Charles E. Taylor Court - media.bizj.us

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

ATLANTA DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

CHARLES E. TAYLOR

Criminal Information

No. 1:19-CR-0515-JPB

DEFENDANT CHARLES TAYLOR’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM Defendant Charles Taylor, by and through undersigned counsel, respectfully

asks this Honorable Court to impose a sentence of home confinement for 12 months.

Before discussing the section 18 U.S.C. §3553(a) factors and how they apply to this

case, defendant Taylor asks this Court to depart downward from the sentencing

guidelines for three reasons: (1) the loss overstates the seriousness of the crime; (2)

aberrant behavior; and (3) age and physical condition.

The government, probation and defendant Taylor all agree that the appropriate

guideline for the offense is § 2B1.1, the base offense level pursuant to that guideline

is 6, and that the base offense level must be adjusted to correspond to the loss

amount. The parties agree that the loss amount is between $550,000 and $1,500,000,

increasing the guidelines by 14 levels. The parties also agree that a two-level upward

adjustment for special skill should be imposed and that a 3-level downward

adjustment should be imposed for acceptance of responsibility. The government has

Case 1:19-cr-00515-JPB Document 13 Filed 05/18/20 of 27

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also agreed to recommend a 2-level downward variance based on factors set forth in

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) based on the nature and circumstances of the offense and the

defendant’s history and characteristics. The government also agreed to recommend

the defendant be sentenced at the low end of the adjusted guideline range, which is

level 17 (24-30 months).

This Court should consider the following prior to imposing sentence:

I. Guideline Calculations - A loss amount between $550,000 and $1,500,000, resulting in a 14-level increase overstates the seriousness of the crime. Defendant Taylor is seeking a downward departure because

the loss determination overstates the seriousness of his conduct. Application Note

21(C) of Section 2B1.1 states:

Downward Departure Consideration—There may be cases in which the offense level determined under this guideline substantially overstates the seriousness of the offense. In such cases, a downward departure may be warranted.

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 App. Note 21(C). That application note recognizes that in some

situations the application of the fraud loss table can overstate the seriousness of the

offense. In fact, the case law is clear where application of the Guidelines' monetary

tables bears little or no relationship to the defendant's role in the offense and greatly

magnifies the sentence, the district court has the discretion to depart downward. See

United States v. Stuart, 22 F.3d 76, 83 (3d Cir. 1994); United States v. Costello, 16

F. Supp. 2d 36, 39 (D. Mass. 1998).


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To be clear, defendant Taylor does not contest the guideline as it relates to the

“loss amount” for guideline purposes; however, the loss amount grossly overstates

the harm or loss in this case for several reasons. The PSR calculates the loss as

following:

The PSR ¶ 31 Loss Amount:

In total, there was $834,556.70 in loss. This loss is detailed in the following manner:

i. $103,212.70 was used to purchase new routers. ii. A total of $66,700 was spent on manpower, consisting of $40,800 on

an internal IT team for the first two weeks of the shutdown and an additional $25,900 on an internal IT team after first two weeks and executive oversight. This amount is broken down in the following manner:

a. Six IT staff worked on remediation in the first two weeks and two IT staff worked part-time thereafter.

b. A total of 480 work hours for the first two weeks with the average wage of $85 per hour equals $40,800.

c. A total of 80 work hours for IT staff after the first two weeks at an average wage of $119 per hour equals $9,520.

d. Executive oversight included four top executives who spent 1 hour per week for 13 weeks on oversight of remediation/incident response with an average wage of $315 per hour equals $16,380.

iii. $353,826 was lost in business interruptions based on the decline of gross margin for sales for two days.

iv. $310,818 was spent on professional fees, to include IT and legal fees through January 2019.

Defendant Taylor will address each “loss” number raised by each romanette and

establish that it overstates the real loss or harm caused by the criminal activity.


