Fraudster Who Targeted Ex-FBI Chief Gets Chance for New Sentence

A Jamaican man who pleaded guilty to extortion after being recorded by one of his victims, a former FBI director, won the chance to argue that he received ineffective assistance of counsel on several aspects of his sentencing, the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday.

But Keniel Thomas’ other challenges to his nearly six-year sentence, which is two and a half years more than the estimated maximum, lack merit, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg said for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Thomas stipulated in his plea agreement that he had called a former judge to say the elderly man had won a multimillion-dollar lottery prize but needed to pay $50,000 to cover taxes.

“Perhaps unbeknownst to Thomas, he was trying to scam a man who once headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Ginsburg said.

Judge William H. Webster contacted the federal law enforcement bureau he once ran and later recorded a number of calls from Thomas, including threats of sniper killings and arson made to Webster’s wife, Lynda Webster.

Thomas also told her that the couple’s house was under surveillance and provided correct details about it.

Thomas was later arrested when he entered the U.S. He pleaded guilty to one count of interstate communication with intent to extort. The parties estimated that he would receive a sentence of 33 to 41 months in prison.

“Thomas waived his right to appeal ‘except to the extent’ the court sentenced him ‘above the statutory maximum or the guidelines range determined by the Court’ but he reserved the right to claim he received ineffective assistance of counsel,” Ginsburg said.

The district court imposed a longer sentence than prosecutors requested, based in part on a post-plea sentencing memorandum. The sentence factored in an enhancement for demonstrating the ability to carry out his threats, and upward departures for organized criminal activity and for threatening a family member of the victim.

On appeal, Thomas argued the government breached the plea agreement. But “the Government did not at any point ‘seek’ the enhancement,” Ginsburg said. “The district court raised it without any prompting—explicit or implicit—from the Government and applied it over the Government’s repeated objection.”

His other challenges also fell short, except for mitigating evidence and a procedural issue on which Thomas said he received ineffective assistance of counsel, according to the court. The government didn’t dispute most of those points.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson concurred. She wrote separately to defend the sentencing judge’s paraphrase of the waiver of appeal. Then-Judge Merrick B. Garland served on the panel but didn’t participate in the final disposition of the case, according to the court.

The case is United States v. Thomas, 2021 BL 217818, D.C. Cir., No. 19-3015, 6/11/21.