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Law360 (April 14, 2020, 4:18 PM EDT) -- U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said Monday that he would not grant a former Standard & Poor's analyst and a French jeweler, each convicted of insider trading, early release from prison over concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
That said, the New York federal judge did encourage ex-analyst Sebastian Pinto-Thomaz and jeweler Jeremy Millul to continue pursuing release through the Federal Bureau of Prisons — and through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the case of Millul — as nonviolent offenders who have only a few months left to serve on their sentences.
Noting concerns like overcrowding in federal detention facilities during a public health crisis, Judge Rakoff went so far as to recommend that the two agencies "seriously consider these defendants as candidates for release under their administrative criteria."
"The court does not view either defendant as a flight risk or a danger to the community, and release may well be warranted under guidelines that are more lenient than the 'extraordinary and compelling' standard that binds the court," the judge said.
Inmates have to demonstrate an "extraordinary and compelling reason" to attain compassionate release from the court, and Millul's and Pinto-Thomaz's arguments that incarceration currently poses an unnecessary health risk both miss the mark, Judge Rakoff said.
Pinto-Thomaz, 34, was convicted one year ago of insider trading for feeding tips to two family friends about a secret plan, learned about through his work as an S&P debt analyst, by paint giant Sherwin-Williams to buy rival Valspar for $11 billion before the deal was announced on March 20, 2016.
One of those family friends was Millul, who admitted to a conspiracy count in March 2019, not long before he was scheduled to stand trial alongside Pinto-Thomaz. The other friend, Manhattan hairdresser Abell Oujaddou, testified against Pinto-Thomaz and was spared prison time for his own guilty plea by Judge Rakoff, who instead doled out a $500,000 fine for the "sheer greed" of the crime.
Millul, 35, meanwhile received a five-month sentence, and Pinto-Thomaz, who tried at trial to convince the jury his mother was actually responsible for the confidential information being shared, was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
According to court records, Millul and Pinto-Thomaz both sought compassionate release from Judge Rakoff at the end of last month in light of the coronavirus pandemic and offered to finish their sentences via home confinement. Pinto-Thomaz is on track to be released at the end of September, and Millul is due to be released from prison in June, though as a non-U.S. citizen, he is subject to a detainer by ICE upon release.
"It is hard to see how these circumstances make the situations of these two individuals 'extraordinary' in terms of the statutory requirement, for in these respects they are no different from a host of other prisoners," the judge said.
The Bureau of Prisons' response to the crisis — "though not without criticism," the judge noted — has included provisions to address the concerns laid out by the two inmates, neither of whom appear to be at any increased medical risk for contracting COVID-19.
Judge Rakoff instead recommended that the BOP and ICE "seriously consider" the two inmates for early release.
An attorney for Pinto-Thomaz said he was working with prison officials to get his client "safely home."
"Judge Rakoff's thoughtful opinion gives persuasive guidance to Bureau of Prison officials that Mr. Pinto-Thomaz is a strong candidate for early release into home confinement," attorney Henry E. Mazurek told Law360. "It is critical now that prison officials continue to remove non-dangerous, short-term inmates from custody to reduce density, which makes it easier for COVID-19 to spread within prison walls."
Counsel for Millul did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Pinto-Thomaz is represented by Henry Mazurek and Ilana Haramati of Meister Seelig & Fein LLP.
Millul is represented by Glenn Colton and Michelle Shapiro of Arent Fox LLP.
The case is U.S. v. Pinto-Thomaz et al., case number 1:18-cr-00579, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Jack Karp.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