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A. The Facts of the Case

Charles Taylor served as a senior-systems engineer for Cedar Creek, LLC, a

wholesale distributor of building materials from 2015 through July 2018. Cedar

Creek was acquired by BlueLinx Corp, a Fortune 500 wholesale distributor of

building and industrial products headquartered in Atlanta. Defendant Taylor

continued in the same position after the merger but resigned from his position at

BlueLinx in July 2018 when he became aware that BlueLinx was about to fire him.

(The defendant subsequently learned that BlueLinx planned to terminate most of the

legacy-Cedar Creek employees.) Defendant Taylor's supervisor at the time of his

resignation was Hunter Grubbs.

Hunter Grubbs was the mastermind of this scheme. He resented the fact that

well connected Cedar Creek employees had been given large financial payouts as a

result of the merger. In turn, both Grubbs and Taylor felt that notwithstanding the

fact that they had contributed significantly to Cedar Creek’s success and

profitability, they were being sidelined by BlueLinx, and, in particular, the people

they had worked with for many years. As a result of his animus towards BlueLinx,

Grubbs planned the scheme, encouraged it, applauded Mr. Taylor after it happened,

and then turned Mr. Taylor in, deflecting responsibility from himself, when given

the opportunity by the FBI.


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Cedar Creek's information system's infrastructure utilized a virtual private

network (VPN) which routed all of the Cedar Creek warehouses' internet traffic

through a central router--the “Net001 server.” Sometime around the time of the

Cedar Creek merger with BlueLinx, Grubbs decided he would re-configure the

legacy-Cedar Creek VPN so that in the event of a shutdown, the data required for

full operation of the VPN would not automatically remount to the system. Grubbs

configured the VPN to require an additional passphrase to remount the information

from the Net001 server that contained the data necessary for the VPN to function. A

simple command using the passphrase, again known only to Grubbs, could easily,

within seconds, restore full functionality to the system.

Grubbs knew the new information technology team from BlueLinx would not

be able to find the data on Net001 and would think that the information had been

deleted and lost because Grubbs was the only person with the password to remount

the Net001 data. Hunter Grubbs never gave the passphrase to BlueLinx personnel or

even to Defendant Taylor, thus retaining absolute and total control over the VPN

and the Net001 data once the system was shutdown. In discussions with defendant

Taylor, Grubbs referred to his plan to shut BlueLinx out of the information and

communication available on the VPN as their option to “go nuclear.”

On July 13, 2018, Mr. Taylor sent an email to Bluelinx staff in which he

resigned his position effective immediately. As a result of his resignation, Mr. Taylor


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access to BlueLinx’s computer network was to be eliminated after that date. On or

about August 22, 2018, BlueLinx discovered that the Net001 server had been shut

down, which severed nearly all connectivity on BlueLinx’s network as it relates to

the Cedar Creek locations. Following the incident, BlueLinx retained a forensic

investigations firm, which determined that an unidentified user had logged into the

Net001 router remotely through a VPN connection and issued a “shutdown”

command. The unidentified actor issued the shutdown command from a remote

connection to BlueLinx’s network on or about August 19, 2018, which scheduled

the shutdown command to execute on August 22, 2018.

During the investigation of this matter, Hunter Grubbs told law enforcement

that Mr. Taylor intentionally accessed BlueLinx’s network after July 13, 2018, and

issued commands to change router passwords and shut down the Net001 router. In

two recorded conversations with Hunter Grubbs in the summer of 2019, Mr. Taylor

stated that he “locked BlueLinx out of the routers” and admitted that he remotely

accessed BlueLinx’s network. The FBI subsequently interviewed Mr. Taylor at his

home, during which Mr. Taylor admitted to connecting to the Net001 router by VPN

after his resignation from BlueLinx, changing the router passwords, and issuing a

shutdown command for the Net001 router.

BlueLinx provided to the government information regarding its remediation

expenses, purchase of replacement routers, and supposed business interruption


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losses resulting from the unauthorized access that exceeded $500,000 but less than

$1,500,000.

B. The Loss Amount

(i) $103,212.70 was used to purchase new routers.

Defendant Taylor did not have access to the routers that were part of the

original BlueLinx operation. His access was limited to those routers that were in the

legacy Cedar Creek information system before the merger. Defendant Taylor did not

damage the routers; he only changed the passwords. The routers were, according to

the information provided by the government, not damaged, and required only a

change of passwords. Moreover, the routers passwords could be bypassed and the

system fully utilized.

