George Moses Sentencing Memorandum Written by His Attorney. NEAD/Group 14621 Rochester Housing Authority/ Rochester Housing Charities

Case 6:19-cr-06074-EAW Document 445 Filed 09/29/22 Page 1 of 50
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
v. 6:19-CR-06074 EAW
GEORGE MOSES,
Defendant.
____________________________________
DEFENDANT GEORGE MOSES’S

SENTENCING MEMORANDUM
OFFICES OF FREDERICK P. HAFETZ LLC

Frederick P. Hafetz
420 Lexington Avenue, Suite 2818
New York, New York 10170
(212) 997-7595
fhafetz@hafetzlaw.com
HOOVER & DURLAND LLP

Spencer L. Durland
561 Franklin Street
Buffalo, New York 14202
(716) 800-2605
sdurland@hooverdurland.com
Attorneys for Defendant George Moses

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .......................................................................................................... ii
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT .................................................................................................... 1
ARGUMENT .................................................................................................................................. 2
I. THE COURT IS PRONOUNCING JUDGEMENT ON GEORGE MOSES AS A

WHOLE PERSON. ............................................................................................................. 2
II. MR. MOSES’S HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS STRONGLY FAVOR A

PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS. .................................................... 5
A. Mr. Moses’s background. ......................................................................................... 5
B. Mr. Moses’s contributions to education. .................................................................. 8
C. Mr. Moses’s contributions to housing initiatives. .................................................. 23
D. Mr. Moses’s work with senior citizens. ................................................................. 24
E. Mr. Moses’s aid to the homeless. ........................................................................... 26
F. Mr. Moses’s work with Pop Warner football. ........................................................ 27
G. Mr. Moses’s good deeds for individuals. ............................................................... 28
III. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS PROPERLY ACCOUNTS

FOR THE NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF MR. MOSES’S OFFENSES. ....... 31
A. Mr. Moses’s offenses did not seriously injure the United States, DASNY,
NEAD, RHC, or Quad A for Kids.......................................................................... 31
B. The losses recounted in the PSR are dwarfed by the amount of money Mr.
Moses brought into RHC and NEAD. .................................................................... 36
IV. MR. MOSES’S GUIDELINES RANGE IS AN UNRELIABLE BENCHMARK. ......... 36
V. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS BEST SERVES THE

PURPOSES OF SENTENCING. ..................................................................................... 39
VI. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS AVOIDS AN

UNWARRANTED DISPARITY BETWEEN MR. MOSES AND ADAM
MCFADDEN. ................................................................................................................... 42
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 45
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Brown v. Board of Education,

347 U.S. 483 (1954) .................................................................................................................... 8
Concepcion v. United States,

142 S. Ct. 2389 (2022) ................................................................................................................ 2
United States v. Adelson,

441 F. Supp. 2d 506 (S.D.N.Y. 2006)............................................................................. 2, 37, 42
United States v. Algahaim,

842 F.3d 796 (2d Cir. 2016)...................................................................................................... 37
United States v. Araujo,

539 F.2d 287 (2d Cir. 1976)...................................................................................................... 44
United States v. Behr,

No. 03-CR-1115, 2006 WL 1586563 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) ............................................................ 39
United States v. Cabrera,

531 F. Supp. 3d 863 (S.D.N.Y. 2021)....................................................................................... 44
United States v. Carreto,

583 F.3d 152 (2d Cir. 2009)........................................................................................................ 2
United States v. Carty,

264 F.3d 191 (2d Cir. 2001)...................................................................................................... 39
United States v. Cavera,

550 F.3d 180 (2d Cir. 2008)...................................................................................................... 36
United States v. Corsey,

723 F.3d 366 (2d Cir. 2013)...................................................................................................... 37
United States v. Delacruz,

862 F.3d 163 (2d Cir. 2017)........................................................................................................ 2
United States v. Gupta,

904 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)................................................................................. 37, 39
United States v. Johnson,

No. 16-CR-457, 2018 WL 1997975 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 27, 2018) ................................... 37, 38, 42
United States v. Jones,

531 F.3d 163 (2d Cir. 2008)...................................................................................................... 37
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United States v. Kazimov,

No. 15-CR-95, 2022 WL 1984059 (E.D.N.Y. June 6, 2022) ................................................... 44
United States v. Mendola,

No. 03-CR-449 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) .............................................................................................. 39
United States v. Musgrave,

647 F. App’x 529 (6th Cir. 2016) ............................................................................................. 37
United States v. Parris,

573 F. Supp. 2d 744 (E.D.N.Y. 2008) ...................................................................................... 37
United States v. Robles,

553 F. Supp. 3d 172 (S.D.N.Y. 2021)....................................................................................... 40
United States v. Watt,

707 F. Supp. 2d 149 (D. Mass. 2010) ....................................................................................... 37
Statutes
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) ............................................................................................................ 2, 15, 39
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A) ............................................................................................................ 39
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(D) ............................................................................................................ 42
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) .................................................................................................................. 43
18 U.S.C. § 3661 ............................................................................................................................. 2
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
USSG § 2B1.1..................................................................................................................... 4, 38, 45
USSG § 2B1.1, Background ......................................................................................................... 38
USSG § 2B1.1, note 3(E)(i) .......................................................................................................... 33
Other Authorities
ACT Rochester, Housing: Homeownership Rate by Race/Ethnicity,

https://www.actrochester.org .................................................................................................... 23
DASNY, Proposed Operating Budget 2021-2022 Fiscal Year

(Dec. 31, 2020) ......................................................................................................................... 32
Donna M. Harris, Ph.D., The Status of Latina/o and Bilingual Secondary Students in the
Rochester City School District: An Examination of School Trends, District Policies, and
School-Based Responses (2016) ................................................................................................. 9
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Jerry Kang et. al., Implicit Bias in the Courtroom,

59 UCLA L. REV. 1124 (2012) ............................................................................................... 3, 4
Justin D. Levinson & Robert J. Smith, Systemic Implicit Bias,

126 YALE L.J. FORUM 406 (2017) .............................................................................................. 3
Justin Murphy, Why Are Rochester Schools America’s Worst? Study Kodak Park School 41,
DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE (June 6, 2018) ............................................................................. 9, 10
Monroe County Sheriff Office, Inmate Census (Sept. 22, 2022) ................................................. 41
Nkechi Taifa & Catherine Beane, Integrative Solutions to Interrelated Issues: A

Multidisciplinary Look Behind the Cycle of Incarceration, 3 HARV. L. & POL’Y REV. 283
(2009) .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Omari Scott Simmons, Class Dismissed: Rethinking Socio-Economic Status and Higher
Education Attainment, 46 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 231 (2014) .................................................................. 8
Public School Review, Rochester City School District,

https://www.publicschoolreview.com......................................................................................... 9
Rochester Area Community Foundation and Affiliates, Consolidated Financial Statements

(Oct. 20, 2021) .......................................................................................................................... 33
Stephanie M. Cardwell et al., Bully Victimization, Truancy, and Violent Offending: Evidence
From the ASEP Truancy Reduction Experiment, 19 YOUTH VIOLENCE AND JUVENILE JUSTICE
5 (2021) ..................................................................................................................................... 19
U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, Demographic Differences in Sentencing: An Update to the 2012

Booker Report (Nov. 2017) ........................................................................................................ 3
U.S. Treasury, FiscalData,

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov ................................................................................................... 32
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PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
We submit this memorandum on behalf of our client, George Moses, who is
scheduled to be sentenced on November 18, 2022. We respectfully request that his prison term
be no more than 24 months.
Critical to the sentencing of Mr. Moses is the fundamental precept that the
whole person is being sentenced, so that the good that he has done in his lifetime is considered as
well as the crimes of which he has been convicted. The trial afforded the Court almost no sense
of the good that Mr. Moses has done. As we demonstrate in this memorandum, Mr. Moses’s
contribution to the minority community in Rochester has been enormous. Imbued with
community service by the family that raised him, Mr. Moses has spent a lifetime devoted to
bettering the lives of the Black community in Rochester, as well as performing countless good
deeds for individuals. Nearly three dozen letters to the Court from community leaders, educators,
public officials, students, parents, and downtrodden persons depict Mr. Moses’s remarkable and
selfless dedication to the community. His work for the disadvantaged community is, in the words
of one city leader, something Rochester is “not likely to see again in the near future.” (Hafetz
Decl., Ex. 3 at 2.) In the education area alone, as knowledgeable letter writers state, Mr. Moses’s
work was transformational. But his achievements for the Black community were far broader. Mr.
Moses’s efforts cover a broad spectrum of the serious problems confronting the community. His
lifetime of compassion, devotion, and activism in the Black community make him a truly unique
individual.
Additional factors powerfully support the requested sentence: consideration of the
nature and circumstances of his offenses shows, for example, that the real-world net effect of his
crimes on his main organization, NEAD, was minimal; the harsh circumstances of his nearly one
year incarceration at a county jail populated with many defendants charged with crimes of
violence where he lives in fear of his safety every day and has already been threatened with
attack; and the unwarranted disparity that would result if he were sentenced to a prison term
substantially in excess of that of a co-defendant whose criminal activity, both in nature and dollar
amount, was substantially similar to his own.
ARGUMENT
I. THE COURT IS PRONOUNCING JUDGEMENT ON GEORGE MOSES AS A

