Former middleweight contender Avtandil Khurtsidze was partially successful on the appeal of his criminal conviction for organized crime-related activity. The United States' Second Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed Khurtsidze's conviction, but vacated his ten-year prison sentence and ordered the trial judge to resentence him. The basis of the ruling was that the trial judge made improper comments that she was issuing Khurtsidze's sentence in part because she wanted to deter Russian organized crime. Khurtsidze, age 41, is from the Republic of Georgia and was convicted of serving as an enforcer for a Russian mobster in Brooklyn, New York.
In 2017, Khurtsidze was the WBO interim title holder and mandatory middleweight contender, heading for a showdown against Billy Joe Saunders. He had a pro record of 33-2-2. But his career came screeching to a halt when he was convicted of serving as an enforcer for the "Shulaya Enterprise," a criminal organization allegedly centered in the Russian-immigrant section of Brooklyn, New York that operated gambling parlors, extorted payments from gamblers and local businesses, trafficked in stolen goods and contraband cigarettes, committed identity theft, credit card fraud, and engaged in a conspiracy to defraud casinos. Prosecutors said that Khurtisdze was Shulaya's primary enforcer. In an interview given in 2019, Khurtsidze claimed he turned down a plea bargain that would have resulted in a three-year sentence. Khurtsidze was convicted at trial and received a ten-year sentence (actually, he was sentenced to two concurrent terms of ten years) but his attorneys appealed both the conviction and the length of the sentence.
While he failed to reverse his conviction, in an April 202g rulinf, Khurtsidze successfully appealed the length of his sentence as unreasonable. Khurtsidze argued that the sentencing judge made improper statements that created an appearance that his national origin (Georgian) and immigration status were being held againsat him when deciding the length of the sentence.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, stating, “it has long been settled in this Circuit that although reference to national origin and naturalized status is permissible during sentencing, it is allowed only so long as it does not become the basis for determining the sentence... Although we are confident that the [sentencing judge] harbored no bias towards Khurtsidze based on his nationality or immigration status, we are compelled by certain comments made by the [judge] to remand [Khurtsidze's case back to the judge] for resentencing. In its discussion of the general deterrent effect of the sentence it imposed, the [judge] commented that Khurtsidze’s sentence 'may well be watched by the Georgian community, both here and abroad,' and expressed the view that Khurtsidze’s sentence would send a 'message' that 'Russian organized crime that seeks to come to the shores of the United States . . . will be dealt with, with the power of our criminal justice system.' References of this sort 'to the publicity a sentence might receive in the defendant’s ethnic community or native country' and to deterring others sharing that national origin from violating United States laws in the future create an improper appearance that a defendant’s national origin or immigration status might be driving the choice of sentence. We therefore remand with instructions that the district court vacate Khurtsidze’s sentence and conduct a resentencing."
The head of the enterprise, Razhden Shulaya, was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
