El Dorado County Man Found Guilty of Failing to Surrender for Service of Sentence

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Cesar Caballero, 46, of Diamond Springs, was found guilty on Tuesday after a two-day jury trial for failing to surrender for service of sentence, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.

According to court documents, on August 30, 2011, Caballero was convicted of obstruction of mail for submitting Official Federal Mail Forwarding Change of Address Order forms to the U.S. Postal Service for the purpose of diverting mail addressed to the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians to himself. After he was sentenced, Caballero appealed, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed his conviction on two of the three counts against him. He was resentenced on June 29, 2015, to a sixty day term of incarceration.  He was ordered to surrender to begin serving his sentence by September 8, 2015.

As the evidence at trial demonstrated, Caballero failed to surrender as ordered on September 8, 2015, or any day thereafter. He was subsequently arrested by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office on February 28, 2016.

This case is the product of an investigation by the United States Marshals Service, with the assistance of the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. Special Assistant United States Attorneys Elliot Wong and Benjamin Nelson prosecuted the case.

Caballero is scheduled to be sentenced on May 17, 2016, by United States District Judge John A. Mendez. Caballero faces a maximum statutory penalty of one year in prison, a $100,000 fine, and a one-year term of supervised release. The actual sentenced will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.