The federal prosecutor’s office asked the court to impose a sentence of approximately four years in prison for the artistic producer Raphy Pina Nieves.
That’s what federal prosecutors said Maria Montanez, Joseph Ruiz Y Gregory Conner in an extensive 35-page motion with strong remarks about the producer’s conduct.
The sentencing hearing for Pina Nieves is scheduled for next April 18 before the Judge Francisco Besosa.
Although they pointed out that the report presented by the United States Probation Office included an estimate of 33 to 41 months in prison, prosecutors presented arguments to “recommend a sentence within the variant sentencing range of 46 to 50 months in prison.”
Among their statements, they highlighted that “the aggravating circumstances of the Pina Nieves case require an upward variation,” because he was a convicted person at the time he was charged in this case and that “he clearly failed to deter more criminality.”
Prosecutors referred to the 2016 case in which Pina Nieves pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges.
In this sense, the prosecutors pointed out that, knowing that he could not possess weapons due to the previous conviction, “not only did he possess two firearms and 500 ammunition, but he also possessed an automatic weapon that he did not have the right to have even if it was not a convict.”
They also alleged that Pina Nieves failed to dispose of the bullets she had before losing her license after pleading guilty in the first case.
Similarly, he stressed that Pina Nieves was recorded in a phone call indicating that he had weapons. In that sense, the Public Ministry emphasized that in that conversation it alluded to “rifles” in the plural: “I have all kinds of stuff in there… guns, rifles, bullets.”
Although the agents did not find rifles when they searched the house owned by Pina Nieves in Caguas, they did seize two pistols, one of which was modified to fire automatically.
Pina Nieves’ defense maintains that the producer had not been to that house for a long time and that other people had access to the property and the vault.
“Despite having a successful career, (having) the resources to be a productive law-abiding citizen, and (having) assured the court that he would abide by the law, Pina chose to illegally possess firearms and a machine gun.” prosecutors said.
They added that “his display of charitable acts on his part does not excuse his criminal behavior.”
“Pina may argue that she is less likely to reoffend because of her resources, but two federal convictions already prove that wrong,” prosecutors said. “The sentence in this case should not give the impression that well-off defendants can pay the consequences of their behavior.”
“The aggravating factors in this case work in favor of a longer sentence. The unacceptable harm that automatic weapons have caused and the inadequacy of the (Sentencing) Guidelines to address that harm also warrants a longer sentence. In the end, the Public Ministry respectfully requests that the Court select a sentence within a variable sentence range of 46 to 50 months in prison,” they stressed.
Likewise, as another argument for a longer sentence, they recalled that when he was sentenced in 2016, Pina Nieves told the judge: “I can assure you that there will not be a next time.”
According to prosecutors, those statements “turned out to be empty promises. The (sentencing) guidelines do not take into account previous empty promises to reform, by a defendant, who again faces a criminal sentence in this Court. This Court must not be misled again,” he stated.
The defense has announced that it will appeal the guilty verdictwhile Judge Besosa has not yet decided whether he will allow the producer to remain free on bail while that procedure is seen in the Boston Circuit.