A federal judge on May 15 rejected a bid by former White House official Peter Navarro to leave prison early.
Mr. Navarro, who is serving a four-month prison sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress, filed an emergency motion on May 9 asking to be resentenced.
The motion said that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, should add 30 days of supervised release to Mr. Navarro’s sentence.
Mr. Navarro “will then immediately be eligible to begin serving his term of supervised release and will conclude service of his sentence, both imprisonment and supervised release, at approximately same time,” the motion stated.
It cited a portion of federal law, as modified by the First Step Act, that says prison officials “shall, to the extent practicable, ensure that a prisoner serving a term of imprisonment spends a portion of the final months of that term ... under conditions that will afford that prisoner a reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the reentry of that prisoner to the community.” The law says that the director of the Bureau of Prisons shall place a prisoner in home confinement for 10 percent of the term of imprisonment, or six months, whichever is shorter. Because Mr. Navarro has earned credit due to good behavior, he should be allowed to go home, the motion argues.
Mr. Navarro asked the Bureau of Prisons about release but the bureau would not process him to home confinement because his sentence was four months in prison with no supervised release.
Adding 30 days of supervised release would change that, Mr. Navarro said.
Federal law governing sentencing does not authorize adding a period of supervised release unless the actual sentence is also reduced, Judge Mehta noted. A district court case Mr. Navarro cited aligns with that view, stating in part that ... “the relief [the convict] seeks (i.e., solely an augmentation of his sentence) may not be permissible under 18 U.S.C. § 3582.”
Even if the law permitted what Mr. Navarro is requesting, Judge Mehta said he would deny the request.
He pointed to the law, which says that modifying a sentence is only an option if a court finds “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction.”
“Defendant’s desire to shorten his prison time through First Step Act credits does not, at least in this case, constitute an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason to modify his sentence,” the judge said.
Mr. Navarro speculated that the lack of supervised release may have been an oversight, but Judge Mehta said that he chose not to impose supervised release because it would enable him to leave prison early.
“The nature and circumstances of defendant’s contemptuous conduct, and the need to deter others from doing the same, weigh heavily against including any period of supervision that would allow defendant to shorten his term of imprisonment,” Judge Mehta said. He also wanted to impose the same sentence as the one imposed on Steve Bannon, another former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump. Mr. Bannon was also convicted of contempt of Congress after defying subpoenas from the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
“In sum, a four-month prison term without supervised release was warranted at the time of defendant’s sentencing, and it remains warranted now,” the judge wrote.
The rejection is the latest for Mr. Navarro from the courts. His request to delay the start of his sentence pending appeal was turned down by Judge Mehta. An appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Mr. Navarro began serving his sentence on March 19 and is currently due to be released on July 17. He is being held at the federal prison in Miami, Florida.
