On April 9, 2015, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to adopt changes to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines for fraud-related offenses, most notably to the definition of “intended loss” as used in §2B1.1 and to the Victims Table in §2B1.1(b)(2). In the words of the Sentencing Commission, these amendments were designed to address criticism that the guidelines placed undue emphasis on the amount of loss and the total number of victims with insufficient regard for the offender’s intent and role, and harm to victims.1 While the Department of Justice has opposed several of these amendments as overly lenient, in our view, they are a positive step toward bringing greater structure and reason to sentences for fraud-related convictions.
Overview
USSG Section 2B1.1, commonly referred to as the fraud guideline, includes “basic forms of property offenses: theft, embezzlement, fraud, forgery, counterfeiting…, insider trading, transactions in stolen goods, and simple property damage or destruction.”2 Under Section 2B1.1, the Sentencing Guidelines offense level is based primarily on the amount of loss involved in the offense, with “loss” defined as “the greater of actual loss or intended loss.”3
