ELIZABETH A. WOLFORD, District Judge.
Defendants Bin Wen ("Wen") and Peng Zhang ("Zhang") (collectively "Defendants"), who are husband and wife, were sentenced on February 6, 2019. (Case No. 6:17-cr-06173, Dkt. 84; Case No. 6:17-cr-06174, Dkt. 83).
Defendants have now filed motions asking the Court to (1) suspend payment of restitution until after the remission petitions are resolved and (2) stay the deadline for Defendants to seek a correction and/or modification of the Judgments until after final disposition of the remission petitions. (Wen Dkt. 93; Zhang Dkt. 90).
With respect to the request to suspend the payment of restitution pending final disposition of the remission petitions,"[a] modification of the terms of payment of restitution is not a modification in sentence." United States v. Lochard, 555 F. App'x 94, 96 (2d Cir. 2014). Instead, 18 U.S.C. § 3664 grants the Court "the authority . . . to modify a restitution schedule post-sentence[.]" Id. In particular, pursuant to § 3664(k), the Court "may adjust a payment schedule when a defendant demonstrates that his ability to pay restitution has changed." Id. at 97; see also 18 U.S.C. § 3664(k) ("Upon receipt of[a] notification [regarding a material change in a defendant's economic circumstances], the court may, on its own motion, or the motion of any party, including the victim, adjust the payment schedule, or require immediate payment in full, as the interests of justice require."). In this case. Defendants are now subsisting solely on Zhang's minimum wage salary and are unable to make any restitution payments. (Wen Dkt. 93 at 2; Zhang Dkt. 90 at 2). Moreover, the Government has raised no objection to the request to modify the schedule for payment of restitution. Accordingly, the Court grants Defendants' request to the extent that the payment of restitution is suspended until a final amount of forfeiture is determined and the remission petitions are resolved. See United States v. Bowles, No. 98 CR.1281 DLC, 2003 WL 21396691, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. June 16, 2003) (suspending payment of restitution while the defendant was incarcerated because his physical ailments had impacted his economic circumstances and rendered him unable to work while imprisoned).
However, the Court lacks the authority to grant Defendants' request to extend the deadline to file a motion to correct or modify the Judgments. "[A] district court's ability to correct or modify a sentence is narrowly circumscribed by Fed. R. Crim. P. 35 and 36[.]" United States v. Spallone, 399 F.3d 415, 418 (2d Cir. 2005). Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 36 applies to the correction of clerical errors and does not apply here. Instead, any motion to correct or modify the Judgments would be governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, which contains express deadlines. The Second Circuit has held that those deadlines are "jurisdictional." United States v. Abreu-Cabrera, 64 F.3d 67, 73 (2d Cir. 1995). Moreover, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 45(b)(2)expressly states that "[t]he court
For all the foregoing reasons, the Court grants in part and denies in part Defendants' post-sentence motions. (Wen Dkt. 93; Zhang Dkt. 90). In particular, the Court grants Defendants' request to suspend the payment of restitution until a final amount of forfeiture is determined and the remission petitions are resolved. The Court denies Defendants' request to extend the deadline to file a motion to correct or modify the Judgments. Defendants' originally filed motions (Wen Dkt. 91; Zhang Dkt. 88) are denied as moot.