WHOLE PERSON.
A sentencing judge’s overarching imperative is to “impose a sentence sufficient,
but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes [of sentencing].” 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a). In fulfilling this function, district judges must take account of the whole person.
United States v. Delacruz, 862 F.3d 163, 175 (2d Cir. 2017). Indeed, the commitment to
sentencing “the whole person . . . as an individual” is a “longstanding tradition in American law,
dating back to the dawn of the Republic.” Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2395
(2022) (Sotomayor, J.) (cleaned up). As district judge Jed Rakoff memorably put the point:
[S]urely, if ever a man is to receive credit for the good he has done, and his
immediate misconduct assessed in the context of his overall life hitherto, it should
be at the moment of his sentencing, when his very future hangs in the balance.
United States v. Adelson, 441 F. Supp. 2d 506, 513-14 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). To that end, a
sentencing judge must scrutinize every facet of the defendant’s background, character,
and conduct. See 18 U.S.C. § 3661; Delacruz, 862 F.3d at 175.
At the same time, a sentencing judge must not consider a defendant’s race. See,
e.g., United States v. Carreto, 583 F.3d 152, 159 (2d Cir. 2009). And while it is easy enough to
disclaim race as a sentencing factor, following through is not so simple. As this Court has
recognized, implicit racial bias is “a function of human nature,” and “federal judges” are as
susceptible to it as anyone else. (Dkt. 246 at 29.)
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The scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports this view. As a group of leading
law-and-science researchers put it, “there is no inherent reason to think that judges are immune
from implicit biases,” and “[t]he extant empirical evidence supports this assumption.” Jerry Kang
et. al., Implicit Bias in the Courtroom, 59 UCLA L. REV. 1124, 1146 (2012); see also Justin D.
Levinson & Robert J. Smith, Systemic Implicit Bias, 126 YALE L.J. FORUM 406, 406 (2017)
(describing the ever-growing body of scholarship that has identified “how implicit bias operates
in nearly every criminal justice context,” including judicial decisionmaking). In particular, the
evidence shows that like white people in the general population, white judges harbor “strong
implicit attitudes favoring Whites over Blacks.” Kang et. al., 59 UCLA L. REV. at 1146.
There is especially strong evidence for implicit bias in sentencing. Though district
judges would, if asked, universally denounce race-based sentencing, the United States
Sentencing Commission (“Sentencing Commission”) has found that even “after controlling for a
wide variety of sentencing factors,” Black men consistently “receive longer sentences than
similarly situated White male offenders.” U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, Demographic Differences in
Sentencing: An Update to the 2012 Booker Report, at 2 (Nov. 2017). 1 In particular, Black men
are much less likely “to receive a non-government sponsored downward departure or variance,”
and the departures and variances they receive are much smaller. Id.; see also Kang et. al., 59
UCLA L. REV. at 1148 (noting the “evidence that African Americans are treated worse than
similarly situated Whites in sentencing”); Levinson & Smith, 126 YALE L.J. FORUM at 413
(citing the “robust literature describ[ing] how implicit bias seeps into . . . the sentencing of
defendants”).
1
This report is available at https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-
publications/research-publications/2017/20171114_Demographics.pdf (last visited Sept. 29,
2022).
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This observation is supported by the latest sentencing data. Between 2006 and
2021, 926 defendants sentenced under USSG § 2B1.1 had a total offense level of 27 and a
criminal-history category of I. Within this pool, the average sentence for white defendants was
10 months less than the average sentence for Black defendants. (Hafetz Decl. ¶ 10. 2)
The judges best equipped to counteract implicit bias are those who are “internally
persuaded” that implicit bias poses “a genuine problem,” Kang et. al., 59 UCLA L. REV. at 1174,
and who “engage in effortful, deliberative processing” rather than “making snap judgments,” id.
at 1177. In addition, and somewhat counterintuitively, “thinking oneself to be objective” seems
to “lead one to be less objective and more susceptible to biases.” Id. at 1173. “Judges should
therefore remind themselves that they are human and fallible, notwithstanding their status, their
education, and the robe.” Id. We trust that the Court appreciates the malignant effects of implicit
bias and will employ every available countermeasure.
Finally, before turning to the many selfless acts that should weigh heavily in any
assessment of George Moses as a whole person, we must address the Court’s prior comments
about his character. Specifically, at the December 9, 2021 bail hearing, the Court said that the
evidence at trial “left [it] with the definite and firm conviction that Mr. Moses was the epitome of
a fraudster motivated by greed and his own self interest.” (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 41 (“Bail Tr.”) at
45; see also id. (“George Moses cares about one thing and that’s George Moses.”); id. at 45-46
(doubting that Mr. Moses has “the capacity to care about harming others”).) Acknowledging,
however, that Mr. Moses’s good deeds were not “the focus of this trial” (id. at 42), the Court
“encourage[d] defense counsel to try to convince [it] otherwise at sentencing” (id. at 45).
2
At offense level 29, the average sentence for white defendants was 15 months less than
the average sentence for Black defendants. (Hafetz Decl. ¶ 10.)
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We respectfully object to the Court forming a “definite and firm conviction”
about Mr. Moses’s character based on a trial that excluded evidence of good works (see, e.g.,
Hafetz Decl., Ex. 40 (“Trial Tr.”) at 2253 (warning defense counsel about delving into Mr.
Moses’s good character); id. at 4826 (same)), and then calling on the defense to dislodge its
preconceived judgment. Trial and sentencing are fundamentally different enterprises. Trial
evidence will, of course, offer insight into the offense conduct, but it does not support a
judgment about the defendant’s life as a whole. And it is the whole person that the Court must
sentence.
In our view, any fair-minded consideration of Mr. Moses’s good works dispels the
notion that he cares only for himself. On the contrary, he has devoted nearly his entire adulthood
to improving the lives of Rochester’s most neglected and beleaguered inhabitants precisely
because he is deeply grieved by their suffering and feels a duty to come to their aid.
II. MR. MOSES’S HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS STRONGLY FAVOR A

PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS.
The Court has before it nearly 40 letters from educators, public officials,
attorneys, businesspeople, parents, students, and others, all attesting to Mr. Moses’s decades of
extraordinary work for Rochester’s minority community. These letters are a monument to
selfless service. Year after year, Mr. Moses dedicated himself to improving the lives of those
around him. He did not make these efforts because community activism is the surest path to
wealth and power—it assuredly isn’t. Rather, Mr. Moses did what he did because he is, at his
core, a compassionate person.
A. Mr. Moses’s background.
Mr. Moses, fifty-four years old, is the second oldest of Pamela Lennon’s nine
children. She was still a teenager when he was born. When he was three, his mother, who was a
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single parent, went to work and he was cared for by his grandmother and uncles. Determined to
finish high school, his mother earned a GED.
Unlike many boys without fathers at home, the influential men in Mr. Moses’s
life were devoted to community service. Mr. Moses joined them. In this way, community service
became a passion with him; it gave him purpose and something valuable to contribute to the
world. It has been his calling in life ever since.
His uncle, James Smith, Jr., was the executive director of the Teen Center in
Rochester, an urban-renewal program for low-income community youth. Mr. Moses worked
there in his youth with his uncle, Wallace Smith, Jr. In the early ‘90s, he worked again with
James, who had become the executive director of the Lewis Street Center, a significant
community organization whose site had fallen into disrepair. Within three months, Mr. Moses,
working with a volunteer team, helped restore it to a functioning center serving hundreds of
children again.
His uncle Wallace Smith, known as “Brother Wallace,” was a Korean War
veteran who had been missing in action for one year before he attended seminary school, and
later left the school to help care for his family in Rochester. Wallace distinguished himself in
serving the Black community by working closely with the nationally known community
organizer Saul Alinsky in the long and ultimately successful fight in Rochester with major
businesses to gain job opportunities for Black persons there. Brother Wallace mentored Mr.
Moses in community service from Mr. Moses’s teen years through his years at NEAD including
helping in NEAD’s establishing the Freedom Market and Freedom School in the underserved
Beechwood area.
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In addition to his uncles James and Wallace, Mr. Moses’s grandmother Dorothy
Smith, who helped raise him, was also a significant influence in shaping Mr. Moses’s devotion to
community service. She worked tirelessly with Mary Hannick in Hannick’s formation and
operation of the Genesee settlement houses, a major and well-known nonprofit neighborhood-
service agency in Rochester.
The Democrat & Chronicle’s 2021 obituary for Wallace Smith, noting his
wartime bravery in Korea and his life as a civil-rights leader in Rochester, quotes former Mayor
William Johnson, Jr. as stating: “He was a fierce warrior.” (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 39.)
In his senior year in high school, Mr. Moses and his first wife had a child. In the
summer after he graduated, he joined the Navy, where he served for four years before receiving
an honorable discharge. He was assigned for his entire naval service to VF-143 attached to
U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower stationed in Virginia Beach. VF-143 was part of operation Desert
Storm. While George was with his squadron in Virginia Beach, a race riot occurred in the beach
area of the city. A student fraternity event was occurring in that area at that time, and a number
of the Black midshipmen from the naval academy feared for their safety. Mr. Moses was
instrumental in arranging with his superiors safe lodging for some of the threatened midshipmen
in naval quarters. Offered the opportunity to join a program that would have enabled him to go to
officer candidate school, he declined because he wanted to return to his home in Rochester.
Upon returning to Rochester, Mr. Moses enrolled at Monroe Community College.
There, in addition to academic honors, he became a student government leader and, with the
assistance of Brother Wallace, led the fight to prevent MCC from moving the downtown campus
to the suburbs, which would have been harmful to many minority students. Subsequently, he
worked with several neighborhood community programs including the Neighborhood
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Empowerment Team (NET), AmeriCorps, and the anti-drug program “Smart Choice.” He joined
NEAD in 1998.
B. Mr. Moses’s contributions to education.
Of all Mr. Moses’s contributions to the underserved minority community of
Rochester, the most substantial, both in its reach and accomplishment, is in the area of improving
the education of minority youth. This is of huge significance because of the indisputably key role
that failures in the education of Black youth in this country play in the spiral of poverty,
incarceration, joblessness, and homelessness. These problems in Rochester have been long
standing.
The Supreme Court once pronounced education “perhaps the most important
function of state and local governments,” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493
(1954), and with good reason. Education “is required in the performance of our most basic public
responsibilities,” and “is a principal instrument in awakening [children] to cultural values, in
preparing [them] for later professional training, and in helping [them] to adjust normally to
[their] environment.” Id. Thus, “it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to
succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.” Id. The ensuing years have only
confirmed the Supreme Court’s assessment. Education’s role in combatting poverty and
incarceration is, by this point, well-documented. See, e.g., Omari Scott Simmons, Class
Dismissed: Rethinking Socio-Economic Status and Higher Education Attainment, 46 ARIZ. ST.
L.J. 231, 257 (2014); Nkechi Taifa & Catherine Beane, Integrative Solutions to Interrelated
Issues: A Multidisciplinary Look Behind the Cycle of Incarceration, 3 HARV. L. & POL’Y REV.
283, 283, 290-92 (2009).
Unfortunately, Rochester’s public schools have long fallen short of their promise.
The Democrat & Chronicle, in a story naming the Rochester City School District (“District”) a
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contender for “the worst district in the country over the last 20 years,” summarizes the problems
this way:
• A student body that is overwhelmingly poor and extremely racially segregated;
• “A tottering, ever-changing district bureaucracy unable to serve them”;
• “A mostly white teaching corps, in many cases unequipped to connect with children from
a very different background”;
• “A city government by turns supportive, combative and complicit”; and
• “A surrounding suburban core that has kept its distance.”
Justin Murphy, Why Are Rochester Schools America’s Worst? Study Kodak Park School 41,
DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE (June 6, 2018), available at,
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/communities/time-to-
educate/stories/2018/06/06/worst-public-schools-america-rochester-ny-rcsd-kodak-park-school-
41/550929002/ (last visited Sept. 29, 2022); see also Public School Review, Rochester City
School District, https://www.publicschoolreview.com/new-york/rochester-city-school-
district/3624750-school-district (last visited Sept. 29, 2022) (ranking the Rochester City School
District 779 out of New York’s 785 school districts).
The burden of this poor performance falls most heavily on racial minorities.
Between 2009 and 2015, only half of the District’s Black and Hispanic students graduated from
high school. See Donna M. Harris, Ph.D., The Status of Latina/o and Bilingual Secondary
Students in the Rochester City School District: An Examination of School Trends, District
Policies, and School-Based Responses, at App’x 19, p.6 (2016), available at,
http://www.nysed.gov/common/nysed/files/programs/main/rochester-de-report-append-19-study-
latino-students.pdf (last visited Sept. 29, 2022). Directly related to these disturbing education
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statistics is the rate of childhood poverty: as of 2016, Rochester was one of seven cities in the
United States with at least half of its children living below the poverty line. See Murphy, supra.
Mr. Moses understood the urgent need to improve educational outcomes and
reduce educational inequality, both from his personal experience and his experience with
community organizations. As letter after letter demonstrates, he worked tirelessly to improve
educational outcomes, leading literacy programs that, between 2005 and 2020, provided nearly
3,000 children with critical mentorship, structured opportunities, literacy training, and cultural
enrichment. As stated by Salvatore Fantauzzo, a local philanthropist and owner of a 30-location
pizza business, “George Moses worked harder than anyone I have ever met to save a
neighborhood.” (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 1.)
Freedom School
We begin with the centerpiece of Mr. Moses’s work in education: the Freedom
School, which he began at NEAD in 2005. The Freedom School created by Mr. Moses in
Rochester was inspired by a national program of Freedom Schools established by the Children’s
Defense Fund (“CDF”) in Washington, D.C. in 1973 by Marian Edelman Wright, a prominent
civil-rights attorney who had helped lead the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the south and
served as counsel to Martin Luther King. The CDF Freedom School program, rooted in the
Mississippi Freedom Summer project in the ‘60s, included a training program in literacy and
cultural enrichment. After Mr. Moses trained there in 2005, at a program in Tennessee, he
initiated the NEAD Freedom School program in Rochester.
Between 2005 and 2018, under Mr. Moses’s leadership, the NEAD Freedom
School operated an all-day K-12 summer school, and after-school and Saturday programming
during the school year. The structure of the programs changed as the value of Freedom School to
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the community became recognized by the District and the University of Rochester, as well as
various other municipal organizations and community leaders throughout Rochester. Both the
District and the University of Rochester, as well as other entities, began to partner with Mr. Moses
and the Freedom School in working to better the education of minority youth. In accord with CDF
training methods, the teaching staff for these programs included older youth who function as
mentors, college graduates, and teachers on summer vacation.
Jeremy Smith was the assistant director at Freedom School for most of the 15
years that Mr. Moses led the program. (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 2.) Describing Mr. Moses’s personal
involvement in Freedom School, Mr. Smith writes: “I’ve watched George go door-to-door doing
home visits, hand out fliers to community residents and corner stores, conduct parent meetings,
and speak at the local radio station about what Freedom Schools had to offer . . . .” (Id. at 3.) Mr.
Moses also wrote the “grants and proposals” for Freedom School funding, worked with the City
of Rochester to obtain summer jobs for Freedom School students, solidified NEAD’s
relationship with the Rochester School Board and the University of Rochester, mentored the
teaching staff, visited Freedom School every day, drove children who needed rides, and at times
would “even clean toilets and vacuum floors.” (Id. at 2; see also Trial Tr. at 3307-11, 3319-20
(Kevin White testifying that Mr. Moses was a regular presence at Freedom School).) As Adam
McFadden acknowledged at trial, “Freedom School was George’s baby.” (Trial Tr. at 3701.)
Illustrating Mr. Moses’s devotion to Freedom School, Jeremy Smith recounts one
Friday evening when he and his wife, returning home late from a movie, saw Mr. Moses’s car
parked at NEAD. They went inside and found Mr. Moses working on training materials directed
to the special needs of “black and brown children who suffer from trauma.” (Hafetz Decl. Ex. 2
at 1.)
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Mr. Smith concludes his letter to the Court by discussing Mr. Moses’s impact on
Freedom School students, their families, their community, and on himself personally:
I hope that this letter provides a glimpse of what this man has done, and initiated,
through service as transformative pathways for children and families throughout
the Beechwood neighborhood. Not only has he changed my life through his
servitude but he has changed the way I look at life as a man.
(Id. at 4 (emphasis added).)
The “transformative” nature of Mr. Moses’s work at Freedom School is
powerfully conveyed in other letters. Van White—former head of the Rochester Board of
Education and now a Rochester City Court Judge—describes Mr. Moses’s efforts as something
that Rochester “is not likely to see again in the near future.” (Id., Ex. 3 at 2 (emphasis added).)
Tracy Harris, a Freedom School parent and executive for a charter school,
describes Mr. Moses’s impact this way:
Every summer hundreds and ultimately thousands of youth ranging from age 5 to
14 were positively impacted by this culturally rich and relevant literacy program.
The program introduced culturally relevant literature to brown and black children
primarily, who statistically are significantly behind their counterparts in
vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension upon entering the ‘formal’
educational system and typically remain that way unless something or someone
significantly closes the ‘Education Gap’. George Moses was that person.
....
The ‘Freedom School’ program and concept became so well known for its
positive impact on literacy development that the Rochester City School District
adopted and operates several ‘Freedom School’ programs to this day. The long
range impact and love for reading the ‘Freedom School’ had can still be seen and
felt in the lives of numerous participants that have gone to college, graduated and
are now themselves serving and giving back to the Rochester community.
(Id., Ex. 4 at 1-2.)
Dr. Susan Goodwin, Director of the Rochester Teachers Center, shares this
opinion of Mr. Moses’s educational work as “transformative.” Despite what she has “read in the
newspaper,” she maintains her “high regard for [Mr. Moses] . . . based on a long professional
- 12 -
association in the context of his work to produce learning environments for young people.” (Id.,
Ex. 5 at 1.) She concludes that “Mr. Moses has been a benefit to hundreds of students, families,
elders, and neighborhoods.” (Id. at 2.)
Former students conveyed the major impact of Freedom School on their lives.
Former students “constantly” tell Christine Dunn—a financial-aid specialist for the University
System of Georgia Board of Regents who worked with Mr. Moses at Freedom School—“that the
Freedom School program saved their lives.” (Id., Ex. 6.) Ms. Dunn further writes:
Through this program for many years Mr. Moses led us to impact not just the
lives of children but their families. We taught children not only literacy but also
gave a sense of community to many families who for some time felt alone in
raising and teaching their children.
Even though it was not always easy to get children from different backgrounds
and family structures to really bond and experience bother/sisterhood Mr. Moses
didn’t stop. . . . Mr. Moses kept going with us behind him pushing to make a
change. And make a change we did. I see children that went from at risk of being
statistics to now being teachers and nurses.
(Id. (emphasis added).)
Rayenda Lennon, one of Mr. Moses’s sisters, lauds her brother for making
NEAD’s Freedom School “one of the most successful not for profit literary programs this
city has seen.” (Id., Ex. 7 at 1.) Another sister, Valerie Nesmith, relating how Mr. Moses
dedicated the Freedom School to the memory of her daughter, Miquesha Hazzard, who
was murdered in 2005 at age 16, describes the impact of Freedom School literacy
programs and weekly parent group sessions in conjunction with the literacy programs
(Id., Ex. 8 at 2.)
A key part of this success was Mr. Moses’s ability to involve parents in
their children’s education. Pastor Johnny Harris, a Government trial witness, recounts
Freedom School’s emphasis on “parent and family involvement” as an essential part of
- 13 -
instilling “in our children high quality academic” level. (Id., Ex. 9 at 2.) Gwen Thornton,
a retired social worker who has known Mr. Moses for 20 years, notes that parents
received “training and support to help them become more effective partners with schools
and other organizations helping their children.” (Id., Ex. 10.)
Mr. Moses recognized that superior programming and parental
involvement were not sufficient. Students also needed an atmosphere suffused with
tenderness, love, and care. In high tribute to Mr. Moses, Vanessa Ryland-Buntley writes:
During my girls[’] time [at Freedom School], we were always treated like family.
. . . From the first day to the last it felt as if everyone there were family and many
were just that. His family was right by his side contributing to the community. My
girls and I have learned so much from the NEAD Freedom School.
(Id., Ex. 11.) Rev. Dr. Cynthia Cole, who worked with Mr. Moses on Freedom School
projects and later became vice-president of NEAD’s board of directors, makes a similar
point: “I saw the kindness and respect the youth have for one another that was so peaceful
and much friendlier than among young people who haven’t been exposed to learning
together from a cultural value system.” (Id., Ex. 12 at 1.)
No part of what Mr. Moses did—as witnessed by Jeremy Smith, Van
White, Susan Goodwin, Christine Dunn, Tracy Harris, Johnny Harris, Valerie Nesmith,
Rayenda Lennon, Vanessa Ryland-Buntley, and Cynthia Cole—can be written off as self-
promotion. Freedom School did not have rich and influential families from whom Mr.
Moses could extract money and favors. He was not accumulating wealth or power when
he worked on Freedom School programming late into the night, went door-to-door to
meet with community members, drove children to school, and so on. Rather, Mr. Moses
determined to bring Freedom School to Rochester, and then nurtured the program like it
“was [his] baby” (Trial Tr. at 3701), because he felt obligated to serve the community
- 14 -
and he believed in the Freedom School program. This sort of compassion and follow-
through is rare, is prized, and is an undeniably significant part of the whole person
George Moses.
Benefit of Freedom School to the Community Was Far Broader Than Education
Even if Mr. Moses’s contribution to the disadvantaged minority community in
Rochester was only in the educational improvement that Freedom School provided for Black
youth, that in itself would be a compelling basis for a substantial variance from the sentencing
guidelines under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). However, the contribution Mr. Moses made to this
community through the NEAD Freedom School was much broader and more profound than the
educational value alone, important as that was.
Mr. Moses recognized that education alone was not sufficient to address the
problems of Black youths in Rochester. He understood the root cause to be a lack of self-esteem
or “self-empowerment” as many letter writers put it, of Black youth as well as the adult
community. His insight was that Freedom School students needed to be able to construct positive
images of themselves to advance in the world.
Many of the letter writers, including Freedom School students and parents,
educators, and community leaders, address Mr. Moses’s efforts through Freedom School as well
as other actions to address this critical need.
Thus, Tracy Harris writes:
I personally believe that one of the Greatest Areas of Impact of Mr. George H.
Moses Leadership via the “Freedom School” and other initiatives has had is in the
area of social-emotional impact. As it relates to the Freedom School every piece
of literature was authored, illustrated and contained content that was relevant and
reflective of the scholars themselves resulting in intrinsic as well as extrinsic
motivation and information. The positive impact on the self-image and self-
esteem of the minds of impressionable and developing children and young adults
is immeasurable. Offering them an opportunity through Literary and/or economic
- 15 -
Opportunities to see and imagine themselves in ways (i.e. a Teacher,

