Supplemental Sentencing Memorandum
**********Trigger Warning: This information is graphic and very disturbing. *********
Read at your own risk. I am very glad the judge did the right thing and put him away for a long, long time.
Case No. 07 CR 530 Judge Blanche M. Manning
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, EASTERN DIVISION UNITED STATES OF AMERICAÂ Â v. DANIEL RAPPE
GOVERNMENT’S SUPPLEMENTAL SENTENCING MEMORANDUM
The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by and through its attorney, PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, respectfully submits this Supplemental Sentencing Memorandum. For the reasons that follow, the Government respectfully submits that the defendant should be sentenced to a term of 15 years’ (or 180 months’) imprisonment. This is a sentence above his advisory guidelines range of 70-87 months. In support of its submission, the Government states as follows:
1. The defendant is a serial pedophile, who was convicted of molesting a 12-year old boy in 1984 and molesting a 5-year old boy in 1989. From the late 1990s until when he was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service on March 16, 2007, defendant lived in DuPage County as an unregistered sex offender, in willful defiance of state and federal law.
2. In June 2008, defendant was convicted of failing to register as a sex offender and of obstructing justice by conspiring with his girlfriend, *** ******* to destroy evidence on the computers in their home before those computers could be seized by federal agents who were executing a search warrant looking for evidence of child pornography and the defendant’s failure to register.
3. As previously explained in the Government’s Version and the Government’s initial Sentencing Memorandum, the defendant’s adjusted offense level is 25. In reaching this level, the
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Government recommends an 8-level enhancement pursuant to USSG § 2A3.5(b)(1)(C) because the defendant, while in a failure-to-register status, committed a sex offense against a minor. As such, given that defendant is in Criminal History Category III, his advisory guidelines range is 70-87 months.
4. The Government has recently learned the horrible details regarding the frequency and duration with which the defendant molested Victim A during the time that defendant was an unregistered sex offender. The Government anticipates that Victim A will testify that the defendant engaged in oral sex and, occasionally, anal sex with Victim A at least once a day over a course of several years beginning in approximately 1997 when Victim A was seven years old. The defendant molested Victim A when he/she returned home from school and nobody else was home. The details of this molestation are documented in two reports of investigation, which are being submitted under seal. The Government requests that the Court seal this submission indefinitely, so as to protect the privacy of Victim A, who was a minor at the time of the events in question.
5. Victim A will further testify that he/she saw the defendant use the computer in the defendant’s home to access the Internet and download sexually explicit images of children. The defendant then showed those materials to Victim A in order to persuade Victim A that it was “normal” for men and young children to be having sex together. The images that the defendant received, downloaded, and showed to Victim A included images of children engaged in oral, anal, and vaginal sex with other boys, girls, and adults.
6. The computer containing the images of child pornography was one of the several computers that the defendant successfully had “wiped” as part of the conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Case 1:07-cr-00530 Document 139 Filed 04/03/2009 Page 2 of 5
1 The Seventh Circuit has stated that the concept of “departures” is obsolete in the post-Booker world, and there is no requirement that the sentence must be linked to the guidelines. See United States v. Vitriano, 495 F.3d 387, 391 (7th Cir. 2007). That said, to the extent that the guidelines are relevant, they certainly support a significant enhancement. Under the guidelines, the Court may impose an 8-level enhancement for a single sex offense against a minor, USSG§ 2A3.5(b)(1)(A), and may depart upward if the offense includes aggravating circumstances to a degree not present in the ordinary case. § 5K2.0(a)(1).
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However, Victim A’s testimony establishes that federal agents executing the search warrant would have found images of child pornography on the computer if not for the defendant’s defiance of the law. Once those images were found, the defendant would have been charged with the receipt of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2). Because the defendant has a prior state conviction relating to aggravated sexual abuse, he would have been facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, pursuant to § 2252(b)(1).
7. The Government believes that the defendant should be sentenced to a 15-year term of imprisonment. This sentence would exceed his advisory sentencing guideline range. However, post-Booker, “[a] sentence outside the range need only be adequately explained and consistent with § 3553(a) factors.”1 United States v. Jordan, 435 F.3d 693, 695 (7th Cir. 2006) (affirming sex predator’s conviction that was 100 months above guideline range).
8. The reasonable and appropriate thing to do is to impose an above-range sentence in this case. The § 3553(a) factors all point towards a 15-year sentence. The defendant is an unrepentant, serial pedophile. He is an intelligent man with a background in law enforcement, who has made deliberate choices to flout the law. Essentially, ever since the mid-1980s, the defendant has either been imprisoned or victimizing children. The defendant willfully disregarded sex-offense registration laws that would have enabled law enforcement to keep better tabs on him. And, when
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he knew that the police were finally coming for him, he destroyed evidence of the atrocities that he had been committing. A 15-year sentence will send a message to the defendant that his conduct is outrageous, reprehensible, and intolerable in a civilized society that cares for its children. A 15-year sentence will prevent the defendant from harming additional children. Anything less than a 15-year sentence will reward the defendant for his defiance of the law. See Jordan, 435 F.3d at 698-99 (affirming sex predator’s post-Booker sentence that was 100 months above guideline range).
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the Government respectfully submits that defendant Daniel J. Rappe should be sentenced to a term of 180 months’ imprisonment.
Respectfully submitted,
PATRICK J. FITZGERALD
United States Attorney
/s/ Christopher R. McFadden
CHRISTOPHER R. MCFADDEN
RACHEL M. CANNON
Assistant United States Attorneys
Case 1:07-cr-00530 Document 139 Filed 04/03/2009 Page 4 of 5
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
The undersigned Assistant United States Attorney hereby certifies that in accordance with
Fed. R. Crim. P. 49, Fed. R. Civ. P. 5, LR 5.5, and the General Order on Electronic Case Filing, the
following document:
Government’s Supplemental Sentencing Memorandum
was filed pursuant to the Court’s ECF filing system and that an exhibit filed under seal was provided to defense counsel, .
DATE: April 3, 2009.
/s/ Christopher R. McFadden
Christopher R. McFadden
Assistant United States Attorney
Case 1:07-cr-00530 Document 139 Filed 04/03/2009 Page 5 of 5
One Response
heather - June 12, 2010
Patrick J. Fitzgerald & Christopher McFadden, & their dedicated team members are my heroes. We need to give them the tools they need to put these monsters away.
Tell your reps to fully fund the PROTECT ACT. http://www.protect.org/childrescuepetition
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