United States v. Harper, No. 14-2701 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pleaded guilty to fraud consisting of having abused her position as a Chicago public-school board member by accepting kickbacks of more than $500,000 from bus companies to which she steered transportation contracts worth $21 million. The parties stipulated that the value of the benefit received from the fraud was $7-$20 million, and so the guidelines range would have been 360 months to life. The guidelines in effect at the time required a 20-level enhancement for honest services fraud when “the value of the payment, the benefit received or to be received in return for the payment, the value of anything obtained or to be obtained by a public official or others acting with a public official, or the loss to the government from the offense, whichever is greatest,” was between $7 and $20 million, U.S.S.G. 2C1.1(b)(2), 2B1.1(b), but the statutory maximums for the two counts were 20 years and 3 years respectively, and that changed the range to 276 months. The judge imposed a below-guidelines sentence of 120 months, ordered the defendant to pay restitution of $7.2 million, and imposed a year of supervised release, which the judge may have thought mandatory. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding the district court’s explanation inadequate.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.