Entrepreneur, Engineer, etc.) never or rarely seen or explored. Opportunities for
learning that rarely are had or talked about in their community.
(Hafetz Decl., Ex. 4 at 3 (emphasis added).)
Likewise, Freedom School parent Vanessa Ryland-Buntley states that the
children
were being taught the importance of community, family, self, and world. While
all of these concepts may not have been [Mr. Moses’s] alone, he did have the
thought to bring such a wonderful program to this community. . . . I kept my
children there because I believed in the vision for the community. From my first
meeting to my last everything was always about empowerment in the community
and to have their own.
(Id., Ex. 11.)
Greg Hopkins describes how Mr. Moses’s positive vision for the Black
community carried beyond the walls of Freedom School. Mr. Hopkins runs Changing the
Community, a not-for-profit in Rochester that uses football to draw in and develop
student-athletes. His organization has helped 35 young men receive full athletic
scholarships to colleges throughout the country. Some have gone on to careers in the
NFL. 3 Mr. Hopkins runs a separate nonprofit organization that teaches building trades.
His innovative programs have made a valuable contribution to the minority community in
Rochester, and he attributes his success to what George Moses did for him:
My life was full of ups and downs from my parents passing when I was 13 to not
having the support of my dreams and aspirations. When I first met George he
gave me all of that and then some the mindset he instilled in me about paying it
forward and being a role model to the youth behind me who look up to me when I
was working freedom school gave me a sense of belonging and a aura of its not
just about me. That I have a bigger purpose in life beyond that of my own
personal gains. . . . George being my role model was the key to my success.
3
Mr. Hopkins now coaches Mr. Moses’s son, a football player at Monroe High School.
- 16 -
(Id., Ex. 13 at 2.) He poignantly concludes: “Judge Wolford when I tell you there would
be no me without George Moses it’s the God’s honest truth.” (Id. at 1.)
Brandon White’s letter is similar. He worked as a teacher at Freedom School for
five years, including summers, and is now a teacher and leader in the Rochester City School
District. He states:
I am grateful to God that I got the opportunity to work at the NEAD Freedom
School Summer Literacy Program before I worked as a teacher in the RSCD. That
summer changed my life. Through that program I got to understand the love,
resilience and connectivity needed to encourage young people to value literacy,
culture and critical thinking in a way that helps them expand their identities and
resolve their challenges. I got to expand my own identity as an educator activist,
which appropriately prepared me to become an effective teacher in the RSCD.
(Id., Ex. 14 at 1.) Discussing Freedom School’s broader reach, Mr. White further writes: “There
are people who are employed, found physical safety, received meals, wisdom, productive
direction, and are off the streets because of [Mr. Moses’s] decision to stay grounded in the
program and in the community in general.” (Id. at 1.)
Cratrina Meeks, who worked at Freedom School and is now a social worker,
similarly states: “George taught me . . . how to advocate for myself. . . . I have watched George
mentor children and adults, be a positive active member in our community, advocate for people
that could not advocate for themselves, fight for changes when needed and help anyone in need.”
(Id., Ex. 15 at 1.)
Jeremy Smith says of Mr. Moses, “h[e] changed my life through his servitude,”
explaining:
George always expressed a way of educating our children differently and was
adamant that we offer as many opportunities as possible for children to engage in
high quality academic enrichment. This led to the organization under his lead to
create a plethora of services and programs to improve reading confidence,
positive self-concept awareness, and family engagement.
(Id., Ex. 2 at 3.)
- 17 -
Of her experience working at Freedom School, Christine Dunn states that Mr.
Moses “gave a sense of community to many families who for some time felt alone in raising and
teaching their children.” (Id., Ex. 6 at 1.) She goes on to capture the role that Mr. Moses and
NEAD played in the Black community:
Mr. Moses kept going with us behind him pushing to make a change. And make a
change we did; I see children that went from at risk of being statistics to now
being teachers and nurses. There are former students who tell me constantly that
the Freedom School program saved their lives, taught them how to be productive
citizens as well as influenced how they raise their families.
This program began with a man seeing a need in a community where there was
senseless death, violence and not enough being done for our youth. In the end it
changed many lives for the good, including mine[.] Working at Freedom School
under Mr. Moses taught me that when you see a need in your community when no
one else is willing to step up don’t let it stop you from the being the change. Stand
up to do what needs to be done.
(Id.)
“Somewhat of a father figure to me” is how Panashe Matambanadzo describes
Mr. Moses, in expressing her gratitude for the self-confidence she developed while working at
Freedom School. (Id., Ex. 16 at 1.) This confidence has helped her maintain a managerial
position in a real-property company. (Id.)
Importantly, letter writers state that Mr. Moses provided a safe haven from street
violence for Black youth. Valerie Nesmith observes that Freedom School “was . . . a ‘safe haven’
for those who just needed a place to feel secure from the violence on the streets.” (Id., Ex. 8 at
2.) Brittany Smith, who previously worked at Freedom School and now works as a school
counselor for the Rochester City Schools, also emphasizes that Freedom School programs kept
its students “off the street.” (Id., Ex. 17 at 1.) Pastor Donald Stevens, president of the Baptist
Ministers Alliance of the Greater Rochester Area, also discusses “the young men which he has
helped to keep of the streets.” (Id., Ex. 18 at 1.)
- 18 -
It is hard to overstate the value of Mr. Moses’s efforts in providing this safe
haven. Safe havens such as those he provided are crucial in reducing violence and encouraging
academic success. See, e.g., Stephanie M. Cardwell et al., Bully Victimization, Truancy, and
Violent Offending: Evidence From the ASEP Truancy Reduction Experiment, 19 YOUTH
VIOLENCE AND JUVENILE JUSTICE 5, 5-9, 18-20 (2021) (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 44). By creating
programs that kept Rochester’s youth engaged in school and connected to positive role models,
Mr. Moses was insulating them and their communities from future violence and hardship. It was
not greed or self-interest that drove Mr. Moses to spend two decades sheltering and empowering
Black children, their families, and NEAD’s employees. Mr. Moses’s efforts were acts of
devotion, conscience, and compassion.
Partnership with the University of Rochester
An important measure of Mr. Moses’s success is the University of Rochester’s
decision to partner with him and Freedom School. This partnership is discussed in a book
entitled “Community Literacies as Shared Resources for Transformation” (published by
Routledge, 2018), written principally by a University of Rochester professor of education named
Joanne Larson.
The partnership focused on East High School, a predominantly minority school
whose 1,700 students made it Rochester’s largest. The work to revive this failing school
proceeded in three phases: (1) a focused intervention for struggling students in East High School;
(2) a focused intervention designed to help eighth and ninth graders complete high school; and
(3) a full-blown takeover of East High School by the University of Rochester, in partnership with
the City and nonprofits like NEAD, to save the school from closing. All three phases “emerged
from the particular passion of . . . [NEAD] to address the needs of the students and families in
- 19 -
the community who are struggling within our schools and traditional systems of support.”
(Hafetz Decl., Ex. 43 at 84). Here too, Mr. Moses’s efforts were acts of devotion, conscience,
and compassion.
For the first phase, beginning in 2008, the University of Rochester gave Mr.
Moses a list of struggling students. Those students began attending classes at Freedom School,
and NEAD staff enlisted support from their families. As a result, suspensions, violence, and
absenteeism dropped, while academic scores and parental engagement increased. (Id. at 85.)
For the second phase, beginning in 2012, failing eighth and ninth graders attended
Freedom School after regular school sessions and were mentored by Freedom School teachers.
The third phase, beginning in 2015, arose from the Rochester School Board’s
threat to close East High School and its request that the University of Rochester help operate the
school, with the goal of turning it “into a model of urban education.” (Id. at 93.) The University
once again asked NEAD to be its partner, and NEAD again agreed, offering the Freedom School
as an alternative school for the students who had been asked to repeat ninth grade and had poor
attendance or were no longer attending school.
The book praises NEAD’s role in responding to this challenge and helping to
reintegrate these students into the school system:
We end by sharing what we’ve learned from the many years of creating
alternative spaces for youth. As stated above, reconnecting these youth and
crafting alternative pathways for youth is beyond a professional obligation for
Freedom School staff, it is a personal mission. The Freedom Schools model, with
a mindset of service, caring, and community, frames every action and interaction
in these programs.
(Id. at 101.)
- 20 -
School 33
School 33 is one of Rochester’s largest elementary schools. Its students are
predominately Black and Latino. In the early 2000s, it was failing. Mr. Moses helped revitalize it
by obtaining a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant and coordinating with teachers,
parents, and community organizations. Two experienced educators—educator Celine Olgin and
former School 33 principal Larry Ellison—laud Mr. Moses for his success with School 33 and
the Beechwood community writ large.
Ms. Olgin, the Executive Director of the 21st Century Learning Center Grant,
offers a particularly striking assessment of Mr. Moses’s exertions, based on the 10 years she
spent working alongside him. She states:
In my 30 plus years as an educator I have never been privileged to meet someone

