4 ms·

That's insane. 20 to 30 years in federal prison for having defrauded the post of how many letters? Imagining you've been sending couple of letters a weeks at mo

That's insane. 20 to 30 years in federal prison for having defrauded the post of how many letters? Imagining you've been sending couple of letters a weeks at most, that's like what? $10 per months!?

civilitty 3y ago
That's just the maximum they use to scare people with. Federal sentencing guidelines aren't that severe and a first time offender with something as mild as using the return address to send a few letters would plead out to a few hundred or thousand dollar fine and maybe probation, say nothing of the fact that the OP was underage. IANAL but to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud that ended in some serious damage like costing victims million of dollars with some other mitigating circumstances.
- hollerith 3y ago
  >to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud . . . with some other mitigating circumstances. You mean aggravating circumstances.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    just knowing that my neighbor was sending his mail this way would aggravate me!
MajimasEyepatch 3y ago
Federal sentencing rules are very complex and take into account both the severity of the crime (as determined by its "offense level," of which there are 43) and the defendant's criminal history. I don't know the offense level of the particular crime mentioned in the comment, but presumably it would be fairly low, and since the defendant would have been a minor with (presumably) no federal criminal history, it's very unlikely IMO that they would have seen anywhere near that long if they were convicted. My guess is fines, probation, maybe a few months at worst, but judging by the tone of the comment, it seems like basically nothing happened and this was just a "scared straight" scenario.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines#Sentencing_table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci...

That's insane. 20 to 30 years in federal prison for having defrauded the post of how many letters? Imagining you've been sending couple of letters a weeks at most, that's like what? $10 per months!?

civilitty 3y ago

That's just the maximum they use to scare people with. Federal sentencing guidelines aren't that severe and a first time offender with something as mild as using the return address to send a few letters would plead out to a few hundred or thousand dollar fine and maybe probation, say nothing of the fact that the OP was underage. IANAL but to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud that ended in some serious damage like costing victims million of dollars with some other mitigating circumstances.

hollerith 3y ago
>to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud . . . with some other mitigating circumstances. You mean aggravating circumstances.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  just knowing that my neighbor was sending his mail this way would aggravate me!

MajimasEyepatch 3y ago

Federal sentencing rules are very complex and take into account both the severity of the crime (as determined by its "offense level," of which there are 43) and the defendant's criminal history. I don't know the offense level of the particular crime mentioned in the comment, but presumably it would be fairly low, and since the defendant would have been a minor with (presumably) no federal criminal history, it's very unlikely IMO that they would have seen anywhere near that long if they were convicted. My guess is fines, probation, maybe a few months at worst, but judging by the tone of the comment, it seems like basically nothing happened and this was just a "scared straight" scenario.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines#Sentencing_table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci...