United States v. Molnar

Miklos Molnar (defendant), a police officer with access to a drug-enforcement evidence room, embezzled nearly $51,000 in seized drug funds; when a local prosecutor later ordered $19,000 refunded to a party from whom the money had been unlawfully seized, Molnar could not produce enough funds to cover it and was forced to confess. Although sentencing guidelines suggested no more than 16 months, the judge imposed 60 months (a 257 percent increase) after finding, based partly on testimony from the police chief that the funds could theoretically have financed future drug buys, that Molnar's crime had significantly impaired the department's drug-prevention capabilities; the chief's testimony, however, also established that seized funds could not actually be used for drug buys without prosecutorial authorization. Molnar raised this issue for the first time on appeal.