Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Helping a district judge send a sentencing message to unscrupulous landlords

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader sent me a copy of a recent notable white-collar sentencing decision by US District Judge Mark Bennett in US v. Miell, No. CR 07-101-MWB (D. Iowa Sept. 27, 2010) (available for download below). There are many notable passages in this 105-page(!) opinion, and I have spotlighted the first paragraph and a notable footnote here: In Little Dorritt (1855-57), Charles Dickens portrayed a greedy landlord as repeatedly urging his rent collector to ?squeeze? the inhabitants of his most squalid property, even though the rent collector believed that he had already ?squeezed? them dry.  Although this defendant?s properties were not squalid, there is nevertheless a disturbingly Dickensian quality to this case: The defendant, who owned hundreds of rental properties in Cedar Rapids and Linn County, Iowa, and, consequently, was himself worth many millions of dollars, engaged in a fraud scheme involving renters? damage deposits over many years to ?squeeze? an extra few hundred dollars each from people that he thought were too economically vulnerable or unsophisticated to contest his claims...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).