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Ninth Circuit turns down Montgomery’s 2 petitions
Will no longer entertain filings
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied yesterday two petitions for rehearing of a motion for sentence reduction requested by former businessman Bert Douglas Montgomery, who was handed a 20-year prison sentence in 2003 for his role in a conspiracy to defraud the Bank of Saipan.
Ninth Circuit Judges William C. Canby Jr., A. Wallace Tashima, and Michelle T. Friedland said the panel has also voted to deny Montgomery’s petition for panel rehearing.
Canby, Tashima, and Friedland said the full court has been advised of Montgomery’s petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter.
An en banc refers to a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of the court. A panel hearing is heard before the court’s selected judges.
The Ninth Circuit judges also denied Montgomery’s motion challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.
“No further filings will be entertained in this closed case,” the judges said.
Last December, the 9th Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the NMI’s order that denied Montgomery’s motion to have his sentence reduced.
Montgomery appealed pro se or without a lawyer.
In December 2013, then-U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Alex R. Munson imposed a 20-year prison term on Montgomery for a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of wire fraud: deprivation of honest services, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and three counts of money laundering.
Munson ordered Montgomery to pay jointly with his two co-defendants $5.2million in restitution to Bank of Saipan and $109,980 to Michelle Hom, a bank customer.
One of Montgomery’s co-defendants killed himself in August 2003.
