BUFFALO, N.Y. — Since January, when he was sentenced to serve 26 months in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, former Congressman Chris Collins has been granted several postponements of his incarceration.
Collins, who plead guilty to the charge was originally supposed to report to prison in March.
That was initially delayed for one month because Collins hadn’t been assigned to the minimum-security federal prison in Pensacola, Florida as the judge agreed to recommend.
Subsequent delays in his reporting date were granted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which his lawyers had argued put the 70-year-old Collins at grave risk due to his age and pre-existing medical conditions.
Collin’s lawyers are once again asking for a delay in his current reporting date of October 13 until December.
However, unlike in prior instances, this time prosecutors who did not previously oppose the delays are, according to Collin’s lawyers, no longer willing to give him any quarter.
So, attorneys for Collins are now additionally asking the judge that if he is unwilling to postpone the incarceration any further, that Collins have his sentence changed to time served plus home confinement.
Angling for No Prison Time
“An additional delay in the Report Date will preserve the status quo while, hopefully, awaiting an essential and much-needed vaccine. Alternately, in the absence of this essential development, prudence dictates that a modified sentence to accommodate health and safety is warranted,” Collins’ attorneys wrote in papers submitted to U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick.
“Mr. Collins respectfully requests that the Court extend the Report Date to December 8, 2020 or, in the alternative, modify his sentence to time-served plus a period of supervised release with the special condition of home confinement. Far from being a “pass,” imposing home confinement for the full original term is a substantial punishment that will achieve the purposes of sentencing, while also accommodating health and safety,” they wrote.
Why Should he get a Break?
In court papers, Collins details for the first time his precise pre-existing conditions that make him at increased risk to suffer potentially calamitous effects from Covid-19.
They include high blood pressure, asthma, and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), as factors increasing his vulnerability to experience severe illness or death should he be exposed to and contract the novel coronavirus.
His lawyers call them “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to keep him out of prison.
Collins also submitted a letter from his physician which also notes the same list of maladies and concludes by saying “The patient's age and asthma are risk factors which would increase his morbidity if exposed to COVID-19. “
Other Factors Favoring Collins
Also perhaps working in Collins’ favor is a finding by Attorney General Barr, whose office oversees the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that emergency conditions are materially affecting the functioning of BOP, and Barr’s directive recognizing that there are some at-risk inmates who are non-violent and pose minimal likelihood of recidivism and who might be safer serving their sentences in home confinement rather than in BOP facilities.
Indeed, several federal prisoners who meet the criteria have been released from prisons during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Collins’ lawyers submit that their client, who had no prior criminal record and has abided by all terms imposed by the probation department while awaiting his incarceration, is “precisely the type of prisoner that institutions are currently instructed to transition to home confinement.”
“He is a nonviolent, first-time offender who poses absolutely no danger to the community. Indeed, his characteristics are some of the very same factors cited by the Attorney General as warranting release to home confinement, i.e., (a) being at-risk because of health problems, (b) having been convicted of a non-violent offense, and (c) posing minimum likelihood of recidivism or danger,” they said.
BOP Rejected Collin’s Request for Home Confinement
Court paper further reveal that Collins and his legal team had been lobbying the Bureau of Prisons unsuccessfully since early June to have his sentence converted to home confinement.
In a letter sent to Collins on June 19, the Warden of the federal prison camp in Pensacola, M.V. Joseph wrote,” The Bureau does not have statutory authority to designate a Home Confinement program placement for an inmate at the beginning of his or her sentence. This is supported in Title 18, U.S.C., Section 3621, which requires that the Bureau designate any available penal or correctional facility as the place of a prisoner's imprisonment. As you have not yet surrendered yourself to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it would be inappropriate for my office or the staff at FPC Pensacola to render an opinion on this matter at this time. Moreover. our local decisions regarding placement of inmates on Home Confinement in response to the COVlD- 19 pandemic are based on discre11onar~ factors. several of which cannot be evaluated while you are not in Bureau custody.”
Subsequent appeals of the warden’s determination up the Bureau of Prisons chain of command have also been rejected, and having exhausted their efforts in that process, the decision now entirely rests in the hands of Judge Broderick.
Hunkered Down in Florida
Collins is, according to court papers, currently hunkered down in isolation with his family, at his home in Marco Island Florida.