United States' Memorandum in Opposition to Request for Post-Plea CAP Assessment — United States v. Cassie Will-Darnall (Dkt. 67)
Summary
The United States’ Memorandum in Opposition to Request for Post-Plea CAP Assessment, filed June 17, 2025 as Document 67 in United States of America v. Cassie Will-Darnall, Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division. The government opposes the defendant’s request for a full assessment for the Conviction Alternatives Program (CAP, formerly ATIP) and states that CAP is not intended as a path for individuals committing deliberate and calculated fraudulent schemes to avoid jail time. It states that the defendant pleaded guilty on January 15, 2025 to one count of bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1344(2), and one count of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and defrauded PPP lenders of $2,833,554.00. It also argues that the request comes too late and that sentencing is presently scheduled for September 3, 2025.
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“United States' Memorandum in Opposition to Request for Post-Plea CAP Assessment — United States v. Cassie Will-Darnall (Dkt. 67).”
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Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP Document 67 Filed 06/17/25 Page 1 of 5
1 CRAIG H. MISSAKIAN (CABN 125202)
United States Attorney
2
MARTHA BOERSCH (CABN 126569)
3 Chief, Criminal Division
4 JOHNNY E. JAMES JR. (SCBN 101260)
Special Assistant United States Attorney
5
60 South Market Street, Suite 1200
6 San Jose, California 95113
Telephone: (408) 535-5061
7 FAX: (408) 535-5081
johnny.james@usdoj.gov
8
Attorneys for United States of America
9
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
10
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
11
SAN JOSE DIVISION
12
13 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) CASE NO. 5:24-CR-00292-PCP
)
14 Plaintiff, ) UNITED STATES’ MEMORANDUM IN
) OPPOSITION TO REQUEST FOR POST-PLEA
15 v. ) CAP ASSESSMENT
)
16 CASSIE WILL-DARNALL, )
)
17 Defendant. )
)
18
19 Defendant Cassie Will-Darnall, who purloined more than $2.8 million in pandemic loans after
20 attempting to fraudulently obtain more than $9 million, requests this Court order a full assessment of her
21 for the Conviction Alternatives Program (CAP, formerly ATIP). The United States opposes the request
22 as substantively inappropriate. CAP is an alternative sentencing program primarily designed for
23 offenders who are wrestling with drug addiction and overcoming challenging backgrounds in a
24 committed effort to put their lives back on track. CAP is not intended as a path for individuals
25 committing deliberate and calculated fraudulent schemes to avoid jail time. Will-Darnall should not be
26 considered as a candidate for the program, and her request for a CAP assessment should be denied.
27 //
28 //
U.S. Memo Opposing Request for CAP Assessment 1
5:24-CR-00292-PCP
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Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP Document 67 Filed 06/17/25 Page 2 of 5
1 I. Procedural History
2 Will-Darnall initially appeared upon a criminal information on May 30, 2024. ECF No. 3. Will-
3 Darnall thereafter entered an open plea of guilty on January 15, 2025, to one count of bank fraud in
4 violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344(2) and one count of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. ECF
5 Nos. 1, 35. As set forth in the information and the pre-sentence report, Will-Darnall defrauded
6 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) lenders of $2,833,554.00 after submitting a total of five PPP and
7 two Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program applications requesting a total $9,175,083.65. ECF No. 1
8 at 6-7; ECF No. 59 at 7-9. Despite a commitment to repay the millions she defrauded from lenders,
9 ECF No. 59 at 10, Will-Darnall has to date not repaid one red cent to the knowledge of the United
10 States, and curiously declined to provide any personal financial information to the U.S. Probation
11 Office. See ECF No. 59 at 16 (Paragraph 78). Forfeiture proceedings are ongoing.
12 Sentencing was previously scheduled for April 23, 2025, but continued by stipulation and leave
13 of Court to permit Will-Darnall additional time to conclude its mitigation investigation and meet with
14 United States Probation. ECF No. 42. U.S. Probation filed a presentence investigation report on May
15 29, 2025, in anticipation of a June 11, 2025, sentencing. ECF No. 59. However, sentencing was again
16 continued by stipulation and leave of Court to permit Will-Darnall additional time to prepare and to
17 investigate an enhancement applied by U.S. Probation in the PSR. ECF No. 64.
