Indiana appeals court upholds heroin dealer's prison sentence
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana's appeals court has upheld a heroin dealer's six-year prison sentence.
Carlos Rainer, 46, appealed the sentence Judge Gregory Horn issued April 4, 2021, that remanded him to the Indiana Department of Correction for two Level 4 felony counts of dealing heroin. A jury had convicted Rainer on Dec. 8, 2020, to conclude a two-day Superior Court 2 trial.
Rainer is currently serving his sentence in the Central Office Admin Inbound facility, according to DOC online records. His projected release date is July 4, 2023.
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The six years is the advisory sentence for a Level 4 felony conviction, but Rainer had asked Horn to sentence him to home detention. Rainer's appeal claimed that sentencing him to a DOC facility was inappropriate and asked that the appeals court suspend the sentence to "transition from incarceration to home detention and then to probation."
The appeals court, however, ruled that Rainer did not meet his burden of persuasion that the sentence was inappropriate.
Rainer was convicted of selling 1.49 grams of heroin laced with fentanyl to a confidential informant Oct. 24, 2017, and selling laced heroin and methamphetamine to the informant Oct. 25, 2017, within 500 feet of the Central United Methodist Church day care. The first charge was a Level 4 felony because the amount of heroin exceeded 1 gram, and the second was a Level 4 felony because it occurred within 500 feet of the day care when children were present.
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Before sentencing Rainer, Horn considered his criminal history and the fact he had two other cases pending against him at the time. Rainer previously had been convicted of attempted robbery, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, driving without a license and minor consuming an alcoholic beverage. He also faced charges in other cases of dealing cocaine and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Horn found the criminal behavior a minor aggravating circumstance and decided the advisory sentence served in DOC was "more than appropriate, reasonable and justified," declining to order home detention due to the nature of the dealing offenses.
The appeals opinion notes that an appeal challenging placement for a sentence must convince the appeals court that the placement is inappropriate.
The nature of Rainer's character, with the criminal history and additional charges, and the nature of his convictions led the appeals court to affirm Rainer's sentence.
Although the contributing to the delinquency of a minor charge that had been pending has since been dismissed, Rainer still faces a Level 5 felony dealing cocaine charge. A trail on that charge is scheduled May 2 in Superior 2.
A Level 5 felony conviction carries a standard three-year sentence with a range of one to six years as established by the Indiana legislature.
This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Richmond crime: Appeals court upholds heroin dealer's prison sentence