like George Moses. . . . I am aware that Mr. Moses is convicted of a crime and is
waiting a judgment on his legal consequences. I felt compelled to write this letter
on his behalf because of the commitment, mercy, understanding, and constructive
support he has shown to others. He has devoted a large part of his life to finding
ways to directly impact others who through life circumstances and/or bad
decisions are fighting to find a better path for their lives.
(Id., Ex. 19 at 1 (emphasis added).)
As with Freedom School, Mr. Moses’s work with School 33 “went far
beyond the development of the educational day program offered through the 21st Century
Learning Center Grant.” (Id.) Ms. Olgin writes:
I watched as the program pulled diverse community members into daily action.
Parents, grandparents, young adults, college students and high school students
were engaged in program activities. Parents were employed and volunteered to
work with school staff of #33. . . . Parents were supported and taught how to
advocate for themselves and their children. The implicit belief that each
individual had unique strengths and was of value increased students’ self-
confidence and nurtured a belief that each had the power to change themselves
and their community.
(Id. at 2.)
- 21 -
Former School 33 principal Larry Ellison, who has known Mr. Moses for
19 years, shares Ms. Olgin’s opinion. He states:
[Mr. Moses] was instrumental in having jobs opened up for minority members in
the community when the school was being renovated. George was the lead writer
in obtaining the 21st Century Grant that provided educational and recreational
after school opportunities for our students. George took the lead in providing
summer school experiences for our students via Freedom School. George worked
with the team that worked to establish the School Based Health Center that has
been a major support to students by providing primary care and mental health
services to the children who attend the school.
(Id., Ex. 20.) Mr. Ellison concludes:
George’s disposition to work tirelessly to enhance the lives of others was the
center piece of his vision of improving conditions in the community regarding
employment, housing and schooling. It is a vision that . . . symbolizes the very
best in community service. Therefore, I can wholeheartedly write this character
letter on behalf of Mr. George Moses without reservations.
(Id. (emphasis added).)
Mr. Moses’s sister, Rayenda Lennon, says the following about her brother’s work
with School 33:
He helped transform the neighborhood School #33 into the success that it is today.
Under his leadership, the school was able to be remodeled, the library revamped
to be one of the best in the city, the Recreation Center out of that school became
one of the most attended, and the attached spray park was one of the most popular
due to its accessibility and cleanliness.
(Id., Ex. 7 at 1.)
In sum, Mr. Moses has spent a significant portion of his adult life trying to
improve Rochester’s failing schools. He has pioneered in this City lauded educational models
embraced by the City, leaders in education at the University of Rochester, and educators
throughout the City. He has led interventions to assist the youth who were most at risk of
becoming victims of street violence or gang members themselves. He has helped to enable
Rochester schools to do more for disadvantaged youth. In all of this, he has worked on a team
- 22 -
basis in an effort to build lasting changes, and has always focused on instilling self-
empowerment in the minority people for whom that was so essential to advance in life. As stated
by his brother, Myron Moses, a Rochester police officer assigned to a federal anti-drug task
force, “George never made himself the focal point of any project, always putting the community
first.” (Id., Ex. 21.)
C. Mr. Moses’s contributions to housing initiatives.
If Mr. Moses’s tenure at NEAD was limited to educational endeavors, that would
be laudable enough. But NEAD’s influence under Mr. Moses extended well beyond education.
Housing is one example. According to NEAD’s annual reports to New York State Homes &
Community Renewal, between 2012 and 2018, NEAD, in collaboration with other organizations,
prevented over one thousand evictions, led hundreds of home improvements and rehabilitations,
and provided hundreds of people with financial counseling. 4
Mr. Moses’s accomplishment in the housing area is powerfully demonstrated in
the letter to the Court from Bruce Marks, the CEO and founder of Neighborhood Assistance
Corporation of America (“NACA”). Mr. Marks is recognized for his outstanding work
nationally in fighting predatory lending practices in poor communities throughout the country,
for which work the Boston Globe Magazine selected him as Bostonian of the Year. He writes:
We are the largest HUD approved not-profit homeownership and community

advocacy group in the country . . . NACA provides the Best Mortgage in
America—no down payment, no closing costs, no fees, no mortgage insurance
. . . . We have over $20 Billion committed to this one mortgage product with $15
Billion from Bank of America. During the mortgage crisis, we assisted over
4
Such work has an important racial-equity component, since homeownership among Black
residents of Monroe County is just 32%, as compared to 71% for white residents. See ACT
Rochester, Housing: Homeownership Rate by Race/Ethnicity,
https://www.actrochester.org/housing/homeownership-rate-by-race-
ethnicity#:~:text=In%20the%20City%20of%20Rochester,African%20American%20residents%2
0at%2029%25 (last visited Sept. 29, 2022).
- 23 -
250,000 home owners modify their unaffordable mortgage to save their homes
. . . . We have 47 offices nationwide with a growing presence in Rochester.
(Id., Ex. 22 at 1.)
Mr. Marks could not be clearer about George Moses’s role in alleviating the
disgraceful treatment of poor Black people who desire to own a home:
We would not be successful in Rochester without George. As we were starting

out, George provided space at no cost for counseling Rochester homebuyers. He
worked with us to provide people with a housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) to
use it to purchase a home rather than a rental payment.
(Id. (emphasis added).) In words that again dispel the notion that George Moses acted
only for himself, Mr. Marks continues:
George not only worked with NACA in Rochester but assisted us nationwide in
building our programs. Never once did he request any compensation or anything
inappropriate. He was always about the people and particularly those who were
the least fortunate or with the most obstacles to overcome. George is also a gifted
leader. People respond to him when politicians are often unable to connect.
(Id. at 2.)
Thus, in housing, as in so many other areas of community life in the City of
Rochester, Mr. Moses concretely improved the lives of the people around him, not because doing
so somehow advanced his self-interest, but because that is his calling. We respectfully submit
that this should weigh heavily in the sentencing of the whole person.
D. Mr. Moses’s work with senior citizens.
Another program Mr. Moses initiated and developed was working with older
members of the Black community to improve their quality of life. In collaboration with the
University of Rochester’s Geriatrics Department, he helped obtain an Educating Older Adult
Learners (“ENGOAL”) grant and recruited seniors to meet regularly and study Black history and
cultural relevance. When the ENGOAL grant lapsed, Mr. Moses preserved the program under
the name Sankofa Communiversity, through which the seniors could earn a certificate from the
- 24 -
University as community researchers. Letter writers describe the dignity and meaning that
participation in ENGOAL and its research brought to their lives, and the program’s value to the
community.
Dr. Cynthia Cole states:
George Moses pulled together a cohort of twenty Seniors who were trained and
certified by the University of Rochester as Community Based Researchers. They
said in their comments on the impact of their CITI Certification that doors were
opened and they were revitalized and happy to be useful and productive in their
communities again.
(Hafetz Decl., Ex. 23 at 2.)
ENGOAL and Sankofa participant Addie Sturgis confirms this assessment,
writing:
In 2017, George recruited me along with other seniors from Rochester Housing
Authority to participate in a new community project called Educating Older Adult
Learners (Engoal Project). George assisted me and 20 other seniors to earn our
certification as Researchers. Through this program I participated in presenting at
the University of Pennsylvania and locally. This opportunity allowed me to break
free from my past and be able to help my community and it’s because George
gave me this opportunity. As [] Senior Citizens, we never thought we could
achieve this goal of becoming Certified researchers, but George encouraged,
supported, and believed in us and we made it through.
(Id., Ex. 24 at 1-2.)
Another participant, retired social worker Maxine Carey, feels the same way.
After describing how often she referred people to Mr. Moses and NEAD for “resources and
encouragement,” Ms. Carey writes of her own experience with the ENGOAL and Sankofa
programs:
This collaborative works as a team of co-researchers . . . with shared values

of remembering our history [and] building our community . . . with a goal to
increase health literacy and self-advocacy . . . while helping to address
inequalities, disparities, [and] the underserved . . . .
(Id., Ex. 25 at 1-2.)
- 25 -
Jean Clark tells how Mr. Moses “mentored [her]” and “helped [her] become a
Certified Community Researcher” and part of Sankofa, stating: “I am more outgoing and enjoy
the work we are doing and thankful to George for giving me the opportunity. George’s absence
in my life is missed so much. He has help me grow into a much better person.” (Id., Ex. 26 at 1
(emphasis added).)
Mr. Moses’s care for seniors was not limited to ENGOAL and Sankofa. Several
letter writers living in Rochester Housing Authority apartments discuss Mr. Moses’s efforts on
their behalf. For example, Addie Sturgis states:
Mr. Moses worked with us on what we needed as a resident and especially

worked with the seniors in making sure that we had a better quality of life where
we resided. While living at one of the Rochester Housing Authority properties,
George helped me with a housing issue that had had been going on for three
years. He came to my apartment to look at the problem and George got it
resolved. I really appreciated what he did for me.
(Id., Ex. 24 at 1.) Similarly, Willie Lois Burrows, a member of the senior center at an RHA
property, writes that Mr. Moses took steps to preserve a senior meeting place. (Id., Ex. 27 at 1.)
Mr. Moses’s work for seniors—bringing purpose and agency to people who
society often overlooks—again demonstrates the extraordinary good that he did for City
residents. Here too, Mr. Moses did not act from a desire to advance his own interests, but from a
desire to assist people in need of help.
E. Mr. Moses’s aid to the homeless.
Michael Dardzinski, Esq., a Fairport native and longtime friend of Mr. Moses’s,
founded one of the major nonprofit entities serving the homeless in Monroe County. (Id., Ex.
28.) As he explains in his letter, Mr. Moses was instrumental in getting the project off the
ground:
Tom Frey and I organized Project Homeless Connect Rochester (PHCR), which
has become one of the largest comprehensive service days in Monroe County
- 26 -
aimed at helping those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in our

community. George’s help and support were critical to us in the early days of this
initiative before we could gain the momentum and support from the community
for something new.
(Id. at 1.) He continues:
[Mr. Moses] was tireless in his advocacy and he made you tireless in your hope to
find a way . . . I feel blessed to know him and have had a chance to help some
people because of his work and his love for his community and for any person in
need.
(Id. at 2 (emphasis added).)
F. Mr. Moses’s work with Pop Warner football.
Karla Bisbee-McGill (Coach Dee Dee), in her letter to the Court, documents yet
another way in which Mr. Moses supported minority youth in Rochester—his contribution to the
survival of the Rochester Rams Football Club. (Id., Ex. 29.) Ms. Bisbee-McGill, the team’s
cheer/dance director, explains that the team is important to the Black community in northeast
Rochester, where “the high crime rates, i.e. homicide, robbery, narcotic sells and gang violence,
has taken a toll.” (Id. at 1.) Indeed, every year for the last 20 years, the football program has lost
a former participant to violence. (Id.) The Rochester Rams “serves as a haven” and an “escape’’
for the children who participate. (Id.) Mr. Moses provided practice locations and team-building
opportunities without which the team could not have continued. (Id.) Ms. Bisbee-McGill proudly
describes the national championships her dance teams have won, and expresses her “heart-felt
thank you” to Mr. Moses for his role in this bright spot for the “downtrodden and
disenfranchised people who live, work, love” in the community.” (Id.)
Observing that “George Moses is so much more than the negativity surrounding
his life at this moment,” she states:
I know George as a helper, ally, supporter, guardian, humanitarian, spirited force

