SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge was supposed to decide Tuesday whether to send a former Olympic speed skater to prison for unlawfully obtaining $10 million from the Paycheck Protection Program. But in a surprise ruling, the judge postponed her sentencing.
“I haven’t slept much thinking about this sentencing," Judge Jill Parrish said. "And frankly, it didn’t start in the last week. It started during trial.”
Last year, a jury convicted Allison Baver on two counts of making false statements designed to influence a bank, one count of money laundering, and one count of contempt.
Prosecutors wanted 6-and-a-half years in prison for Baver. Her attorneys asked Parrish for no prison and instead to sentence her to three years of supervised release.
Parrish was choking up almost from the moment she took the bench on Tuesday. She said she had been losing sleep over this case because she thought Baver’s trial attorneys were “not constitutionally effective.”
She agreed to postpone the sentencing indefinitely to give Baver time to file motions for a new trial.
"The problem is I know what I witnessed during the trial, and I’m struggling to see how there was any strategy to what went on," Parrish said.
Parrish acknowledged that, as a judge, she is not an advocate, but added: “I’m also responsible for making sure that all criminal defendants have a constitutionally adequate defense, and that’s why I haven’t been sleeping much.”
Baver was represented at trial and again Tuesday by public defenders. She herself was choking up and hugging one of those public defenders after the hearing.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina Higgins was at the prosecution table to make arguments.
“Even if counsel was ineffective," Higgins told Parrish, "the evidence in this case was substantial enough that she was not prejudiced by any ineffectiveness.”
CASE BACKGROUND
In 2020, Baver’s entertainment company received a $10 million loan through the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. Allison Baver Entertainment reported having 430 employees.
Yet federal prosecutors contended she had no employees and used the money in ways that were not authorized by the program.
In the court filing where they made their sentencing recommendation, Baver’s attorneys continued to argue the criteria for PPP was confusing, that Baver intended to make movies with the money, but the pandemic shut down film productions and then government seized $9.5 million of the money she received.
Defense attorneys also say she has been diagnosed with a mild neurocognitive disorder due to multiple traumatic brain injuries suffered during skating falls as well as multiple car accidents. Baver, 44, has also been diagnosed with a personality disorder with strong features of narcissism, an attorney wrote.
Baver won bronze in the 3,000-meter relay at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
