Court filing
Sentencing Memorandum — United States v. Kanan (Dkt. 87, W.D. Wis.)
Summary
A defense sentencing memorandum for Ahmad Kanan in United States of America v. Ahmad Kanan, Case Nos. 19-cr-147-wmc & 20-cr-81-wmc, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, filed January 19, 2021. It states that the government and Kanan agree that a 41-month sentence, the high end of the guideline range, is sufficient but not greater than necessary, and that the Court should impose neither more nor less. The memorandum gives a broader account of Kanan's life, beginning with his birth on July 21, 1971 in Cairo, Egypt, and then sets out the defense's case for the high-end sentence. It is signed by Peter R. Moyers of Federal Defender Services of Wisconsin, Inc.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
Filed January 19, 2021 in Ahmad Kanan; one of 2 filings from this case.
Record facts
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Filed | 2021-01-19 |
Cite this document
“Sentencing Memorandum — United States v. Kanan (Dkt. 87, W.D. Wis.).”
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, No. 3:19-cr-00147, Doc. 87, filed 2021-01-19. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/court-filings/full-docket-ahmad-kanan-wiwd-44644/2021-01-19-gov-uscourts-wiwd-44644-87-0-doc-87/
, SHA-256 5469751f21cac2e9eb6d3567191a3615f05979137fa6a15e6958c26c1b02874a.Full text
Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 1 of 9
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
vs. Case Nos. 19-cr-147-wmc &
20-cr-81-wmc
AHMAD KANAN,
Defendant.
SENTENCING MEMORANDUM
The government and Kanan agree that a 41-month sentence is
sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve sentencing’s goals. It’s
his properly calculated guideline range’s high-end, and Kanan has earned
it. The guidelines neither exaggerate nor minimize his sentencing’s factors—
his recidivism, the loss amount, his post-offense conduct, his miserable
pretrial detention, and his ultimate acceptance of responsibility.
What follows will augment the government’s memorandum’s careful
reasoning with a broader look at Kanan’s life, followed by the defense’s own
case for the high-end sentence. The Court shouldn’t impose a day more. Or
less.
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
OF WISCONSIN, INC
Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 2 of 9
1. Factual Background
a. Early Years
Kanan was born on July 21, 1971, in Cairo, Egypt—a society in
transition. Nasser had died the year before, and President Sadat had just
begun a wholesale purge of the government and armed forces of Nasserists.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s military was engaged in a war of attrition with Israel
over the Sinai Peninsula. In October 1973 matters escalated when Egypt and
Syria launched coordinated attacks on Israel—what’s known in the West as
the Yom Kippur War. It was a disastrous choice for Egypt. In a counter-
offensive, Israeli forces made it to within 70 miles of Cairo before hostilities
concluded.1 In 1977, the Kanan family left Egypt for Libya, hoping for
greener pastures. (See Presentence Report, ¶ 92.) The getting was good.
Economic liberalization and the removal of price controls had led to food
riots.2
The move turned out to be the right call. By 1980 Egypt had a per
capita GDP of about $600. In the same year Libya, with its much smaller and
1 See, generally, Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That
Transformed the Middle East, 498 (Knopf/Doubleday 2007); Hamied Ansari, Egypt, the
Stalled Society, 168 et seq. (SUNY 1986).
2 See Ansari at 185-207.
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
OF WISCONSIN, INC
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 3 of 9
less fractured population, could boast a per capita GDP of about $13,000.3
Kanan, a gifted student, pursued an education, earning a high school
diploma by the late 1980s. (See PSR, ¶ 93.)
Initially, Kanan sought post-secondary education in Jordan, but when
he had the opportunity to study at Northeastern University in Boston, he
jumped at the chance. In Massachusetts he met his first wife, a massage
therapist. Things went well for several years, but then the marriage ended
in divorce after it became apparent that the couple could not conceive. (See
PSR, ¶¶ 93-95.)
Looking back, Kanan’s high-water mark was 2001. He earned a
bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and married his wife, Ghufran.
(See PSR, ¶¶ 96 & 107.) The couple eventually moved to upstate New York
so Kanan could attend a Masters’ program in computer science at Syracuse
University. (See PSR, ¶ 107.) Their years there saw the births of their first
two children. (See PSR, ¶ 96.)
3 The date here is available from the International Monetary Fund. See “Arab
Republic of Egypt” available at https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/EGY; “Libya”
available at https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/LBY.
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 4 of 9
b. The Fall
For the years 2003 to 2007, Kanan appeared committed to throwing it
all away. He had succeeded far beyond what the world would have
expected from the child born to modest means in a country where war and
social unrest were the norm. The frauds described in the presentence report
mostly involved large sums but more troublingly also included relatively
small-scale schemes. One at least can comprehend taking a criminal risk for
a big payoff; it’s still criminal, but one can wrap one’s mind around it. On
the other hand, taking the same risks for small sums is harder to grasp. His
frauds were so brazen that it’s as if he were begging to get caught. (See PSR,
¶ 85.)
And Kanan was caught. In 2007, he was charged in federal court in
Vermont for his fraud crimes. At sentencing, Judge Sessions acknowledged
that he could conclude that Kanan had an offense level of 25.4 If he had, then
Kanan’s guidelines range would have been 57 to 71 months. Instead, he
applied an offense level of 21, which resulted in a range of 37 to 46 months.
