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Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley grilled a Biden appeals court nominee about a light sentence he recommended in a child pornography case. President Joe Biden nominated Richard Federico, a U.S. Navy Reserve officer and federal public defender in Kansas, to serve on Denver’s 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2018, Federico was named Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Kansas. He currently lives in Lawrence.
Hawley began by laying out the details of the case he was referring to, noting that the sentencing guidelines recommended up to 240 months in prison but Federico asked for only 105 months.
“Now the government in this case said that it was being very lenient,” Hawley added, noting that prosecutors had called for 189 months and suggesting that they could have started with a much higher number given the type of crime involved. He opted not to go into detail about the nature of the case, saying that it was too reprehensible to discuss.
Federico pushed back, saying that he had prosecuted many child pornography cases as he had defended and, therefore, understood what the victims were going through.
READ: Dirty Dozen of child exploitation released
“So what would you say to the victims in this case, who — let’s just review — and I’m not going to read the specifics because it’s too revolting, but this is from the pre-sentence report,” Hawley said. “‘This particular defendant’ — this is sanitized, but it’s still unpleasant — ‘the defendant used multiple mediums to access, obtain and distribute depictions of child rape, bondage and sexual exploitation. He used dating websites to meet people offering children for sex. He used email to send depictions of child sexual exploitation to his cohorts.’
“Why 100 months? I mean, listen, you could have recommended any number of — I get you wanted to defend your client, sure, but you could have chosen 175. You could have agreed with government, 189, which was characterized already below guidelines and quite lenient.”
Noting once again that Federico had recommended only 105 months — less than 10 years — Hawley asked, “Do you think that that’s a sentence that does justice to his victims?”
–Lee Hartman | Metro Voice
