9th Circuit won’t entertain further filings by convicted ex-firefighter

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday ordered that it will not entertain further filings in the closed case of Richard Sullivan Benavente, a former fireman whose 30-year imprisonment sentence for conviction of the crime of sexual exploitation of a child it had already affirmed.

This developed as Ninth Circuit Judges Consuelo M. Callahan and Barry G. Silverman denied Benavente’s combined two motions to have the Ninth Circuit reconsider its ruling that affirmed his conviction. The judges did not elaborate.

Benavente filed a motion for reconsideration and a motion for reconsideration en banc.

An en banc refers to a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of the court. A panel hearing on the other hand, is heard before the court’s selected judges.

In June 2018, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona denied as without merit Benavente’s request for a review of the pleadings and have a resentencing filed by Richard Sullivan Benavente.

Manglona said Benavente’s appellate counsel raised the issue of the obstruction enhancement of the sentence, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

Manglona said the Ninth Circuit reasoned that the enhancement of the sentence was warranted, not because Benavente had committed perjury in trial testimony in a different case, but because he had made false statements to government agents and had violated his plea agreement.

Manglona directed the clerk to close the case.

Benavente is currently serving prison term in a prison facility in New York.

In October 2017, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s imposition of 30-year prison sentence on Benavente. The Ninth Circuit judges ruled that Manglona did not abuse her discretion in imposing a two-level sentencing enhancement on Benavente.

Manglona concluded that Benavente obstructed justice by making false statements to the U.S. government and violating his plea agreement by testifying falsely at the trial of another defendant.

Manglona sentenced Benavente in 2016 to the statutory maximum after explaining that the defendant had enticed or coerced at least two minor girls into sexual activity repeatedly in exchange for drugs, and had violated his plea agreement.

In 2013, a federal grand jury indicted Benavente on several counts of sexual exploitation of a child. He cooperated with authorities and entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. government.

In 2014, Benavente pleaded guilty to a count of sexual exploitation of a child.