He then imposed a sentence at the bottom of the range.5
4 See United States v. Ahmad Kanan, 07-cr-53-wks, DE 59:55. (D. Vt. Apr. 14, 2009).
5 See id. at 59:55-57.
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 5 of 9
The district court ordered a self-surrender date of April 28, 2009.6
Kanan did his time at the satellite camp adjoining USP-Canaan. (See PSR, ¶
85.) The BOP released him to supervised release on January 13, 2012.7 He
was lucky to still have his family. His wife had given birth to their third
child during the Vermont prosecution, shortly before his entry into custody.
The years that followed Kanan’s release were promising. He earned
another master’s degree—this time in electrical engineering from the
University of Wisconsin. (PSR, ¶ 108.) By January 2017, he had completed
supervision “without any difficulties.” (PSR, ¶ 85.) Nearly a decade had
passed since his arrest for the Vermont prosecution. He had lost much, but
the pieces remained in place for him to live an enviable life.
Today, it has been just over four years since Kanan was discharged
from supervised release. The blatant self-sabotage he displayed over that
period is of a kind typically seen only among especially sick drug addicts.
With his background in computer science, he must have known that it
would take little from law enforcement to discover how the funds got from
the Bank of America account to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and
6 See United States v. Ahmad Kanan, 07-cr-53-wks, DE 56 (D. Vt. Mar. 26, 2009.)
7 See “Find an inmate” available at bop.gov/inmateloc/.
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 6 of 9
the utility provider. One doesn’t even need a background in computer
science to understand the senseless risk because there’s no reason anyone
else would commit a fraud to pay another person’s tax bill. Primary school
children understand Qui bono? The PPP fraud makes even less sense
because, if the business had any measure of success, Kanan’s deceptions
would have surfaced because future lenders, investors, or employees would
have come into the picture. As the business interacted with additional third-
parties, it’s a lock that someone’s due diligence would have revealed
everything.
2. Kanan and the government agree that the Court
should impose a 41-month sentence.
The Court should sentence Kanan to 41 months’ imprisonment
because it is sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve sentencing’s
goals. The defense will not rehearse the government’s thoughtful analysis.
(See DE 83 in 19-cr-147 & DE 79 in 20-cr-81.) And his frauds’ victims’ remarks
to the government and to this Court speak for themselves.
Instead, Kanan aims to augment these contributions—but from the
defense viewpoint. Federal criminal defense practitioners’ work is primarily
sentencing mitigation. It’s a task they do most often and one that involves
the most time. And fundamental to sentencing mitigation is the search for
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 7 of 9
Section 3553(a) factors that the sentencing guidelines either exaggerate or
don’t capture.
Here, the guidelines range of 33 to 41 months’ imprisonment fairly
approximates the driving factors here. Kanan is a recidivist. His prior
federal felony conviction rightly puts him in criminal history category II. On
the other side of the chart, his offense level neither exaggerates nor
minimizes his criminal conduct. The loss amounts aren’t stratospheric and
much of the damage he caused could be unwound—albeit over a period of
months. But the Court can’t ignore that the Libyan mission is an honored
guest of the people of the United States. Dante puts traitors to their guests
in the Ninth Circle’s second-to-last region—only Judas and other traitors to
God have it worse. Neither the obstruction of justice enhancement, nor the
alternative two-level increase under USSG §2B1.1(b)(9)(C) for violating a
judicial order, overstates the crime’s seriousness because Kanan no longer
gets the benefit of the doubt about what he was up to on iCloud after law
enforcement seized his devices. Effectively adding two levels for his
conduct while on pretrial release for the 2019 case is neither harsh nor
lenient.
The parties agree that the guidelines range should reflect that Kanan
has accepted responsibility for his crimes. He had every right to go to trial,
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 8 of 9
but he eventually did the right thing. He saved all stakeholders the trial’s
burden. He would have lost, but not until after the government and the
Court had expended time, money, and resources to present and receive the
evidence. Kanan didn’t go to trial, and the Court shouldn’t sentence him as
if he did.
A final word. Despite Kanan’s miserable experience in pretrial
confinement, the defense joins the government’s recommendation for a
high-end sentence of 41 months rather than a sentence at the range’s lower-
end. He’s been incarcerated since last June, when he was arrested in
Vermont. He spent the next several months on his way back to Wisconsin,
meandering through county jails, which is about the hardest time an inmate
can do. And it was all during the COVID-19 pandemic; he was frequently
isolated or segregated. Then, shortly after his transfer from the Dane County
Jail to the Sauk County Jail, he finally got sick and suffered through
coronavirus’s agonizing effects.
No doubt the Court’s sentence should account for these especially
awful months. But the brute fact remains that Kanan brought it on himself.
That he was detained because of new criminal conduct offsets the
experience’s mitigating force.
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
OF WISCONSIN, INC
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Case: 3:19-cr-00147-wmc Document #: 87 Filed: 01/19/21 Page 9 of 9
Dated at Madison, Wisconsin, this January 19, 2021.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter R. Moyers
Counsel for Mr. Kanan
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
OF WISCONSIN, INC.
22 East Mifflin Street, Suite 1000
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Tel: 608-260-9900
Fax: 608-260-9901
peter_moyers@fd.org
FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES
OF WISCONSIN, INC
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