## Facts

- Bernard Bergman, a prominent businessman and Orthodox rabbi, operated nursing homes and other real-estate ventures and had an extensive record of charitable activity supported by many letters submitted to the court.
- Federal investigators focused on alleged fraud involving Medicaid reimbursements connected to Bergman’s nursing homes and related tax misconduct.
- Bergman faced an 11-count federal indictment and contemporaneous state indictments concerning similar nursing-home-related misconduct.
- After extensive pretrial proceedings and coordinated plea negotiations, Bergman pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts:
  - knowingly and willfully participating in a scheme to defraud the United States by submitting wrongfully padded Medicaid claims; and
  - filing a false partnership tax return.
- The sentencing proceeding included unusually extensive written submissions and numerous unsolicited letters; the court stated it would sentence based on the plea record rather than unproven allegations circulating in public accounts.
- The defense urged a noncustodial sentence based on Bergman’s age, health, prior good works, lack of dangerousness, and the claimed punitive effect of public disgrace and financial consequences.

## Issues

1. Whether imprisonment was warranted for a non-dangerous, first-time white-collar offender with substantial mitigating evidence and limited need for rehabilitation, incapacitation, or specific deterrence.
2. Whether general deterrence, standing largely alone, could justify a custodial sentence for deliberate financial fraud against a public program.
3. Whether a custodial sentence would be disproportionate in light of sentencing purposes and sentences imposed in comparable cases, given the case’s publicity.

## Decision

- The court imposed a sentence that included four months’ imprisonment, along with a fine and additional noncustodial components.
- The court rejected the contention that incarceration was unjustified merely because the defendant was not dangerous and had substantial mitigating personal history.
- The court treated general deterrence as a legitimate and weighty basis for imprisonment in deliberate, financially motivated fraud.
- The court declined to substitute proposed community-service and leadership roles for confinement where such alternatives would not adequately communicate punishment or the seriousness of the offense.
- The court stated that notoriety and public petitions based on media accounts would not be treated as sentencing factors and would be disregarded.

## Legal Principles

- A sentencing court may impose incarceration for white-collar fraud based primarily on general deterrence, even where rehabilitation, incapacitation, and specific deterrence provide limited support.
- Imprisonment should not be imposed solely to rehabilitate a defendant; rehabilitation is properly addressed as a secondary objective when incarceration is otherwise justified.
- Lack of dangerousness can reduce the need for incapacitation and specific deterrence but does not bar imprisonment when other sentencing aims (including deterrence and condemnation of serious wrongdoing) justify custody.
- Sentencing should be based on the adjudicated record (including the plea) rather than unproven allegations or public commentary.
- Individualized mitigation (character evidence, age, health, and prior good works) may support reducing the length of incarceration but does not require eliminating imprisonment for serious economic crimes.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that a short but real term of confinement was warranted to deter similar calculated frauds against public programs and to maintain equal application of the criminal law, while mitigating the sentence in light of the defendant’s personal history and limiting punishment to the conduct established by the guilty pleas.


United States v. Bergman, 416 F. Supp. 496 (S.D.N.Y. 1976)