The moral of the story yesterday in the courtroom of Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Bruce W. Kauffman was this: He who admits his crime and diligently atones for it may hope for kindness at sentencing, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. That’s what happened in the case of Charles P. Mirarchi 3d, a popular defense lawyer who pleaded guilty to a fraud charge in a ticket-fixing scheme and cooperated with prosecutors in convicting his codefendant.
Although federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 18 to 24 months in prison, Mirarchi ended up with three years’ probation, the first six months to be served under house arrest. Kauffman gave the 54-year-old Mirarchi probation because of his “extremely significant cooperation with the government” in the investigation and prosecution of Joseph F. Hoffman Jr., the former head of the city parking-ticket appeals office. Hoffman was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison for taking $5,000 in payoffs from taxicab magnate Michael Etemad to reduce $47,000 worth of parking tickets on Etemad’s fleet to $3,500.
Link: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/12596244.htm