18 Will-Darnall then sought and obtained from the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency (PSA) on June 6,
19 2025, a letter indicating that Will-Darnall “does meet the preliminary minimum criteria for CAP
20 eligibility.” Precisely when Will-Darnall sought this screening is unknown to the United States, but the
21 government promptly informed counsel that it would oppose a CAP referral for Will-Darnall.
22 On June 8, 2025, counsel for Will-Darnall requested PSA conduct a full assessment. The
23 following day, June 9, 2025, PSA informed counsel that it could only do so if the government was in
24 agreement or if the Court ordered the full assessment, and that a full assessment would take at least 45
25 days. The United States informed defendant and PSA that it opposed CAP assessment. The request
26 now before the Court followed.
27 Forty-five days from the date of the hearing scheduled on this request falls upon Saturday,
28 August 2, 2025. Sentencing is presently scheduled for September 3, 2025. ECF No. 64.
U.S. Memo Opposing Request for CAP Assessment 2
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Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP Document 67 Filed 06/17/25 Page 3 of 5
1 II. The Conviction Alternatives Program, generally, is aimed to intervene in the lives of
offenders with moderate-to-high risk factors for reoffense—typically young drug offenders.
2
CAP is a joint effort between the Court, PSA, Probation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the
3
Federal Public Defender. See, generally Alternative Sentencing Programs in the Northern District of
4
California, Agreement Among Stakeholders (Dec. 2024), accessible at https://cand.uscourts.gov/wp-
5
content/uploads/Stakeholder-Agreement-for-Presentence-programs.pdf; see also, generally Problem
6
Solving Courts & Programs, United States District Court Northern District of California (June 16, 2025
7
at 10:23 AM), accessible at https://cand.uscourts.gov/about/court-programs/problem-solving-courts-
8
programs/. The purpose of CAP is to provide particularized resources and attention to qualifying
9
defendants who are at a higher risk of reoffending and reflect a high need for personalized intervention
10
for rehabilitation. Persons for whom CAP is potentially appropriate are those who are young, who
11
suffer from substance abuse and addictions, who have failed prior treatment or rehabilitation attempts,
12
who have suffered from a history of violence, and/or have prior felony convictions. See, generally, id.;
13
see also Christine S. Scott-Hayward, Rethinking Federal Diversion: The Rise of Specialized Criminal
14
Courts, 22 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 47, 78-79 (2017) (noting that CAP focuses on “individuals whose
15
criminal conduct appears motivated by substance abuse issues or other underlying causes that may be
16
amenable to treatment through available programs.”). For CAP, a candidate’s risk factors must be
17
moderate to high—the program is not intended to provide another backdoor to diversion for defendants
18
who have committed white-collar offenses which historically received a disproportionate share of
19
diversionary outcomes. See Problem Solving Courts & Programs, supra; see also Scott-Hayward,
20
supra, at 96 (“For courts like these that purport to divert people from prison, it is important that people
21
who previously would have received traditional pretrial diversion are not referred to the more onerous
22
specialized criminal court instead.”).
23
In exchange for completion of CAP, defendants receive any incentives that may have been
24
promised as part of the plea agreement which supported the CAP referral, which may include dismissal
25
of the underlying charge(s), a non-custodial sentence, dismissal of mandatory minimum charge(s) or
26
sentence-enhancing allegations, or an agreement to recommend a lower sentence.
27
Defendants who may be potentially eligible are initially assessed within 30 and up to 60 days
28
U.S. Memo Opposing Request for CAP Assessment 3
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Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP Document 67 Filed 06/17/25 Page 4 of 5
1 from their initial appearance. Agreement Among Stakeholders at 4. If a defendant receives a positive
2 initial assessment, the parties may then request a full assessment, which can take up to an additional 60
3 days. Id.
4 III. Defendant Will-Darnall does not reflect the characteristics of a person appropriate for
CAP assessment, and a diversionary program is generally inappropriate for a person
5 charged with a multi-million dollar fraud.
