§2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2021
In fiscal year 2021, 13 people were sentenced in federal court under §2C1.2. Of the 13, 5 (38%) received a prison term, with a median of 12 months, and 12 (92%) pleaded guilty. The count is small, and the one person convicted after a trial is the only case behind any plea-and-trial comparison.
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Trends › Federal Prosecution Analysis › §2C1.2 Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity › §2C1.2: FY2021
In brief: In fiscal year 2021, 13 people were sentenced in federal court under §2C1.2. Of the 13, 5 (38%) received a prison term, with a median of 12 months, and 12 (92%) pleaded guilty. The count is small, and the one person convicted after a trial is the only case behind any plea-and-trial comparison.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 13 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2021. 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.
Prison Terms for 5 of 13 People
In fiscal year 2021, 5 of the 13 people sentenced under §2C1.2 (38%) received a prison term. Another 3 (23%) received probation only, meaning no prison and no other confinement.
The median prison term for the 5 was 12 months. The highest quarter of terms were 18 months or more, and the lowest quarter were 8 months or less.
In addition, 5 people (38%) were ordered to serve supervised release after prison, with a median term of 12 months.
One Trial and 12 Guilty Pleas
In all, 12 of the 13 people pleaded guilty. One person was convicted after a trial.
The median prison term after a guilty plea was 10 months. The person convicted at trial and sent to prison received 20 months. A single case cannot show how plea and trial sentences differ in general.
All of the guilty pleas (100%) had a written plea agreement. No mandatory minimum prison term applied to any of the 13 people with that information recorded.
Position Against the Guideline Range
Below the range at the government's request were 8 sentences (62%). Below the range without a government request were 3 (23%). Within the range were 2 (15%). None were above it.
Across all years of §2C1.2, 19% of sentences were within the range. Across all guidelines in fiscal year 2021, the figure was 43%. This guideline was lower than the all-guidelines figure in this year.
Fines, Restitution, and Criminal History
A fine was ordered for 4 people (31%), and restitution for 6 (46%). Restitution was ordered more often than fines in this year, which reverses the order seen in fiscal years 2016, 2017, and 2018.
All 13 people were in the lowest criminal history category I and none were in the highest. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
The Guideline and the Counting Method
The Guidelines Manual titles §2C1.2 "Offering, Giving, Soliciting, or Receiving a Gratuity". These 13 cases are filed under the Commission's Bribery/Corruption offense type. Each person is assigned the guideline that set the offense level for the most serious count.
The federal fiscal year here is October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021. Anyone acquitted or whose case was dismissed is not in the Commission's data. Prison terms are the sentences imposed rather than time served.
How 2021 Compares With the Rest of the Record
From fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 112 people were sentenced under this guideline. Of those, 46% went to prison, the median prison term was 12 months, and 96% pleaded guilty. The median in fiscal year 2021 matches the all-years median.
For all guidelines in fiscal year 2021, 57,287 people were sentenced, the median prison term was 29 months, and 98% pleaded guilty. In fiscal year 2022, 15 people were sentenced under §2C1.2, with a median prison term of 8.5 months and 13% of sentences within the range. The table lists every year.
| 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 the Numbers Cannot Say
The records give no case facts and no reasons for any sentence. The crosswalk has no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline, so this post reports the federal numbers on their own.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2021 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2C1.2 (13), 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 2022 (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.