A former Clinton Township trustee who was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison after being convicted on bribery charges will be getting out a little sooner than expected.
Dean Reynolds, a three-term township trustee, was sentenced in 2019 to serve 204 months behind bars on a list of crimes relating to a widespread Macomb County corruption scandal.
But in March, authorities agreed to reduce his sentence by 16 months due to a retroactive amendment to the United States Sentencing Guidelines, according to documents in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
“The U.S. Sentencing Commission lowered the federal sentencing guideline range applicable to Mr. Reynolds, which is why the court reduced his sentence,” Benton Martin, a federal community defender, said Thursday.
The amendment allows judges to grant a two-level reduction for white-collar offenders whose crime didn’t involve violence and otherwise had no criminal history.
“If (the amendment) had been in effect at the time of defendant’s sentencing, the guideline range would have been 188 to 235 months,” U.S. District Judge Gershwin A. Drain wrote in court records.
Amendment 821 of the sentencing guidelines is aimed at federal inmates who received high sentences when their crime was considered non-violent and allows for the possibility of having sentences reduced. It gives federal judges more flexibility in crafting sentences, observers say.
According to Judge Drain, the probation department and U.S. Attorney’s Office both agree with the revised calculation, which went into effect Feb. 1, 2024.
Reynolds, 54, was indicted on federal bribery charges in 2016, the first in a series of multiple defendants caught up in the corruption investigation that involved other Macomb County politicians and business owners trying to secure an $18 million trash-hauling contract.
After a jury trial in federal court in Port Huron, U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland in 2019 ordered the former trustee to serve 204 months behind bars on 10 counts of bribery, four counts of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of obstruction of justice. Cleland has since retired.
Reynolds had asked the United States Supreme Court for a review of his corruption convictions, which was denied. He is now trying to appeal various aspects of his case reviewed.
He was accused of accepting bribes in connection with millions in township garbage, towing and engineering contracts. He demanded and took more than $150,000 in bribes in four separate bribery conspiracies involving four different government contracts, federal prosecutors said.
Among those doling out the bribes were former trash kingpin Charles Rizzo Jr. and towing titan Gasper Fiore. Rizzo is on the tail end of a five-year sentence while Fiore has done his time and was released.
According to court documents, Reynolds has raised a number of issues in his appeal filed in 2023, including his claim the judge miscalculated sentencing guidelines and erred in handing down a sentence that was “grossly disproportionate” in relation to other defendants. The “grossly disproportionate” penalty was more than three times higher than the longest other defendants have received.
Reynolds points to a number of factors that he says led to his not being able to fully participate in his defense including his financial troubles, pending divorce, and a preoccupation with his mother’s and his own health issues.
The sentence reduction will not have an impact on his pending motion in his appeal, according to Judge Drain.
The matter is expected to be ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court in June, said Reynolds’ Clinton Township-based attorney Barry Powers.
Powers said his client has accumulated a “perfect record” while serving out his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Mich. and working on his appeal.
“But he’s hurting,” Powers said.
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