Mother who embezzled to pay kids medical bills to be re-sentenced

The US District Court for Nebraska convicted Christina Haidley of embezzling $135,000 from a bank and sentenced her to twelve months and one day in prison. Christina contested sentencing under the Federal Sentencing guidelines, anticipating that the Supreme Court would soon rule on their continued validity, even though she had stipulated to the facts the court used to determine her sentence (United States v. Booker, _ US _ 2005). The Eighth Circuit determined from the District Court's imposing the minimum guideline sentence of oneyear plus a day, that the District Judge would have sentenced her to less time if the Guidelines had not applied. The Appeals Court further noted the Defendant used the embezzled funds to pay medical bills for her sick child. USA v. Haidley, 8th 2005 Imposing a guideline sentence would not have violated Christina's 6th amendment right to a jury trial because she agreed to the loss amount, $135,000; still the court found harmful error and ordered her resentencing (Blakely v. Washington _ US _ 2004). Christina benefitted from having counsel with enough foresight to anticipate the Booker ruling, because in another cited case, the defendant did not win a resentencing because he had not appealed the validity of the Sentencing guidelines (United States v. Parsons, 396 F.3d 1015 (8th Cir. 2005). Then again however, Robin Parsons is male.