within our community. He assisted so many people in the crescent . . . . George is
needed, wanted, and loved in our community.
- 27 -
(Id. at 2.) Here again we see Mr. Moses acting with selflessness, charity, and kindness.
G. Mr. Moses’s good deeds for individuals.
Though the discussion thus far has highlighted Mr. Moses’s extraordinary
devotion to the underserved community in Rochester, his life was also permeated by the
continual good deeds he did for individuals in the community.
Michael Dardzinski, whose letter describes Mr. Moses’s instrumental role in
establishing one of Rochester’s major programs for the homeless, also relates that he “has trusted
Mr. Moses with people and things dear to my heart.” (Id., Ex. 28 at 1.) Most strikingly, Mr.
Dardzinski tells how Mr. Moses once “risked his own personal safety” to save one of his friends:
I had a person close to me who struggled with a drug addiction being held hostage
by some drug dealers in the city. George risked his own personal safety to
intervene and resolve the situation safely. I was not in the country at the time and
there was nothing I could do personally.
(Id. at 2 (emphasis added).) Mr. Dardzinski sees this episode as emblematic of Mr. Moses’s
character:
This is how George has lived his life. He helped people. He was always helping
people. If you wanted to find someone to help, George would connect you. People
came to him for help and to help others.
(Id.)
Similarly, Celine Olgin, the educator who worked with Mr. Moses at School 33,
tells of an older ex-convict and recovering alcoholic who Mr. Moses hired to work as a
handyman at NEAD. (Id., Ex. 19.) The man eventually earned enough to buy a lawn mower that
he used to make money mowing neighborhood lawns, giving “his life purpose.” (Id. at 1.) Noting
that this is just one of “the many stories [she] can share about George Moses’s history of helping
others,” Ms. Olgin concludes: “People like George Moses who extend respect and mercy to
marginalized people are rare.” (Id.)
- 28 -
Samuel Evans, the person whom Ms. Olgin writes about, states: “At the age of 67
Mr. Moses gave me an opportunity to work and supplement my income to help support my
family,” just as he had done with “many other people in the community.” (Id., Ex. 30 at 1.) One
day, the keys to Mr. Evans’s lawn mower were stolen. (Id.) Mr. Moses inquired, learned who
stole the keys, and had them returned. (Id.) Without Mr. Moses’s intervention, Mr. Evans would
have “lost income to support [his] family.” (Id.)
Another ex-convict, Preston Smith, movingly describes what Mr. Moses did for
him when he completed his term in prison:
My experience with George upon my return to Rochester in July of 2015 has been
transformational. George basically taught me how to live life again . . . . He has
been helping me with navigating and interacting with agencies, and has put me in
the right direction in terms of who I need to see in order to get help. George
helped me start and finish the process of finding housing. He also took time out of
his busy schedule when most people had said no, to help me get acquainted with
modern technology.
(Id., Ex. 31.) Mr. Moses also gave Preston Smith a volunteer job at Freedom School and then
“assisted [him] in getting a job at the Frontier Red Wings Stadium doing janitorial services.”
(Id.) He concludes: “[Mr. Moses] has made my reintegration into regular society very seamless
and I am forever grateful for it.” (Id.)
Greg Hopkins, who heads the nonprofit football program for student-
athletes, states:
[Mr. Moses] took me to college when he didn’t have to. This wasn’t just one time,
it was even when I transferred schools for a better football opportunity he drove
me all the way down to VA in the middle of the night to ensure that I was able to
do so.
(Id., Ex. 13.)
Cratrina Meeks, the Freedom School parent and employee, recalls Mr. Moses’s
kindness toward her quadriplegic brother. She writes: “George would often come by giving us
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‘breaks’ while he would stay with him. We appreciated these kind gestures, as we know George
did not have to do this.” (Id., Ex. 15.)
* * * *
The Government may say that Mr. Moses’s efforts for the minority community of
Rochester only highlight his culpability, since he knows the good that could have been done with
the money that he obtained by fraud. But that does not erase his individual good deeds for many
persons. To do so would be to undermine the fundamental precept that the whole person must be
considered in determining the sentence to be imposed. Whether measured in time, dollars, or
energy, Mr. Moses’s contributions to the community far exceed what he took.
Mr. Moses’s lifetime of devotion and service to the poor community of Rochester
is an unimpeachable testament to his good character. There was no money to be made or power
to be seized in Mr. Moses’s going door to door and passing out leaflets in the community to
make it aware of Freedom School so that the underprivileged children would come to the school.
No money to be made in his total involvement in the operation of the school, or in leading the
effort to instill a sense of self-esteem in the underprivileged Black children whom the Rochester
school system had so badly failed, or in working to save Black youth from violence and drugs.
No money to be made in helping hundreds of persons become homeowners, as well as the
hundreds of home repairs he helped to make happen. No money to be made in his tireless efforts
to help create and organize one of Rochester’s major community organizations for the homeless.
No money to be made in giving Black senior citizens a sense of worth and purpose, by recruiting
and helping train them for community service. No money to be made in helping teenage Black
girls compete for national cheer/dance championships. No money to be made in mentoring Black
youth who themselves later became leaders in helping poor Black youth. No money to be made
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in lending a hand to the family of a quadriplegic. Mr. Moses did these things because that is who
he is. At this moment, when his future hangs in the balance, these good works should weigh very
heavily indeed.
III. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS PROPERLY ACCOUNTS

FOR THE NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF MR. MOSES’S OFFENSES.
We understand that fraud is a serious crime, that the offenses here occurred over
several years, and that some of the victims were community organizations. We seek here to put
the offenses in perspective. Mr. Moses has no criminal history and none of his offenses carried
an element of physical danger or violence. Most importantly, none of the victim organizations
suffered any serious injury, and Mr. Moses obtained for these organizations far more than he
took. This is not to say that people who serve the community have a right to steal from it, nor is
it to deny that every dollar lost by a community organization—however healthy its balance
sheet—is a dollar that could have been put to better use. Our point is that although Mr. Moses’s
offenses are serious and warrant imprisonment, the mitigating context counsels a term of
imprisonment not longer than 24 months.
A. Mr. Moses’s offenses did not seriously injure the United States, DASNY,
NEAD, RHC, or Quad A for Kids.
During the bail hearing, the Court noted that a given financial offense may be
more or less culpable depending on the damage done to the victim, and suggested that the loss
Mr. Moses caused may be deemed particularly culpable due to the “extent of the harm” that
resulted. (Bail Tr. 14-15.) We agree with the Court’s premise, but not with the suggestion that
Mr. Moses’s offenses caused significant harm. The latest Presentence Investigation Report (Dkt.
443 (“PSR”)) states that Mr. Moses’s offenses caused approximately $374,000 of loss. (PSR ¶
- 31 -
331. 5) Of this sum, $264,000 came from nonprofits (RHC, NEAD, and Quad A), and none of the
loss caused serious injury.
The following paragraphs place each victim’s loss in the context of its financial
strength.
• The United States’ annual budget is measured in the trillions of dollars. See U.S. Treasury,
FiscalData, https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/federal-spending/ (last visited Sept. 29, 2022). A
$65,000 tax loss over 5 years (PSR ¶ 330) plainly had no significant effect on the United
States.
• DASNY’s annual budget is more than $100 million. See DASNY, Proposed Operating
Budget 2021-2022 Fiscal Year (Dec. 31, 2020), available at,
https://www.dasny.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2021-
22%20Proposed%20Operating%20Budget%20-%20Web%20Posting.pdf (last visited Sept.
29, 2022). A $45,000 loss (PSR ¶ 331), all of which went to NEAD, as DASNY had
intended it would, plainly had no significant effect on DASNY’s operations.
• The RAD transfer resulted in RHC receiving assets worth $5 million, and annual rental
income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Trial Tr. 2850-51, 2873-74.) By contrast,
Mr. Moses’s offenses cost RHC $140,000 over 2 years (PSR ¶ 331), $52,000 of which went
to NEAD. There is no evidence, and no reason to think, that this loss significantly affected
RHC’s operations.
5
As the Court knows, we contend that the loss is less than $250,000. (Dkt. 412 at 21-23,
25; Dkt. 420 at 10-14; Dkt. 429 at 6-11.) And while we understand that the Court has found the
loss to be above $250,000 (Dkt. 442), we maintain our opposition to the PSR’s loss calculation
as far as the Court’s ruling permits.
- 32 -
• Quad A for Kids is funded by an affiliate of the Rochester Area Community Foundation
(“RACF”) (Trial Tr. 3702-03), an entity with $500 million in net assets, see Rochester Area
Community Foundation and Affiliates, Consolidated Financial Statements, at 1 (Oct. 20,
2021), available at, https://www.racf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Consolidated-
Financial-Statements.pdf (last visited Sept. 29, 2022). There is no evidence, and no reason
to think, that the loss of $8,000 (PSR ¶ 331), $1,000 of which went to NEAD, significantly
affected Quad A or RACF. Indeed, Adam McFadden was able to take many times that sum
without anyone noticing. (Trial Tr. 3815-18, 3686-88.)
• As for NEAD, there is evidence in the record that NEAD experienced financial difficulties
in 2017 and 2018, as grants became harder to obtain. (E.g., Trial Tr. 36, 682, 718-19, 2345,
2353, 2463-64, 5048.) But it would be a mistake to conclude that Mr. Moses’s offenses
caused NEAD any serious injury. While the PSR suggests that NEAD lost $115,000 over 6
years, 6 that figure does not account for the $98,000 in cash and services that NEAD received
from DASNY, RHC, and Quad A. (Dkt. 412 at 21-22, 25; Dkt. 415 at 4; Dkt. 420 at 12-14;
Dkt. 429 at 6-11.) The parties have debated whether, as a technical matter, the Court should
recognize a credit against loss under USSG § 2B1.1, note 3(E)(i), but there is no dispute that
as a matter of real-world financial impact, NEAD did in fact receive $98,000 of value from
DASNY, RHC, and Quad A. (Id.) Thus, even assuming that the gross loss to NEAD was
$115,000, accounting for the $98,000 gain yields a net loss of just $17,000 over 6 years, or
$2,800 per year. Obviously, unlawfully taking $2,800 per year is a crime and worthy of
punishment, but it cannot be said that this loss materially affected NEAD’s operations.
6
As discussed in prior filings, we contend that this figure is overstated by at least $32,000.
(Dkt. 400 at 4-10; Dkt. 412 at 21-25; Dkt. 420 at 10-12.)
- 33 -
Perhaps for this reason, the Court has received just one victim-impact statement—
a letter from Joan Roby-Davison dated March 13, 2022. (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 46.) This letter does
not undermine the arguments made above.
Ms. Roby-Davison is not well-placed to address “victim impact,” since the
indictment covers the years 2014 through 2019, whereas Ms. Roby-Davison has had no
association with NEAD for nearly a quarter of a century, and no association with Group 14621
since 2008. (Id. at 1.) Moreover, she does not claim that Mr. Moses’s conduct materially affected
NEAD’s operations, and the allegations she makes are misplaced. For example, while Ms. Roby-
Davison decries the lack of community participation in NEAD’s board (id.), the trial evidence
showed that NEAD’s board came from the community. Ms. Roby-Davison also complains about
mortgages on Group 14621’s building (id. at 1-2), but the Government’s lengthy and exhaustive
investigation did not turn up any impropriety with respect to these mortgages. And while Ms.
Roby-Davison blames Mr. Moses for the recent deterioration of the neighborhood (id. at 2)—
which we note was during the pandemic years—Mr. Moses has had nothing to do with NEAD or
Group 14621 since 2019, and there is no basis for holding him responsible for the “graffiti, trash,
[and] abandoned buildings” she sees “[i]n driving around the neighborhood” (id.).
In contrast to Ms. Roby-Davison’s isolated complaint, many letter writers have
expressed the opinion that, despite his conviction, they want Mr. Moses back serving the
community in the vital way he did for so long.
• Dr. Susan Goodwin writes: “Notwithstanding what I have read in the newspaper, I
remain confident in my assessment of Mr. Moses’ character and commitment to right
action . . . . I believe he should be returned to the community where he can make amends
and provide restitution, and continued service.” (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 5 at 1-2.)
- 34 -
• Mike Dardzinski writes: “We need him in our community helping us build bridges.” (Id.,
Ex. 28 at 2.)
• Coach Dee Dee Brisbee writes: “George is needed, wanted and loved in our
community. . . . He really is a Champion of the downtrodden and disenfranchised people
who live . . . and are of the Webster Avenue in the City of Rochester.” (Id., Ex. 29 at 2.)
• Omar Miller writes: “[B]ecause of his determination and leadership skills . . . he will rise
from the ashes.” (Id., Ex. 32 at 3.) Mr. Miller is a Black Canadian man who successfully
founded his own scaffolding company in Toronto, after working for a Canadian
construction company where he supervised a staff of 850 employees, and who later
worked with Mr. Moses in job-training programs for Black youth.
• Panashe Matambanadzo writes: “I am very much aware that Mr. Moses has been found
guilty of several crimes but I also do believe that he will continue to do more good in the
world as he is a very much needed member of his family and also the community at
large.” (Id., Ex. 16 at 2.)
• Rayenda Lennon writes: “The community needs him. There is still work to be done.” (Id.,
Ex. 7 at 1.)
In all of the many letters of support submitted to the Court, one finds among the
authors no misgivings about Mr. Moses’s legacy. Despite their acknowledgment of what they
have read about Mr. Moses’s trial, it is clear that it does not take away from their belief in the
magnitude of his contributions. The community he has served for decades very clearly is still
grateful for his transformative work, and very much wants him back.
- 35 -
B. The losses recounted in the PSR are dwarfed by the amount of money Mr.
Moses brought into RHC and NEAD.
As further context for Mr. Moses’s offenses, we respectfully submit that the Court
should consider the money Mr. Moses brought into RHC and NEAD—the primary victims in
this matter. As for RHC, Reece McKenzie testified that Mr. Moses was integral in effectuating
the RAD transfer that brought $5 million assets into RHC’s portfolio. (Trial Tr. 2738, 2743-46,
2848-51.) As for NEAD, Regina Seabrook testified that Mr. Moses single-handedly raised $1
million every year. (Trial Tr. 2595-96; see also DX-5465 (revenue of $1.7 million for 2014-
2015); DX-5469 (revenue of $1.7 million for 2016-2017); DX-5471 (gross profit of $203,000 for
Q1 2017).)
Again, we are not saying that because Mr. Moses generated millions of dollars of
revenue for RHC and NEAD, he was entitled to take $140,000 from RHC and $17,000 from
NEAD; of course he was not. Our point is that in considering the nature and circumstances of
Mr. Moses’s offenses, the Court should consider the good with the bad. One of the truest
measures of culpability in a fraud case is the one the Court identified during the bail hearing: the
financial impact on the victim. The losses in this case had no significant impact on the victims
who suffered them, and they are dwarfed by the millions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Moses
generated for those organizations. While these facts do not excuse criminal conduct, they are, in
our view, substantial mitigating factors.
IV. MR. MOSES’S GUIDELINES RANGE IS AN UNRELIABLE BENCHMARK.
Although the Court is required to calculate the Guidelines range, it is
“emphatically clear” that the Guidelines are simply “advisory,” United States v. Cavera, 550
F.3d 180, 189 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc), and are just one of the factors to be considered in
sentencing, id. at 188-89. The sentencing court “must make an individualized assessment of the
- 36 -
appropriate sentence based on the facts presented and the factors detailed in § 3553(a).” United
States v. Jones, 531 F.3d 163, 182 (2d Cir. 2008) (cleaned up).
In fraud cases, a defendant’s Guidelines range usually turns primarily on the loss
amount. See United States v. Algahaim, 842 F.3d 796, 800 (2d Cir. 2016). Such is the case here,
where the 12-level loss enhancement nearly triples the base offense level from 7 to 19, and
single-handedly accounts for almost half of the total offense level.
The Guidelines’ unexplained preoccupation with loss has no empirical basis, see
United States v. Corsey, 723 F.3d 366, 379-80 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (Underhill, D.J.,
concurring), and there is a “widespread perception that the loss guideline is broken,” id. at 378;
see also United States v. Musgrave, 647 F. App’x 529, 538 (6th Cir. 2016) (citing Corsey and
Mark H. Allenbaugh, “Drawn From Nowhere”: A Review of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s
White-Collar Sentencing Guidelines and Loss Data, 26 FED. SENTENCING REPORTER 19, 19
(2013)). District courts have described the fraud Guideline as “a black stain on common sense,”
United States v. Parris, 573 F. Supp. 2d 744, 754 (E.D.N.Y. 2008), “of no help,” United States v.
Watt, 707 F. Supp. 2d 149, 151 (D. Mass. 2010), “illogical,” United States v. Johnson, No. 16-
CR-457, 2018 WL 1997975, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 27, 2018), “irrational[],” United States v.
Gupta, 904 F. Supp. 2d 349, 351 (S.D.N.Y. 2012), and emblematic of the Sentencing
Commission’s “fetish with abstract arithmetic” and “the harm that guideline calculations can
visit on human beings if not cabined by common sense,” Adelson, 441 F. Supp. 2d at 512. The
Second Circuit has deemed the Guidelines’ loss fixation to be so bizarre that its very existence is
a valid reason for a downward variance. See Algahaim, 842 F.3d at 800.
Johnson makes the point particularly well. Whereas the Guidelines in that fraud
case recommended a sentence of 87 to 108 months in prison, the court found that 24 months was
- 37 -
sufficient to fulfill the purposes of sentencing. 2018 WL 1997975, at *3, 6. In explaining its
reasoning, the court wrote:
Given the feeble underpinnings of the loss enhancement, it is particularly galling

