Sentence for Buncich could stand
Court documents show little would be cut from 15-year prison term
While a federal appeals attorney says the sentence for a convicted former Lake County sheriff should be revisited, court documents show that little time could be cut from the more-than-15-year prison term.
Court filings in December admitted that evidence was lacking to convict former Sheriff John Buncich on three counts of wire fraud, and David Hollar, who is handling the appeal for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said that the Lake County’s former top cop should be resentenced. But Judge James Moody’s January 2018 judgment order shows that resentencing could do little to adjust the 15-year and eight-month prison term.
Moody sentenced Buncich to 15 years and eight months on each of the individual counts, with those sentences running concurrently. Moody ruled Buncich would serve 188 months on each count of honest services wire fraud, according to court documents, and 120 months on one count of bribery.
Kerry Connor, Buncich’s appeals attorney, was unavailable for comment.
Buncich, 73, was convicted for using his office to solicit bribes from tow operators, according to court records, and in January 2018 was taken into federal custody after being sentenced to a morethan-15-year prison term.
A jury convicted Buncich of bribery, wire fraud and honest services wire fraud in August 2017
after 14 days of testimony.
Hollar said, in court documents, the court should vacate the convictions on three of the wire fraud counts.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office does not comment on pending cases.
Buncich, former Chief Timothy Downs and William Szarmach, of C.S.A. Towing, were named in a multicount indictment in November 2016 alleging a towing scheme where the sheriff accepted bribes in the form of thousands of dollars in cash and donations to his campaign fund, Buncich Boosters, according to court records.
Szarmach was later charged with filing a false tax return and agreed to pay upward of $89,000 in restitution as a part of his sentence.