DECISION AND ORDER REGARDING MOTION FOR COMPASSIONATE RELEASE Victor Diaz was sentenced in 2009 to 262-months in prison for his role in a truck-hijacking conspiracy — he is scheduled to be released April 23, 2025. BOP Inmate Locator 11/11/24. Before the Court is Diaz’s motion for compassionate release, filed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(a)(i) and 28 C.F.R. §571.61. Diaz asks that the Court immediately release him from prison and allow him to be deported — a collateral consequence of his conviction — to his native Ecuador. First, Diaz argues that his sentence should be reduced because two of his co-conspirators with greater culpability received lower terms of imprisonment when they were resentenced as a result of their 18 U.S.C. §924(c) convictions being set aside. Diaz argues that the resulting sentencing disparity qualifies as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” under U.S.S.G. §1b1.13(b)(5)’s “other reasons” category. Second, Diaz, who is 65 years old, has served more than 10 years of imprisonment and more than 75 percent of his term, asserts that he has age-related health deterioration that warrants a reduction under U.S.S.G. §1b1.13(b)(2). Third, Diaz asserts that he has been rehabilitated while in custody, and argues that this rehabilitation, taken in consideration of his other two asserted bases, further supports his request for a reduction under U.S.S.G. §1b1.13(d). The Government opposes the motion on the grounds that Diaz has failed to demonstrate extraordinary and compelling reasons warranting compassionate release, and the sentencing factors at 18 U.S.C. §3553 weigh against a reduction in sentence. Background Victor Diaz was one of eight co-defendants convicted in this case for their role in an armed robbery, hijacking and kidnapping conspiracy. Defendants Plutarcho Angulo-Aguirre and German Cuadrado were the criminal masterminds who came up with the criminal plan to hijack tractor trailer trucks filled with valuable merchandise (expensive perfume, cosmetics, etc.), and put the gang of thugs together to carry out the scheme. ECF 159 at 1. Angulo-Aguirre and Cuadrado first hired Rafael Rodriguez and Angel Diaz (not to be mistaken with the instant movant Victor Diaz), two violent criminals whose role would be to forcibly restrain the unwitting truck drivers at gunpoint, while others in the crew made off with the contents of the truck trailers. Cuadrado and Rodriguez filled the balance of their crew with, inter alia, drivers for the hijacked trucks, insiders at the warehouses where the merchandise would be off-loaded, men to physically transfer the merchandise from trailers, and those charged with fencing the stolen goods. The first of the successful robberies occurred on September 13, 2006. Victor Diaz, along with co-conspirators German Cuadrado, Jorge Flores, Plutarco Angulo-Aguirre, Rafael Rodriguez, and Angel Diaz (“Angel”), hijacked a tractor trailer carrying more than $500,000 worth of perfume products in Blauvelt, New York. (PSR
25, 29). Victor Diaz’s planned role was to procure and drive the van in which they would hold the kidnapped truck drivers during the kidnapping. (PSR 27). Ultimately, however, because the location of the robbery and kidnapping was more public than originally planned, the crew decided not to use the van to restrain the two drivers, and instead restrained them inside the sleeper cabin of the victims’ truck. (PSR 29). Nonetheless, Victor Diaz was present for the robbery, during which his co-conspirators pistol-whipped both drivers, tied them up with plastic flex-ties and sat on top of them in the truck’s cabin. (PSR 30). The conspirators took the truck to a warehouse in Towaco, New Jersey and unloaded it. (PSR
