United States District Court, C.D. California
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SENTENCE
REDUCTION
CHRISTINA A. SNYDER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
I.
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
On
January 23, 2017 defendant Ivan Greenhut was sentenced to 24
months of imprisonment following his conviction at trial for
conspiring to give illegal gratuities in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 371. Specifically, a jury found that Greenhut
offered illegal gratuities to government employees in the
United States and the Philippines in exchange for purchases
from companies that Greenhut owned or operated. The Court
subsequently released Greenhut on bail pending his appeal.
During
this release, Greenhut was arrested on charges of possession
and distribution of child pornography. ECF No. 4. Arresting
agents found that Greenhut possessed 107 videos containing
child pornography on a laptop and had distributed three
videos containing child pornography using a file-sharing
platform online. Id. Pursuant to a binding plea
agreement, on April 5, 2018, the Court sentenced Greenhut to
40 months of imprisonment to run concurrently to the
undischarged term of imprisonment imposed in Greenhut's
prior conviction for the illegal gratuities. ECF No. 29.
Greenhut
filed the instant motion for a reduction in sentence pursuant
to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) on April 17, 2019. ECF No. 38
(“Motion”).[1] The motion attaches declarations from
Greenhut's adult children with his ex-wife, as well as a
declaration from a sister. Id. at Exs. A6-A8. On May
2, 2019, Greenhut filed an “addendum, ” to which
he attached various medical records. ECF No. 39
(“Addendum”). The United States filed an
opposition, or in the alternative, a motion to dismiss, on
July 29, 2019. ECF No. 43 (“Opp.”). Greenhut
filed a reply on August 8, 2019. ECF No. 46
(“Reply”). The government filed a supplement to
its opposition on August 9, 2019. ECF No. 45 (“Supp.
Br.”).
Having
considered the parties' arguments, the Court finds and
concludes as follows.
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
Pursuant
to the amendments enacted by the First Step Act of 2018, a
district court may grant a reduction in sentence pursuant to
§ 3582(c)(1) if, after considering the sentencing
factors set forth by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), it finds that
“extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a
reduction” and that “such a reduction is
consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the
Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. §
3582(c)(1)(A)(i). See United States v. Eidson, No.
17-CR-00490-SI, 2019 WL 3767570, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 9,
2019). The Sentencing Commission defines “extraordinary
and compelling reasons” to include reasons related to
(a) the medical condition of the defendant, (b) the age of
the defendant, (c) certain family circumstances, and (d)
other specific reasons. See U.S.S.G. § 1B.1.13,
Application Note 1. The defendant bears the initial burden to
put forward evidence that establishes an entitlement to a
sentence reduction. United States v. Sprague, 135
F.3d 1301, 1306-07 (9th Cir. 1998).
Although
the First Step Act now allows a defendant to bring a motion
pursuant to § 3582(c)(1) for a sentence reduction in his
own right, before a defendant can so move, a defendant must
“fully exhaust[] all administrative rights to appeal a
failure of the Bureau of Prisons to bring a motion on the
defendant's behalf, ” or else establish that
“the warden of the defendant's facility” has
received “such a request” and failed to act on
that request within 30 days. Id. at §
3582(c)(1)(A).
III.
DISCUSSION
Greenhut
requests a reduction of his sentence in order to care for and
spend time raising a 13 year old son in the Philippines,
obtain healthcare, and attend to his business interests.
See Mot. 3-13. The United States opposes on grounds
that (i) Greenhut has failed to exhaust his administrative
remedies with respect to his request for healthcare, and that
(ii) Greenhut does not, in any case, raise any
“extraordinary and compelling” reasons that
justify a sentence reduction. See Opp. at 2-7; Supp.
Br. at 2.
A.
Greenhut Has Not Exhausted His Administrative Remedies With
Respect To His Medical Care Requests
Greenhut
claims that a sentence reduction is warranted in part because
he requires access to medical care that is not adequately
available to him at the prison facility where he is housed.
Mot. at 3.
At the
time Greenhut filed the instant motion, however, he had not
submitted a request for compassionate release on this basis
to the warden at his federal prison facility. See
Reply at 2; Supp. Br. at 2. According to the administrative
documents attached to the motion, the only request Greenhut
made to the prison warden prior to filing this motion was for
“compassionate release based on non-medical
circumstances” related to Greenhut's claim that
“the family member caregiver” responsible for his
foreign-born son “has been incapacitated.”
See Mot. at Ex. A1 (attaching warden's decision
declining to make motion on Greenhut's behalf) ...