The counter argument to that is he's served his time for those other offenses.
He's been punished.
In taking into account past offenses you're effectively punishing the guy again for the original crime. Which is oxymoronic to the whole purpose of paying your debt to society.
And it was only gambling. So it's a bullshit sentence tbh.
You make a very valid point, and in different cases I have different opinions on that one. I don't find it fair in every case, but I can also understand the government's stance. If you continue to commit the crimes, you obviously failed to be "reformed" after your prior convictions, and as such, there has to be an additional penalty to hopefully deter others from doing the same in the future. I don't have the statistics, but I would imagine that it really hasn't worked like they hoped it would.
Regarding Mousie, he also has some sort of drug conviction on his record as well, not just the gambling and mob related racketeering offenses. But I'm with you on this one, he got hammered in that case. I believe he took the heaviest sentence out of everyone in that whole indictment. His partners in the video poker business either walked altogether (Ligambi) or received a lesser sentence (Staino). In fairness though, Staino got nailed to the wall too, seeing that he had no criminal history or arrest record prior to that indictment.
