Opinion ID: 202309
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Sentencing Proceedings

Text: 18 The above events end the story of Escobar's own sentencing. Judgment was entered on January 23, 2004. He filed a timely appeal to this court less than a week thereafter. Escobar's five co-defendants were, however, not sentenced at this time. Instead, they were sentenced several months later, after which Escobar filed, unsuccessfully, towards the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005, two new trial motions alleging that he had not been fairly sentenced. Underlying Escobar's complaint was an order the district court had issued on March 9, 2004, directing the government to put the Court in a position to be able to individualize the amount of drugs attributable or foreseeable to each defendant based on the record and on the evidence presented during the trial, in keeping with the new jurisprudence in United States v. Colon-Solis, 354 F.3d 101 (1st Cir.2004), a decision handed down two weeks before Escobar's January sentencing but apparently not yet known to the judge and Escobar's counsel at Escobar's sentencing. 19 The United States responded to the court's request on July 29, 2004, tendering information from the trial record bearing upon the different co-defendants' drug amounts. The government's response also included drug information about Escobar (even though he had already been sentenced), noting in particular Mendoza-Lebron's testimony of having furnished Escobar 1/8 of a kilogram of crack on a weekly basis over the period of their long relationship. 20 As noted, Escobar subsequently filed, on November 13, 2004 and February 7, 2005, two motions for new trial, citing to the First Circuit's holding in Colon-Solis and alleging error in the court's failure to have made an individualized finding as to the drug amounts in his own case. The court denied both motions in electronic orders without comment. It is unclear whether the court rejected the motions on the merits or because they were untimely filed. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(a) (requiring a defendant to file any motion contesting his sentence within seven (7) days after sentencing). Though Escobar cited Fed. R.Crim.P. 33(b)(1), which provides a three-year window for a motion for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence, the court's attention to Colon-Solis in the sentencing of the five co-defendants was scarcely newly discovered evidence. In any case, Escobar did not appeal to this court from the denial of his two post-sentence motions for a new trial, hence those motions are not now before us. 21 Unlike Escobar, who was sentenced prior to the court's March 9, 2004 order and prior to Booker, Escobar's co-defendants were all sentenced after the court's March 9, 2004 order and after the Supreme Court's decision in Booker. Although not part of the record of Escobar's proceedings, we note that Ofray was apparently sentenced to 200 months. Ofray's aide, Pedro Jose Diaz-Clavell, was sentenced to 151 months. Cruz-Pereira was sentenced to 216 months. Zaragoza-Lasa was sentenced to 300 months. A fifth co-defendant, Mizaury Lopez-Soto, was sentenced to 480 months. In all cases except that of Lopez-Soto, the court imposed sentences within the guideline range, based upon drug quantities found to be somewhat lower than Escobar's. In the case of Lopez-Soto, however, the court went far above the guideline range because, it stated, the recommended guideline sentence did not reflect the seriousness of the offense. 22