that this factor is often more or less solely responsible for a white-collar
offender’s Guidelines sentence. Accordingly, Judge Underhill [concurring in
Corsey, 723 F.3d at 379] opined that, because the loss Guideline “was not
developed by the Sentencing Commission using an empirical approach based on
data about past sentencing practices district judges can and should exercise their
discretion when deciding whether or not to follow the sentencing advice that
guideline provides.” I agree with Judge Underhill, and refuse to mechanistically
impose such an illogical sentence. That this situation continues unabated is a great
shame for the many offenders sentenced under this Guideline who do not receive
a sentence that makes any sense for the actual crime of conviction.
Many in the legal community have urged the Sentencing Commission to right this
grievous wrong, and today I add my name to that lengthy list of judges,
practitioners, scholars, and other commentators.
Id. at *3-4 (cleaned up) (emphasis added).
Compounding § 2B1.1’s preoccupation with loss is its proliferation of
overlapping “specific offense characteristics that, alone and especially in combination, tend to
overstate the seriousness of many offenses.” Id. at *4 (cleaned up). This case again illustrates the
point. Accepting, for the sake of argument, the Guidelines’ premise that loss should be the
principal driver of the defendant’s sentence, see USSG § 2B1.1, Background, one would think
that the base offense level plus the loss enhancement should comprise the majority of the
Guidelines range. Yet Mr. Moses’s base offense level, combined with the 12-level loss
enhancement, yields a Guidelines range of just 30 to 37 months. After tacking on the 2-level
enhancement for abuse of trust, the 2-level enhancement for sophisticated means, and the 4-level
enhancement for role in the offense, the Guidelines range more than doubles to 70 to 87 months.
Granted, the victims here were community organizations and Mr. Moses held a position of
leadership and trust; some recognition of these facts is to be expected. But it is absurd to suggest,
- 38 -
as the Guidelines do, that these aggravators make Mr. Moses’s offense two-and-a-half times
more culpable than it would otherwise be.
In short, especially in a fraud case, there is every reason that the Guidelines
should “take second place” to the Court’s assessment of the defendant’s character and the nature
and circumstances of the offense, Gupta, 904 F. Supp. 2d at 354 (emphasis added).
V. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS BEST SERVES THE

PURPOSES OF SENTENCING.
Just punishment
In United States v. Mendola, 03-CR-449 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), the district court held
that harsh prison conditions should be considered as a factor “under the category of ‘just
punishment’” (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)). In United States v. Behr, No. 03-CR-1115,
2006 WL 1586563 (S.D.N.Y. 2006), the court applied the “just punishment” criterion to mitigate
the sentence of a defendant who spent 29 months of pretrial detention in a facility “not designed
for long-term stays.” Id. at *5. In United States v. Carty, 264 F.3d 191 (2d Cir. 2001) (per
curiam), the Second Circuit held that “pre-sentence confinement conditions may in appropriate
cases be a permissible basis for downward departures.” Id. at 196. 7
By the time he is sentenced, Mr. Moses will have spent 12 months in the Monroe
County Jail (“MCJ”) and likely 14 months there by the time he is transferred to federal prison.
The hardship conditions endured by Mr. Moses during his pre-sentence confinement at MCJ are
a compelling basis for mitigation of his sentence pursuant to the Court’s obligation to impose a
“just punishment” under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A).
7
The logic of this pre-Booker opinion on departures applies with equal force to a post-
Booker sentencing under § 3553(a).
- 39 -
The entirety of Mr. Moses’s detention at MCJ has occurred during the COVID
pandemic. This has resulted in at least 5 lockdowns, each lasting between 10 and 20 days. When
MCJ is locked down, prisoners are confined to their cells for 22 or 23 hours per day. (Hafetz
Decl. ¶ 7.)
The hardship imposed by such measures bears on the determination of a just
sentence. In United States v. Robles, 553 F. Supp. 3d 172 (S.D.N.Y. 2021), for example, in the
context of a motion for a reduction of sentence, the court forcefully articulated the “unexpected
rigors of incarceration during the pandemic,” stating:
The COVID-19 pandemic is extraordinary and unprecedented in modern times in

