United States v. Rigas, No. 08-3485-cr (2d Cir. October 5, 2009) (Feinberg, Winter, Cabranes, CJJ)
When we last heard about the Rigas père et fils – former senior officers at Adelphia Communications who were convicted of conspiracy, securities, wire and bank fraud – the circuit affirmed the majority of their convictions, but reversed a single count of bank fraud for insufficient evidence. United States v. Rigas, 490 F.3d 208 (2d Cir. 2007). Probably because the court remanded the case for resentencing, the 2007 opinion did not address the defendants’ long prison sentences: twenty years for the father and fifteen for the son, where the Guideline recommendation for each was life.
This case is the appeal from the remand. The decision covers little new ground, but provides very helpful guidance from the court on the standard it applies when reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness.
To get there, however, the court …