6 Defendant Will-Darnall is not the kind of defendant for whom CAP was designed. Will-Darnall
7 is 53-years-old and has no prior arrests or convictions. ECF No. 59 at 3, 24. Will-Darnall is well
8 educated, is capably employed, attends church, contributes to charities, and was raised by parents who
9 were college professors. Id. at 12-14. Will-Darnall reports childhood trauma and a relapse into alcohol
10 abuse, but there is no clear nexus linking those challenges to the crime she committed. Id. at 15. To the
11 contrary, her motivation for committing fraud was simply greed. ECF No. 59 at 25. The CAP is not
12 intended to help defendants like Will-Darnall, a white-collar defendant of the kind who has historically
13 received disproportionate diversion, but those decidedly unlike her—those defendants who never really
14 had a realistic chance of avoiding the criminal justice system because of strife, trauma, and addiction
15 afflicting them early in their lives
16 To grant Will-Darnall a full assessment would unhelpfully expend limited PSA resources to no
17 good end. That an assessment is inappropriate is particularly evident when Will-Darnall has already
18 withheld information from Probation when interviewed for the purposes of the PSR. See ECF No. 59 at
19 16 (Defendant declining to provide any financial information). Indeed, to request a full assessment now,
20 after Probation has already published its presentence report finding that Will-Darnall was motivated by
21 greed, and not by CAP factors, would essentially ask PSA whether it agrees with Probation’s conclusion
22 as to Will-Darnall’s criminal motivation—CAP treats addiction and trauma born of strife, not greed-
23 motivated crime. The undersigned is unaware of any other instance in which the Court would have PSA
24 double-check the work of Probation, or potentially pit its various organs against one another in such a
25 way.
26 The conundrum above results because Will-Darnall is asking for this assessment much too late in
27 the process. Irrespective of the substance of the PSR, a defendant who waits to seek CAP assessment
28 until after it is published has waited too long. Under the rules of the program, a defendant is intended to
U.S. Memo Opposing Request for CAP Assessment 4
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Case 5:24-cr-00292-PCP Document 67 Filed 06/17/25 Page 5 of 5
1 be initially assessed within two months of their initial appearance. Here, Will-Darnall did not seek and
2 receive an initial assessment until after she pled guilty, after the PSR was published, and after a year had
3 passed since her initial appearance. As a practical matter, a full assessment takes at least 45 days, and
4 can take more; there is a significant possibility that granting a full assessment will necessitate the further
5 continuance of sentencing from its presently scheduled date on September 3, 2025, in order to both
6 permit completion of any such assessment and to then permit the parties and probation to incorporate
7 any findings therein into their respective filings to the Court. As sentencing has already been continued
8 twice, the United States cannot reasonably agree to a further continuance, or to a course of action that
9 renders a future request for one a fait accompli. There must be some point at which it is too late to call
10 upon the Court for CAP; wherever that point may fall, surely we have passed it in this case.
11 Finally, it is not clear what CAP would provide to Will-Darnall that she has not already
12 otherwise pursued. One of the conditions of Will-Darnall’s pre-trial release was that she submit to drug
13 and/or alcohol testing and participate in substance abuse treatment as directed by PSA. ECF No. 8.
14 Will-Darnall reports she completed a 60-day chemical dependency recovery program and has been sober
15 since a visit to the emergency room in November 2024. ECF No. 59 at 15. As Will-Darnall purports in
16 mitigation to have resumed sobriety, and otherwise does not reflect the particularized criminogenic
17 factors typically present in CAP-eligible defendants, the United States is unclear what CAP can add to
18 her rehabilitation.
19 IV. Conclusion
20 For the reasons above, the United States must respectfully oppose Will-Darnall’s request for a
21 full assessment for CAP. If the Court should nonetheless grant the request for a full assessment, the
22 United States would respectfully reserve its right to respond to the assessment after it is produced.
23 DATED: June 17, 2025 Respectfully submitted,
24 CRAIG H. MISSAKIAN
United States Attorney
25
26
________________________
27 JOHNNY E. JAMES JR.
Special Assistant United States Attorney
28
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