UN gang founder Roueche fi les new appeal of 30- year sentence
United Nations gang founder Clay Roueche has filed a new appeal of the 30- year sentence he was handed in Seattle more than three years ago.
Roueche pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle cocaine and marijuana, as well as money laundering in April 2009.
In December 2009, U. S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik said Roueche should spend three decades behind bars for his leadership role in the massive smuggling operation that used helicopters and planes to move coke and pot.
Roueche appealed and won a second sentencing hearing before Lasnik.
Lasnik again sentenced Roueche to 30 years in February 2011, saying he was more convinced than ever that it was an appropriate term for Roueche as the organizer and leader of “a major drug trafficking organization.”
“The closer I look at the crimes, the more I am convinced that 30 years is the just and appropriate prison term,” Lasnik said.
Last year, Roueche applied under the prisoner transfer treaty between Canada and the U. S. to be moved to a prison in this country to serve the remainder of his term. So far, he has not been granted a transfer.
He has now launched a new wave of appeals in U. S. courts.
Last November, he filed a second appeal of his sentence, arguing that a new court ruling in an unrelated case meant that any prisoner who had received a longer- than- usual sentence should have had the chance to go before a jury at sentencing.
Roueche wrote his own legal submissions for his appeal, having been denied public funds for a lawyer to help him.
In April, Lasnik rejected Roueche’s new appeal, saying it was filed well past the oneyear deadline for challenging court orders.
Roueche has now filed a new appeal of Lasnik’s April ruling with United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
No hearing date has been scheduled.