this nation. . . .
In particular the pandemic has subjected all inmates to far more restrictive
conditions of confinement than normal incarceration. It has limited inmates’
access to visitors such as family, to counsel, and to rehabilitative, therapeutic, and
recreational programs. And it has given rise to fears of infection and worse by
inmates. In these respects, the pandemic has spawned conditions of confinement
far more punishing than what could have been expected at the time of Robles’s
sentencing.
Id. at 182 (emphasis added).
In light of these circumstances, the court in Robles held that “a day spent
in prison under extreme lockdown and in legitimate fear of contracting a once-in-a-
century deadly virus exacts a price on a prisoner beyond that imposed by an ordinary day
in prison” and “while such conditions are not intended as punishment, incarceration in
such circumstances is, unavoidably, experienced as more punishing.” Id. (cleaned up).
But the harsh circumstances of Mr. Moses’s confinement at MCJ since last
November go well beyond those resulting from the pandemic, and constitute a powerful reason
for mitigating his sentence.
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Mr. Moses has spent his entire pre-sentence confinement in MCJ, not in a federal
prison camp where under applicable federal Bureau of Prison regulations he will be assigned.
The contrast between a federal prison camp where Mr. Moses will be transferred to serve his
federal sentence and MCJ is stark and brutal. Federal prison camps generally house white-collar
offenders and first-time drug offenders serving short sentences. (Hafetz Decl., Ex. 47 ¶ 16.)
There are no fences or razor wire surrounding the grounds, the inmates sleep in dormitory-style
housing units, and they have frequent opportunities to work, study, and exercise. (Id. ¶ 17.) MCJ
houses defendants charged with crimes of violence including murder, rape, and robbery. (Hafetz
Decl. ¶ 6. 8). Mr. Moses has lived there in constant fear of physical and sexual attack, and has in
fact been threatened with sexual attack. (Id.) The sentencing date will be only his second time
outside the prison walls. There is no anterior exercise facility or any other facility at MCJ which
affords access to the outside. There is very limited opportunity for educational programs.
Our point here is not that detention or incarceration should be an enjoyable
experience. Our point is that when a defendant’s conditions of pre-sentence confinement are
“more punishing” than those at the federal prison where the defendant will serve his sentence
and the defendant has already spent nearly one year in those harsh conditions, the Court should
view those conditions as a mitigating factor when deciding how much punishment is needed to
fulfill the purposes of sentencing.
Deterrence
As to deterrence, there is “considerable evidence that even relatively short
sentences can have a strong deterrent effect on prospective ‘white collar’ offenders.” Adelson,
8
As of September 22, 2022, more than 80 of MCJ’s inmates were charged with murder.
See Monroe County Sheriff Office, Inmate Census (Sept. 22, 2022), available at,
https://www.monroecounty.gov/files/inmate/census.pdf.
- 41 -
441 F. Supp. 2d at 514; see also Johnson, 2018 WL 1997975, at *5-6 (concluding that a 24-
month sentence in a white-collar case satisfied the need for deterrence). As described above, Mr.
Moses already served nearly one year of imprisonment in a county jail under very harsh
conditions. This in itself is a very powerful deterrent factor. Further, the highly publicized
conviction of Mr. Moses is a humiliating experience for him as well as his family, which also is a
powerful deterrent against future unlawful conduct.
Rehabilitation and incapacitation
As to rehabilitation, there is no need to imprison Mr. Moses to provide him with
educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a)(2)(D). Nor is there any reason to think that a prison term of 30 or 36 months would be
more rehabilitative than a prison term of 24 months. As to incapacitation, a prison term is
obviously incapacitating, and Mr. Moses’s convictions will very likely prevent him from
working with any governmental agency or leading a government-funded community
organization after his release.
Retribution
As to retribution, we have discussed above Mr. Moses’s relative culpability, the
absence of any serious injury to the victims, the overwhelming good he has done, both for
NEAD and RHC specifically and for the community as a whole, and the punishing
circumstances of his detention in MCJ. On balance, while retributive principles counsel some
prison term, they do not demand a term longer than 24 months.
VI. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS AVOIDS AN

UNWARRANTED DISPARITY BETWEEN MR. MOSES AND ADAM
MCFADDEN.
During Adam McFadden’s sentencing, the Court observed:
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I’m struck in many respects, Mr. McFadden, with the similarities between you
and George Moses. Obviously, I sat through a lengthy trial with Mr. Moses.
You’re leaders in the community. You’re out there in the public arena promoting
these charitable causes, and performing, in many respects, very good works. But,
at the same time, you’re stealing from the very charities that are intended to serve
the communities that you are purporting to help. I think there is a significant
difference between the two of you because you, very early on, accepted
responsibility for your criminal conduct. You cooperated with the government.
You testified very credibly, in my view, at the trial of Mr. Moses. I’m aware of
the serious medical conditions that you suffer from, and I don’t doubt for one
minute that any prison sentence would constitute a hardship. But your crimes are
really egregious.
(Hafetz Decl., Ex. 42 at 18-19.)
In addition to the similarities the Court mentioned, Mr. McFadden’s offenses
were comparable to Mr. Moses’s in terms of their duration and loss amount. Specifically, Mr.
McFadden pled guilty to a tax offense and two frauds on nonprofit entities carried out over a
seven-year period. (Id. at 12-13, 17-18.) By these crimes, Mr. McFadden obtained $131,000
from RACF, $87,500 from RHC, and $47,000 from the U.S. Treasury. (Id. at 18, 22.) This
$266,000 all went into Mr. McFadden’s pocket. (Id.) That is, none of the loss in Mr. McFadden’s
case was money transferred from one nonprofit to another. Mr. Moses was convicted after trial
of several frauds that were carried out over a six-year period and, if we take the PSR at face
value, put approximately $276,000 into his pocket, Mr. McFadden’s pocket, or Janis White’s
pocket. 9
The Court ultimately sentenced Mr. McFadden to 18 months in prison. (Id. at 20.)
Sentencing the similarly situated George Moses to a substantially longer prison term would
violate the Court’s obligation to “avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with
similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6).
9
This figure properly recognizes the $98,000 in benefits conferred on NEAD, see supra §
III.A.
- 43 -
We understand that a modest reduction in Mr. McFadden’s sentence, relative to
Mr. Moses’s, may be warranted. As the Court noted, Mr. McFadden cooperated with the
Government, and our sentencing jurisprudence recognizes this as a mitigating factor. But this is
not a basis for a significant disparity. Certainly, Mr. Moses cannot be punished for exercising his
constitutional right to a jury trial.
Recently, Judge Rakoff, in his sentencing decision in United States v. Cabrera,
531 F. Supp. 3d 863 (S.D.N.Y. 2021), “refus[ed] to punish [the] defendant for his choice to
exercise his constitutional rights” by continuing to consider whether to go to trial in contrast to a
co-defendant who pled guilty earlier and got the benefit of a more lenient plea deal. Id. at 869. In
doing so, the court cited the Second Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Araujo, 539 F.2d 287
(2d Cir. 1976), where the court held that augmenting a sentence because the defendant “put the
Government to its proof rather than plead guilty . . . . is, of course, improper.” Id. at 292. And
recently in United States v. Kazimov, 15-CR-95, 2022 WL 1984059 (E.D.N.Y. June 6, 2022),
appeal filed by Kasimov, the district court sentenced a defendant convicted after trial to the same
term of incarceration imposed on similarly situated co-defendants who pled guilty, id. at *6-7,
because “to impose the so called ‘trial penalty’ is to invite the cannibalization of our right to
trial”; while “[g]uilty pleas and prosecutorial efficiency play important roles as servants in the
administration of justice,” they must never become “masters in the administration of justice,” id.
at *7.
In short, Mr. Moses and Mr. McFadden are similarly situated, apart from Mr.
McFadden’s cooperation. These similarities, and the Court’s obligation to avoid unwarranted
disparities, provide yet another strong reason to impose a prison term not longer than 24 months.
- 44 -
Further, the statistics for defendants sentenced under § 2B1.1 between 2006 and
2021, with a dollar loss in the same range as Mr. McFadden and Mr. Moses—$250,000 to
$550,000—support the conclusion that sentencing Mr. Moses to a prison term substantially in
excess of the prison term imposed on Mr. McFadden would be an unwarranted disparity. The
average sentence for such defendants is 27.5 months. (Hafetz Decl. ¶ 9.)
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we respectfully request that the Court impose a prison
term not greater than 24 months.
Dated: New York, New York

September 29, 2022
Respectfully submitted,
OFFICES OF FREDERICK P. HAFETZ LLC
By: s/Frederick P. Hafetz

Frederick P. Hafetz
420 Lexington Avenue, Suite 2818
New York, New York 10170
(212) 997-7595
fhafetz@hafetzlaw.com
HOOVER & DURLAND LLP

Spencer L. Durland
561 Franklin Street
Buffalo, New York 14202
(716) 800-2605
sdurland@hooverdurland.com
Attorneys for Defendant George Moses
- 45 -

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Case 6:19-cr-06074-EAW Document 445 Filed 09/29/22 Page 1 of 50

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

DEFENDANT GEORGE MOSES’S

OFFICES OF FREDERICK P. HAFETZ LLC

HOOVER & DURLAND LLP

Attorneys for Defendant George Moses

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .......................................................................................................... ii

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT .................................................................................................... 1

I. THE COURT IS PRONOUNCING JUDGEMENT ON GEORGE MOSES AS A

II. MR. MOSES’S HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS STRONGLY FAVOR A

A. Mr. Moses’s background. ......................................................................................... 5

B. Mr. Moses’s contributions to education. .................................................................. 8

C. Mr. Moses’s contributions to housing initiatives. .................................................. 23

D. Mr. Moses’s work with senior citizens. ................................................................. 24

E. Mr. Moses’s aid to the homeless. ........................................................................... 26

F. Mr. Moses’s work with Pop Warner football. ........................................................ 27

G. Mr. Moses’s good deeds for individuals. ............................................................... 28

III. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS PROPERLY ACCOUNTS

IV. MR. MOSES’S GUIDELINES RANGE IS AN UNRELIABLE BENCHMARK. ......... 36

V. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS BEST SERVES THE

VI. A PRISON TERM NOT LONGER THAN 24 MONTHS AVOIDS AN

Brown v. Board of Education,

Concepcion v. United States,

United States v. Adelson,

United States v. Algahaim,

United States v. Araujo,

United States v. Behr,

United States v. Cabrera,

United States v. Carreto,

United States v. Carty,

United States v. Cavera,

United States v. Corsey,

United States v. Delacruz,

United States v. Gupta,

United States v. Johnson,

United States v. Jones,

United States v. Kazimov,

United States v. Mendola,

United States v. Musgrave,

United States v. Parris,

United States v. Robles,

United States v. Watt,

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) ............................................................................................................ 2, 15, 39

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A) ............................................................................................................ 39

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(D) ............................................................................................................ 42

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) .................................................................................................................. 43

18 U.S.C. § 3661 ............................................................................................................................. 2

U.S. Sentencing Guidelines

USSG § 2B1.1..................................................................................................................... 4, 38, 45

USSG § 2B1.1, Background ......................................................................................................... 38

USSG § 2B1.1, note 3(E)(i) .......................................................................................................... 33

ACT Rochester, Housing: Homeownership Rate by Race/Ethnicity,

DASNY, Proposed Operating Budget 2021-2022 Fiscal Year

Jerry Kang et. al., Implicit Bias in the Courtroom,

Justin D. Levinson & Robert J. Smith, Systemic Implicit Bias,

Nkechi Taifa & Catherine Beane, Integrative Solutions to Interrelated Issues: A

Public School Review, Rochester City School District,