More examples of tough post-Booker sentences

News accounts of recent federal sentencings provides additional evidence that, as suggested here and here and here, there is little reason to fear that federal judges are consistently using their new discretion to “go soft” on federal offenders:

• This story from law.com discusses the 14-year sentenced given to a former plaintiffs attorney “for stealing $2 million in settlement money from his clients”; the White Collar Crim Prof Blog comments on this sentence here.

• This story from MSNBC discusses the 8-year sentence ($3.5 million restitution order) imposed upon an “aspiring physicist  … [for] his role in a spree of arson and vandalism that targeted gas-guzzling Hummers and other sports utility vehicles.”

• This story from Tennessee provides a compelling report of a federal sentencing hearing which culminated in the imposition of a nearly 18-year sentence on a woman convicted to two armed robberies.