Had it been necessary to replace the routers, which it was not, replacing the

routers at Cedar Creek with the identical routers would have cost approximately

$10,000. Thus, the replacement cost identified in the PSR for the routers overstates

the loss amount. According to the government, BlueLinx was in the process of

changing the routers before the shutdown. The price quoted to the government

reflects the cost of much more expensive routers than the ones in use at the time of

the offense. Thus, the replacement cost identified in the PSR for the routers

overstates the loss amount.


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ii. total of $66,700 was spent on manpower, consisting of $40,800 on an internal IT team for the first two weeks of the shutdown and an additional $25,900 on an internal IT team after first two weeks and executive oversight.

The above “manpower” spent dealing with this two-day shutdown seems

excessive. The wage calculations seem inflated because BlueLinx was paying

defendant Taylor, for example, approximately $40 per hour. Hunter Grubbs, the

mastermind of the scheme, made more than defendant Taylor, but still not $85 per

hour.

iii. $353,826 was lost in business interruptions based on the decline

of gross margin for sales for two days.

This is an overstatement of the loss associated with the business interruption

that resulted from the shutdown at Cedar Creek. The limited information disclosed

to the defendant by the government to justify the business interruption did not relate

exclusively to the Cedar Creek operation. It related to BlueLinx’s supposed revenue

loss. BlueLinx is a wholesale lumber company with large retail businesses as their

client. There is no evidence that BlueLinx really lost any sales as a result of the

incident. At best, the supposed sales during the days the computers were down were

deferred to subsequent days. Therefore, the loss revenue exaggerates the loss

suffered by BlueLinx.

To be clear, BlueLinx operation did NOT cease. The Cedar Creek part of the

operation, which is a relatively small part of BlueLinx business, slowed down


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substantially. A competent IT person could have gotten the business operation up

and running in hours. BlueLinx had to merely reset the passwords and the operation

would have been up and running. In fact, Hunter Grubb could have told BlueLinx

how to get the operation up and running but chose not to do so because he was

criminally complicit. Defendant Taylor has agreed to the loss amount, but is seeking

a downward departure because the revenue loss caused by the incident overstates the

loss.

To be clear, the BlueLinx employees were unable to regain access to the router

because they did not know how to or were unwilling to access the routers by simply

resetting the passwords. The below fix to restore access to the shutdown of the

routers is identified at the below site.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/usermanager/locked-out-of-the-

webgui.html

Net001 only connected the systems on the legacy Cedar Creek-side of the

merged companies. The BlueLinx communications in Georgia could not be affected

by a one-way bridge from their network into the Cedar Creek network. It is

technically impossible. Further, there is no evidence that the supposed lost sales

sustained over two days were not made up by orders of the same products on

subsequent days. Given the nature of the product that BlueLinx sold, lumber and

supplies, it is much more likely that the revenue loss incurred by BlueLinx over the


https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/usermanager/locked-out-of-the-webgui.html

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/usermanager/locked-out-of-the-webgui.html

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two days of the shutdown was actually more properly characterized as revenue

deferred. There is no evidence that the big-time box stores—BlueLinx customers--

were going to abandon, or did, in fact abandon, BlueLinx because they could not get

products over the VOIP (voice over internet protocol) phones. More importantly,

each phone line could be forwarded anywhere in the world to any internet

communication device. Every user at BlueLinx had the ability to log on to the

carrier’s web site—Mitel--the telecommunication provider used by BlueLinx, and

forward their telephone number. Whenever a location “lost” their internet service

they were supposed to call Mitel support to forward their branch phone numbers to

another branch. For example, when defendant Taylor worked at Cedar Creek, he

personally forwarded his own office IP phone number to his cell phone many times

over the course of his employment. Customers could also call Mitel support from

anywhere in the world and request their telephone number be forwarded to another

location. Mitel had complete control over the service and could route those

services/phone numbers to an internet capable device such as a cell phone, tablet or

laptop. Also, a sales person at legacy-Cedar Creek could connect a VOIP phone to

any internet service, log into their Mitel account over that VOIP phone and use that

VOIP telephone as if they were at their office desk. Thus, the idea that the shutdown

effectively cut off all internal communications and caused the company’s operations

to cease overstates the loss.


