United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted June 10, 2021

*

Decided June 14, 2021

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

No. 20-3097

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

LAZARICK KING,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 15 CR 0178

Robert W. Gettleman,

Judge.

O R D E R

Lazarick King, a 46-year-old federal inmate in prison for tax fraud, sought

compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), arguing that his obesity put 

him at heightened risk of serious complications from COVID-19. The district court 

denied his request. It reasoned that even if the risk caused by his obesity was an 

“extraordinary and compelling reason” for his release, the sentencing factors of 

* We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 20-3097 Page 2

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), which it must consider, weighed against his release. Because the 

court did not abuse its discretion, we affirm.

After serving about one-third of his 84-month sentence for aggravated identity 

theft, wire fraud, and mail fraud, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1028A(a)(1), 1341, 1343, King 

unsuccessfully moved for compassionate release. He had pleaded guilty based on 

evidence that, over the course of four years, he deceived hundreds of vulnerable victims 

into furnishing their personal identifying information, which he used to file false tax 

returns and steal nearly one million dollars in tax refunds. In his motion for early 

release, King initially argued that two health conditions—hypertension and asthma—

put him at serious risk from COVID-19. Further, he argued that his post-sentencing 

conduct weighed in favor of his immediate release. (Since his incarceration, he had

secured prison work, acquired marketable job skills, taken educational classes, and 

completed drug abuse education.) That conduct, he said, combined with his low score

on a risk-assessment tool, his assignment to a low-security prison, his age, and his nonviolent past, showed that he would not endanger the community if released. But the 

district court denied King’s motion. Focusing on the evidence of his health issues only, 

the court stated that King “failed to demonstrate that his medical conditions constitute 

‘extraordinary and compelling reasons’” for his release. The court invited King to file “a 

subsequent motion should his medical or physical condition worsen.”

King timely moved the court to reconsider, adding evidence of another health 

condition—obesity—to which the government responded by highlighting King’s 

criminality. King argued that his body mass index was above the threshold cited by the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for risk of severe COVID-19 illness. The 

government conceded that King’s obesity was an “extraordinary and compelling 

reason” for his release, but it still opposed his motion. It argued that King posed a

danger to the community because his tax-fraud crimes, while not violent, inflicted 

severe economic harm on his victims and the public. It also cited King’s decades-long

criminal history, which included increasingly serious convictions for theft and fraud. 

The district court denied the motion to reconsider. It concluded that, even if 

King’s risk from COVID-19 was an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for release, 

the § 3553(a) factors weighed against it. The court cited the seriousness of King’s 

offense—“an extensive, four-year long identity theft scheme with multiple victims”—

for which King had not served even half of his prison term. It also relied on his 

extensive criminal history—“literally decades of fraudulent behavior.” Based on these 

factors, the court rejected King’s argument that he posed no danger to the community.
No. 20-3097 Page 3

On appeal, King argues that the district court should have ordered his early 

release. We review denials of compassionate release for abuse of discretion. 

United States v. Saunders, 986 F.3d 1076, 1078 (7th Cir. 2021). “Because of the importance 

of the § 3553(a) factors, courts are not compelled to release every prisoner with 

extraordinary and compelling health concerns.” Id. For two reasons, the district court 

reasonably decided that those health concerns, even if concededly extraordinary, did 

not support King’s release. First, it considered but permissibly rejected King’s 

“principal arguments,” see United States v. Newton, 996 F.3d 485, 489 (7th Cir. 2021)—

that he was unlikely to reoffend. It had ample reason to conclude that, based on his 

decades of recidivism, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), his contention that he was suddenly 

reformed was unpersuasive. Second, the court also reasonably determined that 

reducing King’s sentence by more than half, as he wanted, would not reflect the 

seriousness of his admitted crimes of cheating vulnerable taxpayers out of refunds

worth nearly a million dollars. See id. § 3553(a)(2)(A).

King responds that the court unreasonably found him too dangerous for release 

because it permitted him to be released on bond before his trial and because the Federal 

Bureau of Prisons placed him in a low-security facility. We are unpersuaded. King cites 

no authority suggesting that a district court’s broad discretion in compassionate-release 

decisions is constrained by pretrial bond or facility-placement decisions, and nothing in 

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) supports that interpretation. Moreover, pretrial release and 

facility-placement decisions are fundamentally different from compassionate-release 

decisions, which require the court to consider whether a prisoner, who has been 

convicted, has received adequate punishment for his crimes.

Lastly, King argues in the alternative that he should be transferred to home 

confinement, but we lack the authority to fulfill his request. See Saunders, 986 F.3d at 

1078. The Bureau has plenary control over its inmates’ placements. Id.

AFFIRMED