Via Mark J. Sacco.
When a judge is sentencing a defendant who has been convicted of fraud or similar federal crimes, he or she must follow certain federal sentencing guidelines. However, those guidelines are just that - guidelines - and leave much room for interpretation and independent decision. While the total financial loss caused generally carries the most weight, attorneys and analysts say that judges are more likely to hand out harsh sentences if the fraud victims are middle-class investors who have lost their life savings.
Columbia University law professor and former prosecutor Daniel Richman agreed. "Even though it may be criminal where sophisticated investors are victimized, there is a special culpability where naïve investors have been robbed out of their life savings," he said. "The sympathy that judges have for victims who have lost their life savings isn't a quirk in the sentencing scheme. It is very much a heart of the sentencing scheme, that judges are reacting to the plight of the defrauded small investors and take that into account when passing sentence."
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