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iv. $310,818 was spent on professional fees, to include IT and legal

fees through January 2019.

There is no explanation, or even any assumptions, as to how BlueLinx claimed

professional fees, legal fees or any of the other fees listed, other than the obvious

equipment replacement and IT labor costs, directly related to remediation of the

Cedar Creek network outage. BlueLinx's investigation into the shutdown was

misdirected by Hunter Grubbs, who could have remounted the Net001 drive in

literally under a minute. Grubbs informed Taylor of the shutdown, and even though

he was an employee of BlueLinx at the time, refused to help and even directed the

company investigators away from Taylor, telling them that, "Taylor was not smart

enough to do this," or words to that effect. Hunter Grubbs purposely mislead them

to believe that some unknown outsider had hacked into the system, causing more

money and manpower to be directed toward the investigation. If Grubbs, their

employee, had told the truth when BlueLinx asked him if he could help on August

22, 2018, then there would have been no need for a forensic investigation team, and

there would have been no revenue losses at all.

II. DOWNWARD DEPARTURE FOR ABERRANT CONDUCT: U.S.S.G. § 5K2.20

A. The Guidelines

The Defendant under § 5K2.20 (Aberrant Behavior) deserves a

downward departure in his case. The version of § 5K2.20 in effect reads as follows:


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A sentence below the applicable guideline range may be warranted in an extraordinary case if the defendant's criminal conduct constituted aberrant behavior. However, the court may not depart below the guideline range on this basis if (1) the offense involved serious bodily injury or death; (2) the defendant discharged a firearm or otherwise used a firearm or a dangerous weapon; (3) the instant offense of conviction is a serious drug trafficking offense; (4) the defendant has more than one criminal history point..., or (5) the defendant has a prior federal, or state, felony conviction, regardless of whether the conviction is countable under Chapter Four.

U.S.S.G. § 2K2.20 (2002). Defendant Taylor is not excluded under (1)-(5) from

application of § 5K2.20; the question then is whether he merits its application.

B. Guideline Commentary

The Commentary to § 5K2.20 is illuminating. Application Note 1 states:

“Aberrant behavior” means a single criminal occurrence or single criminal transaction that (A) was committed without significant planning; (B) was of limited duration; and, (C) represents a marked deviation by the defendant from an otherwise law-abiding life.

U.S.S.G. § 5K2.20, Application Note 1 (2002). The Commentary goes on to say:

In determining whether the court should depart on the basis of aberrant behavior, the court may consider the defendant's (A) mental and emotional condition; (B) employment record; (C) record of prior good works; (D) motivation for committing the offense; and, (E) efforts to mitigate the effects of the offense.

U.S.S.G. § 5K2.20, Application Note 2 (2002). Aberrant conduct is conduct that represents a “short-lived departure from an

otherwise law-abiding life.” United States v. Colace, 126 F.3d 1229, 1231 (9th Cir.

1997). In evaluating whether a defendant's behavior falls under the “spectrum


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of aberrant behavior,” the district court may consider “a convergence of

factors.” United States v. Fairless, 975 F.2d 664, 667 (9the Cir. 1992). This includes:

(1) the singular nature of the criminal act, (2) spontaneity and lack of planning, (3)

the defendant's criminal record, (4) psychological disorders the defendant was

suffering from, (5) extreme pressures under which the defendant was operating, ...

