United States v. Gregory Michael Van Boom

Increasingly, the sentence has become the principal issue in a federal criminal appeal. In this case, the sentence is the entire issue — whether the penalty provided by the Sentencing Guidelines for bank robbery may be increased by the amount the robber unsuccessfully attempted to obtain. The district court imposed the increase. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Gregory Van Boom, a former film script writer, developed an elaborate plan by which he might obtain money from a bank by pretending to have control of explosive devices he would detonate if his demands were not met. On July 13, 1990 he put his plan into operation at the Valley National Bank in Tucson, Arizona, of which he demanded $750,000. A FBI SWAT team arrested him before he could take possession of the money. He was indicted on two counts and on November 28, 1990 pled guilty to the second, which charged that he, “by force and violence and by intimidation, attempted to take from persons and the presence of persons at the Valley National Bank on Two E. Congress Street, and did attempt to obtain by extortion, approximately $750,000 ... in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 2113 (a).” The indictment tracked the…