§2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2016
In fiscal year 2016, 24 people were sentenced in federal court with §2C1.2 as the primary guideline, and all 24 (100%) pleaded guilty. In all, 12 received prison terms, with a median of 16.5 months. Most sentences were below the guideline range: 13 at the government's request and 7 without a request
· Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › Federal Prosecution Analysis › §2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity › §2C1.2: FY2016
In brief: In fiscal year 2016, 24 people were sentenced in federal court with §2C1.2 as the primary guideline, and all 24 (100%) pleaded guilty. In all, 12 received prison terms, with a median of 16.5 months. Most sentences were below the guideline range: 13 at the government's request and 7 without a request.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 24 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2016. 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.
Every Person Pleaded Guilty
All 24 people sentenced under §2C1.2 in fiscal year 2016 pleaded guilty. No one in the group was convicted after a trial.
Each guilty plea (100%) had a written plea agreement. None were straight pleas without an agreement.
That matches the very high plea rate in federal court generally. For everyone sentenced in fiscal year 2016 under any guideline, 97% pleaded guilty.
How the Sentences Compared With the Guideline Range
Only 4 of the 24 sentences (17%) were within the guideline range. Below the range at the government's request were 13 (54%). Below the range without a government request were 7 (29%). None were above the range.
Across all years of §2C1.2 from fiscal year 2016 to 2025, 19% of sentences were within the range. For all guidelines in fiscal year 2016, the figure was 49%.
No mandatory minimum prison term applied to any of the 24 people with that information recorded.
Prison Terms and Probation
In this group, 12 people (50%) received a prison term, and 6 (25%) received probation only. Probation only means no prison and no other confinement.
The median prison term for those sent to prison was 16.5 months. A quarter received 38 months or more, and a quarter received 5.5 months or less. The spread between the top and bottom of that range is wide, so the median alone does not describe the group.
Supervised release after prison was ordered for 12 people (50%), with a median term of 24 months.
Fines, Restitution, and Criminal History
A fine was ordered for 9 people (38%). Restitution was ordered for 8 (33%).
All 24 were in the lowest criminal history category I and none were in the highest. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
What the Guideline Is and How the Cases Were Counted
The Guidelines Manual titles §2C1.2 "Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity". The U.S. Sentencing Commission groups all 24 cases in its Bribery/Corruption offense type. A case counts here when §2C1.2 was the primary guideline, which is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Fiscal year 2016 ran from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016. The data includes only people who were convicted and sentenced. Acquittals and dismissals are not in it.
Fiscal Year 2016 in the All-Years Record
The 24 people in fiscal year 2016 are the largest count in the table for this guideline. In fiscal year 2017, 13 people were sentenced, with a median prison term of 15 months. Later years have smaller counts, and fiscal year 2025 has 1 person.
Over fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 112 people were sentenced under §2C1.2. Of those, 46% were sent to prison, the median prison term was 12 months, and 96% pleaded guilty. Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2016 numbered 67,742, with a median prison term of 24 months.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 24 | 16.5 months | 100% |
| 2017 | 13 | 15 months | 77% |
| 2018 | 10 | 14 months | 100% |
| 2019 | 7 | 12 months | 7 of 7 |
| 2020 | 8 | 8 months | 8 of 8 |
| 2021 | 13 | 12 months | 92% |
| 2022 | 15 | 8.5 months | 93% |
| 2023 | 12 | 9 months | 100% |
| 2024 | 9 | 24 months | 9 of 9 |
| 2025 | 1 | n/a | 1 of 1 |
What Is Not Visible
The records do not describe the conduct or the position of anyone sentenced, so they cannot explain why most sentences were below the range. The crosswalk has no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline, so these are federal numbers only.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2016 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2C1.2 (24), 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)
- §2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2017 (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.