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Fraud Sentence Enhanced for Abuse of Trust
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines establish factors that a court is authorized to consider in imposing a sentence upon a criminal defendant, and assign numeric values to those factors in an effort to achieve some consistency in sentencing. Though the factors mostly stay the same, their precise parameters are constantly evolving. One evolving factor is the 'abuse of trust' or 'use of special skill' enhancement, described in the Guidelines under ' 3B1.3.
The abuse-of-trust enhancement provides that a defendant's sentence must be increased if the defendant 'abused a position of public or private trust, or used
a special skill, in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense ' ' The application notes suggest that there must be a personal relationship between the defendant and the victim, giving examples that appear to require something more than an ordinary business relationship: 'an embezzlement of a client's funds by an attorney serving as a guardian, a bank executive's fraudulent loan scheme, or the criminal sexual abuse of a patient by a physician under the guise of an examination.' 18 USCS Appx. ' 3B1.3 note 1.
What the Courts Say
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