JOHN GURZINSKI / Review-JournalJoe Richards, at left, arrives at court for sentencing July 30 with his lawyer, Leo P. Flangas. Advertisement

Joe Richards has wasted little time in appealing the sentence he was given in U.S. District Court a week ago.

In an Aug. 3 brief filed in Las Vegas, the brothel-owner said he is appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Franscisco, Calif., from the judgment of conviction and sentencing order handed down against him July 30.

The single page offered no reasons for the appeal by attorney Leo P. Flangas, but some hints may have been raised earlier in the year in "objections to presentence investigation report."

That was filed in early June by Thomas F. Pitaro, at the time listed as Richards' attorney. It was available to the court at the time of sentencing.

Pitaro pointed out that a plea memorandum filed in mid-March specified "the binding plea agreement calls for any sentence other than incarceration."

Richards, however, was sentenced by Judge Robert C. Jones not only to a $250,000 fine but to six months to be spent at a halfway house.

Pitaro wrote the parties involved agreed "that should the defendant accept the defendant's plea under the terms of this agreement, the court will not impose a sentence that includes a term of imprisonment."

The author of the pre-sentence investigation report suggested incarceration for up to 21 months, said Pitaro, but "as a result of the binding nature of the ... agreement, the Court may not impose such a sentence on the basis of the plea of guilty" that Richards entered March 16.

Pitaro said, as a practical matter, "should the court adopt that recommendation, the resolution of this case will necessitate trial by jury."

Pitaro said the probation officer who undertook the pre-sentence investigation report made several inaccurate conclusions based on erroneous factual information "and has further failed to adequately take other appropriate considerations into due account."

Those problems included Richards' financial support of his wife when the report said he had no dependants, and that there is no support for the pre-sentence report's suggestion that Nye County suffered "monetary losses." as a result of the offense for which Richards pleaded guilty.

"Indeed," wrote Pitaro, "Defendant Richards respectfully suggests that his various business enterprises and the tourists they attract have been the bedrock of the local economy for quite some time."

The objections continued with further details of what Pitaro said were incorrect statements by the probation officer.

Where Richards' criminal history was concerned, the pre-sentence report allegedly erred in stating that he had never been pardoned by Wisconsin at an earlier date.

In fact, said Pitaro, Patrick Luchy, then governor of Wisconsin, "granted an absolute pardon" to Richards, and the pre-sentence report also erred in saying Richards had undertaken an "armed" offense in that state.

Pitaro said the pre-sentence report also failed to inform the court of the "dire severity" of Richards' "prevailing medical condition."