U.S. Postal Inspector interviewed me for my involvement with use of the credit card, I did write a statement, I am waiting to hear back for my charges, they told me that I will either get a warrant, summons, or target letter. There were two other individuals besides myself that used the credit card. I have no involvement with the mail fraud situation. The amount of the credit card was $20,000 and there was one victim.
The guidelines grid is the judge's bible. The prosecutors have most of the power though, since they frame the charge pled to. Hire a savvy fed defense attorney to navigate this channel.
There are a ton of factors that go into calculating what punishment a person faces for a crime in federal court. Some of them relate to the crime itself, such as characteristics of the victim, amount of money taken, etc.. Others relate to your criminal history, which you say is pretty clean.
You have now given a statement in an ongoing investigation. You may think your involvement begins and ends with the situation you mentioned, but federal conspiracy laws are tricky and you may get sucked in to a far bigger situation than you expected. You really, really need to stop talking about your case in public and find a good lawyer to work with on this case. Years of your life may be at stake and you surely can expect the feds to take as many of them as they can.
In order to answer you, a lawyer would have to stop and do a guidelines caluclation, which while not binding, is where a judge will likely start. On top of that, you may have all sorts of reasons for being a candidate for a downward departure from the guidelines. You either need to hire a lawyer and deal with your situation, or if you are indigent wait until you get arrested and then your public defender will advise you.