(6) letters from friends and family expressing shock at the defendant's behavior, and

(7) the defendant's motivations for committing the crime. Colace, 126 F.3d at 1231

n. 2. Here, in considering these factors, they predominate in defendant Taylor’s

favor. Defendant Taylor has never been involved in any type of criminal activity

before and does not have a criminal history. Defendant Taylor was under job

pressure from the acquisition of BlueLinx of Cedar Creek. The companies had been

intense rivals in the past. He knew, after putting in years at Cedar Creek, his job was

in serious jeopardy. This is not to condone the conduct, but BlueLinx taking over

Cedar Creek was like the Huns invading Rome. All these pressures and conditions

factor together to make for a yeasty environment that caused defendant Taylor to

commit the criminal conduct. Attached to this Sentencing Memorandum, defendant

Taylor presents numerous letters from family, friends and others who know Charles

Taylor in different ways. See Exhibits attached to Sentencing Memorandum. Each

in their own way speak of the aberrant nature of this conduct.


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There was evidence in the record from which this Court could find that the

unauthorized computer command was a singular event. This was not a crime spree.

Nor do these facts involve a continuous crime that took place over a particularly long

period of time. See, e.g., Colace, 126 F.3d at 1230 (defendant robbed at least twelve

banks in a two-month period); Green, 105 F.3d at 1322 (defendant took part in a

well-coordinated operation to manufacture and cultivate over four thousand

marijuana plants for no reason other than financial gain). Moreover, defendant

Taylor had no prior criminal record. The evidence also supports the observation that

the defendant was suffering from significant depression and alcohol abuse at the

time of the offense.

It is also proper for this Court to consider letters from defendant Taylor’s sons,

Vincent and Alexander, his wife, Kimberly, as well as from other friends and family.

See Exhibits attached to Sentencing Memorandum. These letters provide additional

support for the finding that this incident represents an isolated incident, and one that

was out of character for the defendant. Moreover, the letters highlight the defendant's

strong familial ties with his own children. This has been held to be an appropriate

consideration. See United States v. Pena, 930 F.2d 1486, 1494-95 (10th Cir.1991).

Finally, this Court appropriately can consider the factor of defendant Taylor’s

motivations for committing the crime, namely, not for financial gain. Thus, the

factors weigh squarely in Taylor’s favor. Again, it must be remembered that none of


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these factors, singularly or in combination, justifies or excuses defendant Taylor’s

conduct in any way; however, they do bear upon whether he acted out of character.

Although the offense conduct occurred over a little more than a month,

defendant Taylor's actions were so closely related as to constitute a one-time event.

To be clear, aberrancy and spontaneity can be related but they are two different

things. A mercy killing, for example, may represent a single “departure from an

otherwise law-abiding life” yet still be the result of thought and planning. By the

same token, the actions of an irrational hothead who suddenly punches someone in

the nose might be spontaneous, but not aberrant, if he has done it before. As the

Second Circuit aptly observed, aberrant behavior is best assessed “‘in the context of

the defendant's day-to-day life’ rather than solely ‘with reference to the particular

crime committed.’” United States v. Martinez, 207 F.3d 133, 137 (2d Cir.2000)

(quoting Zecevic v. United States Parole Comm'n, 163 F.3d 731, 735 (2d

Cir.1998)); see also United States v. Garcia, 182 F.3d 1165, 1176 (10th Cir.1999)

(fact that defendant's crime was “carefully planned” did not preclude finding

of aberrant behavior; the correct focus is “‘not on the number of discrete acts

undertaken by the defendant’” but rather on the aberrational character of the

conduct) (quoting United States v. Jones, 158 F.3d 492, 500 (10th Cir.1998)).

Moreover, to require that aberrant conduct be spontaneous and thoughtless would

mean that it could never be used as a basis for departure in any case requiring proof


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of intent or evidence of forethought, and this is not so. See, e.g., United States v.

Fairless, 975 F.2d at 667 (upholding aberrant behavior departure in an armed

robbery case); United States v. Takai, 941 F.2d 738, 743 (9th Cir. 1991) (affirming

decision to depart for aberrant behavior in a bribery and conspiracy case); United

States v. Pena, 930 F.2d 1486, 1494 (10th 1991)

(affirming aberrant behavior departure in drug smuggling case). Thus, this incident,

the causing of the shutdown of the Cedar Creek computer, was completely out of

character for Charles Taylor. As a result, he deserves a downward departure for

aberrant behavior.

