Case ID: f-appx_149/html/0497-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Andre WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 05-1325.
    United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
    Submitted Sept. 13, 2005.
    
    Decided Sept. 15, 2005.
    Susan H. Dowd, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    William E. Marsh, Indiana Federal Community Defenders, Inc., Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant-Appellant.
    Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       After an examination of the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   ORDER

Andre Williams, a licensed mortgage broker, obtained more than $900,000 in financing to buy his own home and four others he purchased in the names of prospective clients whose identities he stole. The actual purchase price of the five houses totaled $437,000, but Williams deceived the lenders by enlisting corrupt title-company employees to accept two sets of closing documents, one for the seller that was accurate and a second for the lender that included a falsified appraisal, loan application, and closing statement. Williams kept a share of the excess loan proceeds and also collected his broker’s commission from the lenders. Eventually the scheme was discovered, and Williams pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and four counts of money laundering, id. § 1957. He was sentenced after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), to 35 months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release on each count, all running concurrently, and ordered to pay $450,837 in restitution. Williams appeals, arguing that a sentence of 35 months is unreasonable.

Williams voices no complaint about the district court’s guideline calculations, and since 35 months falls within the resulting guideline range of 30 to 37 months, we presume the sentence to be reasonable. See United States v. Bryant, 420 F.3d 652, 657 (7th Cir.2005); United States v. Mykytiuk, 415 F.3d 606, 608 (7th Cir.2005). Williams argues that the district court should have given him home detention or at least a prison term at the low end of the range, because he was supporting a wife and three children, attending college, had suffered from depression, incurred just one prior conviction stemming from domestic violence rather than fraud, and engaged in a scheme that should have been detected by the defrauded lenders. The district court, though, considered the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and gave Williams an opportunity to highlight those he believed weighed in his favor. That the court was not persuaded by his arguments does not make the sentence unreasonable.

AFFIRMED.