The panel said Jairo DeJesus was not entitled to acceptance-of-responsibility credit after trying to flee the country and later minimizing his culpability.

What happened

The Second Circuit on Friday affirmed a 12-year prison sentence for Jairo DeJesus, rejecting his bid for acceptance-of-responsibility credit after he attempted to flee the country while on pretrial release in a fentanyl trafficking case.

The panel held that U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman did not err in denying the Guidelines reduction, that the 144-month sentence was substantively reasonable, and that the challenged supervised-release conditions could stand. Judge William J. Nardini wrote for a panel that also included Judges Reena Raggi and Debra Ann Livingston.

DeJesus pleaded guilty to two drug offenses after authorities said he sold substances containing heroin and fentanyl in controlled buys and later found about 3 kilograms of fentanyl in his apartment. After his arrest and pretrial release, he arranged private air travel from New York to Miami and tried to continue toward Haiti before he was caught, with more than $15,000 hidden in his shoes.

At sentencing, DeJesus argued that his flight was driven by fear of jail conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic and that his later conduct showed he had accepted responsibility. The Second Circuit was unpersuaded, pointing to his attempted flight, alleged lies during a safety-valve proffer and efforts to minimize culpability at sentencing.

The court also rejected DeJesus' substantive reasonableness challenge. Although the 144-month term was above the Probation Office's recommendation, it was below the advisory Guidelines range of 188 to 235 months and below the government's recommendation of at least 150 months. The panel said the sentence was not “shockingly high” given the record before the district court.

On supervised release, the panel upheld the district court's oral incorporation of conditions listed in the presentence report and found no plain error in requiring DeJesus to participate in outpatient mental-health treatment. The opinion said the record made the basis for that condition self-evident, including DeJesus' own statement to Probation that he wanted counseling for stress tied to his legal situation and separation from family.