III. DOWNWARD DEPARTURE FOR AGE AND PHYSICAL REASONS: U.S.S.G. §§ 5H1.1 AND 5H1.4

Without the COVID-19 pandemic—an undeniably extraordinary event—Mr.

Taylor’s age alone would not present extraordinary and compelling reasons to

reduce his sentence. However, prisons are tinderboxes for infectious diseases, a

veritable petri dish. Correctional facilities increase the risk of contracting infectious

diseases like COVID-19, because they house high numbers of inmates with chronic,

often untreated, illnesses in a setting with minimal levels of sanitation, limited access

to personal hygiene, and limited access to medical care. In particular, both the lack

of extensive testing and lack of proper health care inside prisons is feeding the

wildfire that is this viral pandemic. There is no way to practice social distancing,


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wear a mask, use hand sanitizer or self-isolate. The very things the Presidential

CoronaVirus Task Force had told all Americans to do.

Mr. Taylor’s circumstances, given the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with his

age (he is 60 years old) place him at a high risk should he contract the disease. These

facts present “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a downward departure to

impose a sentence of straight home confinement. First, while he does not suffer from

any additional underlying health conditions that render him especially vulnerable to

COVID-19, his age alone is such a condition. Second, prison is a particularly

dangerous place for Mr. Taylor at this moment. Third, his conviction is for a non-

violent felony, was aberrant and the loss amount overrepresents the harm. Putting

Mr. Taylor in prison for any length of time makes only a marginal difference to his

punishment. But the difference to his health could be profound. That is why

imposing any sentence of incarceration adds to the extraordinary and compelling

reasons to reduce his punishment.

Recognizing the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons, Congress, the

President, and the Department of Justice have begun encouraging steps to release

some prisoners to safer home environments. The coronavirus relief bill enacted on

March 27 allows the Attorney General to expand the BOP's ability to move prisoners

to home confinement. See Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security

(CARES) Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, § 12003(b)(2) (2020). This congressional action


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came after Attorney General William Barr sent a memo to the Director of the BOP

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.” While he also expressed over

confidence in the BOP's “ability to keep inmates in our prisons as safe as possible

from the pandemic sweeping across the globe,” the situation has changed swiftly for

the worse since he wrote the memo.

Mr. Taylor, not knowing where he will be incarcerated by the BOP, or how

his body will react to being infected by the COVID-19 virus, is overwhelmed with

great anxiety. Like most defendants who anticipate potentially some amount of

incarceration, Mr. Taylor is apprehensive about the availability of healthcare in any

federal correctional facility before the threat of COVID-19. At bottom, this sentence

should not be a death sentence. See Los Angeles Times Article, More than 70% of

Prisoners Infected with Corona Virus, https://www.latimes.com/world-

nation/story/2020-04-30/over-70-of-tested-inmates-in-federal-prisons-have-covid-

19 The number of inmates who have contracted COVID-19 is high and likely

grossly underreported. Mr. Taylor’s feelings of dread at the prospect of dying in a

federal labor camp are multiplied a thousand times by the latest pandemic news from

BOP.


https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-30/over-70-of-tested-inmates-in-federal-prisons-have-covid-19



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Taken together with the aberrant nature of his criminal conduct and the

overstatement of his loss, these factors warrant a reduction of his guideline range so

that this Court my impose a non-custodial sentence.

IV. § 3553(a) factors

Defendant Taylor requests the Court impose a reasonable sentence under §

3553(a) of 12 months of home confinement.

a. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1): the history and characteristic of the defendant.

Charles Taylor, 60 years old, has been a positive contributing member of the

community in Little Rock, Arkansas, in good standing for over 20+ years. The

numerous character letters provided to the Court from his friends and family describe

a man of exemplary character, who is compassionate, giving, devoted to both to his

family and the care of others. The character letters submitted on defendant Taylor’s

behalf provide concrete evidence of Charles Taylor’s core values. See Exhibits

attached to Sentencing Memorandum. They demonstrate to the Court who he is as a

husband, a father, and citizen. When the Court sentences defendant Taylor, we ask

the Court to listen to the voices of this representative cross section of people from

the community. He supports his house of worship, engaged in charitable activities,

supported his children’s extracurricular activities, and was the model father and good

citizen. In short, Charles Taylor’s lifetime of good works and good deeds provide


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substantial support for a downward variance to a sentence of 12 months of home

confinement.

b. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1): the nature and circumstances

of the offense.

