Doctor Seeks Sentencing Delay for Arkansas Bombing

Attorneys for a Russellville, Ark., doctor convicted of using a bomb to nearly kill the chief of the Arkansas Medical Board have asked a federal judge to delay their client’s sentencing while they continue work on the case.

Randeep Mann faces up to life in prison for his August conviction on a charge of causing injury by using a weapon of mass destruction – a bomb that detonated in the driveway of Dr. Trent Pierce’s West Memphis home as he headed for his car to leave for work.

Prosecutors alleged Mann carried out the bombing as revenge after the medical board suspended his license to write prescriptions for narcotics because a number of Mann’s patients died from overdoses.

Defense attorneys’ filing said they need more time to adequately respond to a pre-sentencing report and determine how much restitution Mann should be required to pay, an amount pegged by prosecutors at $1.7 million. Mann is scheduled to be sentenced Monday.

U.S. District Judge Brian Miller already has granted one sentencing delay for Mann and his wife, Sangeeta Mann, who was tried with him and convicted of obstruction of justice.

Sangeeta Mann’s lawyer, Jeff Rosenzweig, said only an uncertified copy of the trial transcript is available and that he needs the final copy to defend his client. Randeep Mann’s lawyers made the same point in their filing.

“Our position is until there is a certified transcript, it would be erroneous for the judge to proceed,” Rosenzweig said.

Sangeeta Mann changed lawyers after her conviction and Rosenzweig said he’s had to heavily rely on the transcript to prepare for the hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon filed a response in which he noted the defense does have numerous objections to the pre-sentencing report but said, “most, if not all, of the issues raised by those objections are simple, uncomplicated questions of fact and/or law that the (judge) can rule on based upon the evidence presented at trial.”

Gordon said the draft of the transcript gives the defense enough information and that they’ve had plenty of time to look at it since copies were provided daily during the trial. He also argued Miller can grant more time to determine restitution but still set Mann’s prison sentence for Feb. 28.

The bomb went off at Pierce’s home in February 2009, and Mann was arrested a month later after authorities found 98 grenades buried in a clearing near his rural Pope County home. Federal agents seized more than 100 firearms from Mann’s home, many of them machine guns. But only two of those weapons were found to be unregistered. Mann wasn’t indicted for the bombing until January 2010.

Mann was convicted of illegally possessing the grenades.

Prosecutors said at trial that a grenade likely was the source of the explosion at Pierce’s home. The bomb had been planted in a spare tire left near Pierce’s driveway. When Pierce testified at trial, he said he lost an eye and his sense of smell, among many other injuries. The skin of his face was peppered with black bits of rubber from the tire in the explosion.

Pierce is to testify at the sentencing hearing as well.