Defendant's conviction for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and sentence to five years probation, with a community-service obligation but no confinement and a $50,000 fine, is reversed and remanded as, while a judge can give a below-guidelines sentence, the sentence cannot stand if it is based on a legal, factual, or analytic error that is not harmless as it is in this case.
Read US v. Vrdolyak, No. 09-1891
Appellate Information
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division
Decided January 29, 2010
Judges
Before: Posner, Manion and Hamilton, Circuit Judges
Opinion by Circuit Judge Posner