Several aspects of the defendant Taylor’s offense conduct support the

imposition of a reasonable sentence of home confinement. This was a crime not

motivated by greed.

c. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A): the need for the sentence imposed

to provide just punishment for the offense.

A sentence of 12 months of home confinement is sufficient, in part, because

the conviction itself has already visited substantial punishment on Charles Taylor.

More substantial even than the financial consequences, his lifetime reputation. He

has lost his life’s work. We ask the Court to take this substantial punishment into

consideration in fashioning a reasonable sentence.

d. General Deterrence: 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A): the need for the sentence imposed to promote respect for the law & 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B): the need for the sentence imposed to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.

A sentence of 12 months of home confinement is more than sufficient to

deter other IT professionals from engaging in this type of criminal conduct.


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e. Specific Deterrence: 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C): the need for the sentence imposed to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant.

Charles Taylor possesses little to no risk of engaging in future criminal

conduct. Charles Taylor does not have any prior arrests or convictions,1 placing him

not only in criminal history category I, but making him a true first offender. As such,

he is among the category of offenders that present the lowest risk to re-offend. United

States v. Oldani, 2009 WL 1770116 (S.D.W. Va. June 16, 2009) (contains a

thorough discussion of the reduced risk of recidivism posed by true first offenders).

While his placement within criminal history category “I” gives Mr. Taylor a sizeable

benefit based on his lack of criminal history, category “I” can be broken down into

further classifications with widely varying rates of recidivism: (a) offenders with no

prior arrests or convictions; (b) offenders with prior arrests but no prior convictions;

(c) offenders with prior convictions that do not count towards criminal history

points; (d) offenders with one criminal history point. See U.S. Sentencing

Commission, Recidivism and the “First Offender”, May 2004 available at

http://www. ussc.gov/publicat/recidivism_firstoffender.pdf. Based on empirical

1 As indicated in defendant’s objections to the Pre-Sentence Report, defendant Taylor was temporarily detained but was never charged with possession of or use of dangerous drugs. He believes this may involve an incident when he was 18 years old during which the police detained him while they sorted out the complaint of the mother of a 17 years old female whom he was lawfully with at the Dallas-Ft Worth Airport. Defendant Taylor was never charged with any crime, then or at any other time.


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research, the commission found that a defendant with no prior arrests nor criminal

history has only a 6.8 percent chance of recidivism. Id. This was the lowest rate of

recidivism of any group in the study and sharply lower than the rate of those

defendants with prior arrests but no convictions (17.2 percent) or defendants with

one criminal history point (22.6 percent). (Defendants with prior convictions that did

not count towards a criminal history points had an 8.8 percent rate of recidivism).

United States v. Oldani, 2009 WL 1770116 (S.D.W. Va. June 16, 2009). Charles

Taylor’s prosecution and conviction, and perhaps incarceration, for someone with

no exposure whatsoever to the criminal justice system, has been a major life altering

experience. An experience that he would never risk exposing himself to again. No

incarceration is needed to ensure that Charles Taylor complies with the law in the

future. A sentence that includes home confinement for Charles Taylor will be more

than sufficient to meet the goal of deterring future criminal conduct by Charles

Taylor.

f. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(3): the kinds of sentences available.

A sentence of 12 months of home confinement, as requested by Charles

Taylor, is available to the Court. Furthermore, the defendant requests that the Court

impose 250 hours of community service as special condition of supervised released.

A condition of 250 hours of community service would benefit the community.


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g. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4): the sentencing range established by the guidelines.

The sentencing guidelines recommend the following imprisonment ranges for

a criminal history category I defendant: offense level 17 = 24-30 months, offense.

