November 13, 2004
By night, he was downing six ''heavy duty'' drinks and smoking pot. By day, Don S. McAuliffe was ruling from the bench of Fairfield County Municipal Court, according to a sentencing memorandum by his attorney.
By his own description, the judge was depressed intermittently for a ''long time,'' and in 2001, began taking Prozac. Then McAuliffe got involved with a business partner and ?— ''totally out of character'' for the judge ?— the two plotted to set fire to his home and collect the insurance, wrote defense attorney Sam B. Weiner in a 15-page memorandum.
Weiner has asked the presiding judge to show mercy on McAuliffe, who in February was convicted by a federal jury of an arson-for-profit scheme in which he burned down his Millersport house along Buckeye Lake and fraudulently collected $235,000 in an insurance payout.
U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley was scheduled to sentence McAuliffe yesterday but delayed it because Weiner?’s co-counsel, Larry Thomas, had a scheduling conflict.
McAuliffe, 59, has been awaiting sentencing since Feb. 13. McAuliffe likely faces 15 to 17 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, though Weiner has said previously that he would seek ''down in the 10-year range,'' which is the minimum.
He was convicted of using a fire to commit a felony and conspiracy, two counts of money laundering and two counts of mail fraud.
A former Pickerington law director, McAuliffe took the bench in 1997, and by 1998 had increased his drinking and marijuana smoking ?— a pattern that continued until his 2003 arrest, Weiner wrote.
Weiner asked Marbley for a ''downward departure'' from the sentencing guidelines range ''that would both punish the defendant and show him mercy.''
He said his client?’s age and judicial background could jeopardize his life in prison, and his elderly mother deserves comfort and support in her final years. Weiner also wrote that McAuliffe?’s role in the arson plot was unlike anything he had done before.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys David M. DeVillers and Kevin W. Kelley opposed the requested departure, and disputed Weiner?’s suggestion that McAuliffe?’s record was previously unblemished. McAuliffe '' . . . admits, in his sentencing memorandum, that he has used ?‘marijuana on a nightly basis?’ since 1998,'' the prosecutors wrote. ''This marijuana use was going on at the same time that the defendant was presumably sentencing others for similar crimes as a Municipal Court judge.''
Also, they wrote, McAuliffe was previously involved in a publicly funded settlement of a job-termination complaint that benefited his girlfriend, who was his court probation officer. McAuliffe also had been investigated for alleged domestic violence against his first wife, they wrote.
''The defendant?’s record as a Municipal Court judge is far from ?‘unblemished,?’'' DeVillers and Kelley wrote.
