Court orders imprisoned Ill. attorney resentenced
EAST ST. LOUIS -- A federal appeals court on Friday struck down part of the 12-year prison sentence for a former attorney who authorities say tried to blackmail his ex-wife with nude photos, ruling the lawyer was wrongly subjected to redundant charges.
A three-judge panel with the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Gary Peel's conviction of two counts of possessing child pornography. But the court ordered the judge who sentenced Peel in 2007 to 12 years in prison to throw out a bankruptcy fraud or obstruction of justice conviction, saying Peel's being charged with both amounted to double jeopardy.
"This is like a case in which a person is tried for both murder and attempted murder," Judge Richard Posner wrote for the appellate court. "The elements are different, but since conviction for murder automatically convicts the defendant of attempted murder (for there can be no murder without attempting the deed), the defendant cannot be convicted of both crimes."
The appellate court ordered U.S. District Judge William Stiehl to resentence the 65-year-old attorney after throwing out one of the convictions. The Chicago court also found that Stiehl's miscalculation of Peel's intended loss to be more than $1 million added prison time under federal sentencing guidelines.
It was not immediately clear how much Friday's move might cut the sentence of Peel, who is serving his time at a low-security federal prison in Ashland, Ky. A new sentencing date was not immediately set.
Norman Smith, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office covering southern Illinois, declined to discuss Friday's ruling because the matter still was pending. Paul Camarena, one of Peel's Chicago appellate attorneys, said he had not yet read the ruling and could not immediately discuss it.
Prosecutors say Peel had an affair with his teenage sister-in-law in the early 1970s, then tried to use sexually explicit photos of her to pressure her sister into dropping her financial demands during their 2003 divorce. Peel filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and later testified he was trying to stop his ex-wife from giving details to the media about his insolvency.
Peel also insisted he thought his sister-in-law was 18 when the pictures were taken. But Posner wrote in Friday's ruling that Peel had "extensive" knowledge of the girl's age, having known her from the time she was a fourth-grader to when he represented her in a divorce.
After Peel's March 2007 conviction, Stiehl grappled over the appropriate punishment, once taking the matter under advisement after making known he needed more time to decide the sentence after hearing some testimony and arguments about the case's pre-sentence report.
Stiehl, reached by telephone Friday, declined comment.