However, because Charles Taylor guidelines are driven primarily by the amount of

loss, there is inherent weakness in the quality of the guidance that the sentencing

guidelines provide to the Court when crafting a reasonable sentence under § 3553.

In United States v. Musgrave, 647 F. App'x 529, 538–39 (6th Cir. 2016), the Sixth

Circuit affirmed a sentence of one day incarceration where the loss amount was

approximately $1.7 million. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, in part, because of the

empirical weakness of the loss table as a proxy for the seriousness of the offense.

See United States v. Musgrave, 647 F. App'x 529, 538–39 (6th Cir. 2016) citing

Mark H. Allenbaugh, “Drawn from Nowhere”: A Review of the U.S. Sentencing

Commission's White–Collar Sentencing Guidelines and Loss Data, 26 Fed. Sent'g

Rep. 19, 19 (2013)(“[T]he data suggest that loss is an unsound measure of the

seriousness of many offenses, with the result that judges are increasingly willing to

go below the Guidelines when they impose sentences in white-collar cases.”).

Courts, when sentencing in fraud cases, very frequently impose sentences below the

guideline ranges. For the reasons set forth above and elsewhere in this memo, a


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sentence sat or above the guideline range would be greater than necessary to comply

with the purposes set forth in § 3553(a).

h. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6): the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct.

Hunter Grubb was the mastermind of this scheme. The government is aware

of his perfidy. Charles Taylor cooperated with the government’s investigation and

provided substantial assistance to the government in the investigation of Hunter

Grubbs. Mr. Taylor told the government of his contacts with Grubbs and the several

discussions about the shutdown. It was Grubbs’ idea originally and then Grubbs set

up, his supposed friend, Charles Taylor to take the fall.

As part of the investigation, the government interviewed Hunter Grubbs first

and he acknowledged knowing something about the scheme but denied doing

anything and blamed his colleague and supposed friend, Charles Taylor. Charles

Taylor was then confronted by the FBI and he confessed and discussed Hunter

Grubbs’ role as the leader and organizer of the offense. He gave the government

details of Grubbs’ involvement in the computer intrusion. The government has a

strong case against Hunter Grubbs.2 Should the government not charge Hunter

Grubb, then this would represent an even greater reason to vary downward here. To

2 Frankly, Mr. Taylor provided substantial assistance to the government warranting an additional downward departure.


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not charge Hunter Grubbs would be a great injustice. There would be great

unwarranted disparity between those individuals who are responsible for this crime.

Although this §3553(a) factor addresses disparity of sentencing between two

defendants, the disparity here is even greater. It is between defendant Taylor and the

more culpable, but not yet charged mastermind, Hunter Grubbs. The way for this

Court to remedy this situation is to impose a sentence of home confinement on Mr.

Taylor.

i. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) The “parsimony provision”

A sentence of 12 months of home confinement is a reasonable sentence that

is sufficient to comply with the purposes set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). A sentence

beyond 12 months of home confinement would be greater than is necessary to

achieve those purposes and would thus violate to parsimony mandate of 18 U.S.C.

§ 3553(a).


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V. Conclusion

Charles Taylor respectfully asks this Honorable Court to consider this

pleading, the attached character letters in support of Mr. Taylor prior to imposing

sentence and to sentence Mr. Taylor to a sentence of 12 months of home

confinement.

Respectfully Submitted,

s/ Randy S. Chartash Georgia Bar No. 121760 Chartash Law, LLC 3151 Maple Drive, N.E. Atlanta, GA 30305 (404) 262-6270 s/James R. Harper James R. Harper III Counsel at Law Georgia Bar No. 328215 2581 Orchard Knob SE Atlanta, Georgia 30330


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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

ATLANTA DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) ) v. ) Criminal Case No. ) No. 1:19-CR-0515-JPB CHARLES TAYLOR ) )

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that I have this date served the within and foregoing document

with the Clerk of Court using the CM/ECF system which will automatically send

email notification of such filing to the attorneys of record.

This the 18th day of May 2020.

Randy S. Chartash Chartash Law, LLC Georgia Bar No. 121760 Attorney for Defendant


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