Law Humor

Daryl Simon seems to have included his bogus charity photos in an appendix to his sentencing memorandum, but I was unable to find that on the court's docket.  It may not have been posted yet, but that seems odd given that the government's sentencing memo is available.  Frustratingly, the government did not reproduce the doctored photos in its memo or in the appendix, but there are a couple of additional interesting details in the memo.

First, and unsurprisingly, prosecutors said that photo-manipulation software was found on the computers in Simon's apartment, as well as stored images of a number of fake ID cards with Simon's picture on them.  The government asked for, and apparently got, a two-point obstruction-of-justice enhancement to Simon's sentence for the fake charity photos.

Second, I joked earlier that Simon should get time added to his sentence for the heinous stage name, "Justin Lusion," that he used while posing as a magician, but it turns out the government had already thought of that:

Furthermore, Simon's adoption of the "stage name" (or alias) "Justin Lusion" while he was a fugitive reveals more than his entrepreneurial character.  "Justin Lusion" phonetically mirrors the phrase "just-an-illusion," and his use of this alias while evading arrest further shows that Simon considered his offenses, and his flight from justice, a joke.

I don't know if it really follows that Simon was necessarily taunting the authorities with his illusionist stage name, and given the depth of the hole Simon had already dug for himself, this argument was probably unnecessary anyway.  But given that I was willing to advocate extra punishment just because that is such a terrible stage name, I can't really fault them for throwing this in at the end.