Coughlin asks for full panel to review case
Posted on Thursday, September 13, 2007
A former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive who stole several hundred thousand dollars from the company has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a recent decision to send the case back to the lower court judge for resentencing.
Tom Coughlin’s attorneys petitioned the 8 th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing or for the full court to consider the case, after a three-member panel of the court said in a split decision last month that Coughlin’s health problems did not warrant a lenient sentence.
Coughlin was sentenced in August 2006 to home detention. He could have faced 27 to 33 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. Judges have discretion to impose sentences that are “reasonable” in the light of other factors, Coughlin’s attorneys said in the petition filed Tuesday. They argue incarceration could be deadly for Coughlin, 58, who suffers from coronary disease, hypertension, diabetes and pulmonary arrhythmia, and has a pacemaker-defibrillator device.
U. S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson of Fort Smith, citing Coughlin’s community ties and poor health, sentenced the Centerton man to 27 months of home detention and five years ’ probation for stealing gift cards and valuable equipment and falsifying vouchers and invoices in order to pocket the cash. In the sentencing, the former chief operating officer and vice chairman was ordered to pay $ 411, 218 in restitution and a $ 50, 000 fine. Coughlin retired from Wal-Mart in 2005 after 27 years with the nation’s largest retailer.
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