§2B4.1 Bribery in Procurement of Bank Loan and Other Commercial Bribery: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2025
The U.S. Sentencing Commission recorded 102 people sentenced in fiscal year 2025 with §2B4.1 as the primary guideline. Of those, 72 (71%) received prison, with a median prison term of 15 months. Every guilty plea in the year came with a written plea agreement.
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In brief: The U.S. Sentencing Commission recorded 102 people sentenced in fiscal year 2025 with §2B4.1 as the primary guideline. Of those, 72 (71%) received prison, with a median prison term of 15 months. Every guilty plea in the year came with a written plea agreement.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 102 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025. Acquittals and dismissals come from a second source, the Federal Judicial Center's records of 753,808 federal defendants whose cases ended in fiscal years 2016 to 2025. It is part of the Federal Prosecution Analysis series, which builds on Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System. How the numbers were built: How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built.
Plea Agreements and Trials in Fiscal Year 2025
A total of 91 of 102 people (89%) pleaded guilty, and 11 were convicted after a trial. Among those who pleaded guilty, 100% had a written plea agreement, and 0% entered straight pleas.
The 89% plea share is lower than the 93% across fiscal years 2016 to 2025, and lower than the 98% for all guidelines in fiscal year 2025.
The median prison term was 12.5 months after a guilty plea and 22 months after a trial. The trial figure is based on 9 people sent to prison, so it is a small group.
Prison Terms and Probation
Prison went to 72 of the 102 people (71%), and probation only, with no prison or other confinement, went to 23 (23%).
Among those sent to prison, the median was 15 months. A quarter received 30 months or more, and a quarter received 7.5 months or less. These are terms imposed, not time served.
Supervised release was ordered for 71 people (70%), with a median term of 36 months. A fine was ordered for 29 (28%) and restitution for 60 (60%). No one with mandatory minimum information recorded had a mandatory minimum prison term.
Position Against the Guideline Range
Within the guideline range: 25% (26 people). Below the range at the government's request: 50% (51). Below the range without a government request: 25% (25). Above the range: 0% (0).
The within-range share for §2B4.1 was 7% in fiscal year 2024, the previous year. Across all guidelines in fiscal year 2025, it was 51% of 66,662 people. Across fiscal years 2016 to 2025, the §2B4.1 share was 20%.
Reading the Year Next to Earlier Ones
In fiscal year 2024, 127 people were sentenced under this guideline, with a median prison term of 18 months. Fiscal year 2025 has 102 people and a median of 15 months. Both are within the range of yearly values in the table, which covers fiscal years 2016 to 2025.
For everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025, the median prison term was 24 months. That figure covers all offense types, so it is a general reference and not a direct comparison.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 83 | 24 months | 93% |
| 2017 | 107 | 12 months | 95% |
| 2018 | 91 | 21 months | 91% |
| 2019 | 78 | 18 months | 88% |
| 2020 | 78 | 14.5 months | 95% |
| 2021 | 86 | 12 months | 92% |
| 2022 | 119 | 15 months | 98% |
| 2023 | 112 | 20 months | 91% |
| 2024 | 127 | 18 months | 94% |
| 2025 | 102 | 15 months | 89% |
Definitions and Counting
Guideline §2B4.1 is titled "Bribery in Procurement of Bank Loan and Other Commercial Bribery" in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual. The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
All 102 cases fell in the Commission's offense type Bribery/Corruption. The data counts only people who were convicted and sentenced. Fiscal year 2025 ran from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
Criminal history was mostly the lowest category: 94% were in category I and 0% in category VI. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
Limits of the Records
The records do not give case facts or the reasons for any sentence, and a single year with 102 people is not a trend. There is no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline in the approved crosswalk, so this post reports the federal numbers on their own.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2025 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2B4.1 (102), U.S. Sentencing Commission individual data files. The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30. No person, judge, or lawyer is identified in any of these records.
What to Keep in Mind
No parole in federal prison; credit for good conduct. Federal prison has no parole for crimes committed on or after November 1, 1987. A federal prisoner can earn up to 54 days of good conduct credit for each year of the sentence the judge imposed, which is about 15%. Some federal prisoners can also earn First Step Act time credits, but many offenses make a person ineligible. The numbers in this post are the sentences judges imposed, not the time people actually served.
Federal supervised release. Most federal prison sentences are followed by a term of supervised release that the judge sets as part of the sentence. A person who violates it can be sent back to prison. A court-martial cannot sentence anyone to supervision after release. Military parole and mandatory supervised release are decided later by a board, not by the judge at trial.
Who decides the sentence, and under what rules. Federal judges sentence every federal case. They must calculate the Sentencing Guidelines range, which is advisory, and must impose any mandatory minimum the statute requires unless an exception applies. In courts-martial, the accused could choose sentencing by members until the rules changed. For cases in which every guilty finding is for an offense committed after December 27, 2023, a military judge sentences alone, within sentencing parameters. Courts-martial tried in 2024 and later include both old-rule and new-rule cases, and the data cannot tell them apart.
Time periods. Federal numbers are by federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), based on the sentencing date. The military numbers are by trial date. Neither source has the date of the offense, so a change in law shows up in either data set gradually.
How life sentences and "time served" are counted. In the federal numbers, a life sentence is counted as 470 months, and any other sentence longer than 470 months is counted as just under 470 months. A sentence of "time served" is counted as one day (0.03 months). Averages are affected by these rules; medians much less.
Related Analysis
- Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System (the background article)
- Federal Prosecution Analysis (all federal posts)
- How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built (sources and method)
- §2B4.1 Bribery in Procurement of Bank Loan and Other Commercial Bribery: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2B4.1 Bribery in Procurement of Bank Loan and Other Commercial Bribery: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2024 (previous or next fiscal year)
- How Often Federal Judges Sentence Outside the Guideline Range
- Mandatory Minimums: How Many Federal Sentences Are Set by Congress
- U.S. Sentencing Commission, Individual Offender Datafiles (source)
- Federal Judicial Center, Integrated Database (criminal defendants) (source)
About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.