BRUCE BAGLEY'S EARLY RELEASE FROM HIS SIX MONTH SENTENCE FOR MONEY LAUNDERING SENDS THE WRONG MESSAGE

A search of the Bureau of Prisons website indicates that Professor BRUCE BAGLEY was released early from his six month sentence for money laundering. The notation signifies that he is either on Home Confinement (house arrest) or at a halfway house, which allows him out during working hours, only sleeping there.

The curious circumstances of his short sentence caught my attention; merely a pair of six month incarceration terms, but to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time. No Supervised Release was added, and Mr. Bagley was able to defer the start of his sentence until he had completed what is listed as necessary surgery. Remember, he was, and is, a noted authority on narcotics trafficking, and the chair of his department at the university, and there is no indication that he was not aware of the gravity of his offense.

Sentencing is all about deterrence; one of the purposes in crafting a proper sentence is that it serves to deter others who might be inclined to also commit the same crime. Here, with all due respect to the sentencing judge, the imposition of a sentence that is only a slap on the wrist, does not sufficiently warn others  not to give in to their impulses and greed.

I know Professor Begley; we even socialized back in the 1990s, I am saddened about the untimely death of his wife, who was a Peace Corps veteran, and I assume he contributed some valuable information regarding his client, Colombian money launderer and confident to the President of Venezuela, but the Court could have imposed a sentence more in line with terms of imprisonment meted out to small laundrymen in Federal Court.