right our fifth case for this morning is united states against benson result of the court's last calculation which drove up the guideline range as well as its finding not giving for the except it's of responsibility that was in the leaving sentence first of all there is it's our position that there was an incorrect method or selection in the method of calculating the loss calculation in this case particularly in light of the facts that were presented in the in the sentencing hearing but you know you treat this is though it's an extrapolation case and it really isn't they've got the data of number of memberships sold from this patrons edge thing they also have the data of how many get in put it into the other system jam forgetting name of but anyway into the into the membership system razors razors that adams yes a little coupon and there's a discrepancy so that comes out to a certain amount of money and we know that she has been selling for cash memberships and so there's a piece of paper by piece of paper a comparison with four sample months for four months just picked out of a hat although they were they were heavy usage months with the idea that maybe that would reveal more things so for those hearst it turns out she's really the one responsible for that so if there's any extrapolation it all is just is there some reason to think somebody else was responsible for the numbers in other months and you didn't present any evidence to suggest that someone else had the access to the cash registers of course she's also skimming from the drink sales events but that the lion's share of this is the sales  just not don't think it's fits the model of a statistical operation where you're where you're doing some random sampling so what they did what our position is the four months  is a method of checking the first state of the states is the paper by craig right there is the first one you know giving us a number that it's a reliable number and when they do the spot check of these four months the answer is yes are actually it's as though i was trying to figure out you know how many cases in the northern district of illinois are dismissed on rule twelve the six crowns and all i can find from a statistics is rule twelve the itself so i go into the actual docket of the northern just reach of illinois and i figure out how many are two of the ones twelve b two is in on up and you know that gives me data that's not clustered within the last two and a half but what are your evidence that that she that somebody else was in a position to skim this money during other time time covered by this indictment the investigation conducted by the county for that it was retained by the museum in the interview with one of the supervisors ms clayton  referred to one or two other employees that she was aware of that were skimming one way or the other but it's similar to to this case when it came to memberships but that it s and they were also able to see how many memberships were reported and that's why the data actually takes it down to her well and i think i'd like to address it by expanding just a little bit on the reasons why we think that that was the wrong methods elected other people doing it is not the only reason but when you look at the objective  facts or evidence that work was presented both through the f b i investigation as well as mr le goddesses report and testimony the sample months to co period of time where the four months for used there was about a ninety one percent correlation with his approach and which is consistent fairly consistent with what the count stone turn found i think there's about ninety seven or ninety eight percent so high correlation but we have the sixty eight percent last week it was only about twenty one percent correlation and his his approach in terms of tracking was in finding where money went and assets but that is meaningless with cash i mean she could've gone gambling she could have put it under her mattress she could have burned it up i mean she could have done anything with cash the fact that you can't get cash into a bank account considered that the f b i found that it would tend to discount the amount it was taking it seems to me that she is so well positioned to come forward with something beyond speculation though as to what those she worked there a long time she was the she was the accountant if i'm not mistaken that was responsible for reconciling the two systems she worked she worked on the cash into this poll that the on the at the concessions area and  then more importantly with the membership revenue and so if there was something else going on somebody else was skimming or there was money heading out the back door another way and she is awfully well positioned to proffer about reason and she has every incentive to had the advantage of having a position where she could overseas some days she was doing one thing and it was it was but again the records that they traced as judgment pointed out were particular to her they were her records  right in what in getting back to the disks the sixty eight percent that wasn't confirmed you have such a wide discretion where in the lack of any other identifiable assets that she owned no property in the real estate no investments nothing th a little troubling though the government just did these four months and then over this long period of time didn't when that work out you know didn't go back and try to maybe do like one a year or something just further checking because it leaves a lot of loose sense our employees could have come and gone i mean and it's the government's burden your honor that from the government's perspective the additional testing may have been necessary if that second st i think i'm of them were too high right i don't believe your honor that the greatest discrepancy and that there was a discrepancy come do my math correctly right now it's a little over four hundred dollars that was for july two thousand and thirteen any two thousand and twelve are looking at a discrepancy of thirty six dollars in december of two thousand and thirteen we're looking at a discrepancy of less than one hundred dollars and in march two thousand and fourteen we're looking at a discrepancy of slightly more than one hundred  ironclad evidence for those months but it postulates that the field museum never suffered from a different dishonest employee during any of the rest of that time this is all i understand probably because the records were available taken place there for two thousand and eight and again but you don't have anything that nails down that there was no confounding factor from two thousand and eight to around two thousand and twelve that's a long time there was nothing in terms of the second step of the also the fact that there was no evidence presented by the defendant and no suggestion really in the record there was any reason to believe that the result would have been different from two thousand and eight through two thousand and twelve signature here on these membership receipts her initials appearance something identified i thought that was i just wanted you know even though there's nothing to suggest for example the defendant argue that sentencing that there may have been data entry errors that were made in patrons outage crew two thousand and twelve or perhaps there were errors in implementing the razor's edge system crazy thousand and twelve and that may have had some effect on the analysis but those were speculative arguments that were made by the defendant tax sentencing in the district court recognize them as such essentially saying you have no reason to believe that the government's accounting experts selected only months from the last two years for some i believe his words were for some nefarious reason or for some reason to think that earlier months would have suggested otherwise and i  thought what you might say on that was that it's a mistake to view the evidence around the last amount simply in terms of the sampling evidence and what the sampling evidence showed rather w what's important here as well is that the field museum they hired during her bit will to conduct an investigation that investigation consisted as understandable interviews of a lot of different people where they were they had every incentive to try to figure out was there someone other than miss benson involved in this fraud scheme and they reached the conclusion no and in that i understand is what stone turned relied upon in other words that evidence combined with the sampling to reach the conclusion that the full also known as the tribunal to the defendant i would agree with that judge because those interviews took place the kind of investigation you're describing took place in the lead up to the development of this two step methodology that mr jaimie adopted and so the information that he got out of those interviews which was that there wasn't some other culprit in mind that the theft of his membership from his membership sales were taken and were being taken from onsite cash sales and that included in his benson's own admission to the museum employees that this is how she had been conducting the fast that went into designing this to start a methodology where the second step of the methodology was specifically designed to test the proposition that had emerged from the earlier phase of the investigation that the past was largely attributable solely attributable to the defendant through her past of onsite cash sales from the membership record and so the district court considered this defendant made of that last calculation methodology and for that reason this horseshit firm that us reports finding similarly that it's this court should affirm the district court's finding that the defendant in in launching the kind of attack that the defendant launched on the government's calculation methodology did not at that point did not deserve acceptance of responsibility credit in the course of so this is this fine line between the ability to contest  methodology and still get acceptance of responsibility for being cooperative for being more still a bit that they simply saying look you know you government you just haven't met your burden of proof because you've chosen the wrong methodology you used astrological chart instead of you know accounting principles or whatever may be i know it's not that here but people are not automatically excluded from acceptance of responsibility if they challenge a methodology correct adj and it is a fine line and here the government's position of this report agreed was that the defendant crossed it in part because of the extent of of the contesting of the last amount this wasn't just quibbling over a few hundred or a few thousand dollars it was it was a full judge was that the defendant's attacks included what the district were considered to be frivolous attacks on the government's loss calculation methodology so in particular there was a criticism of a lack of reconciliation between patrons outage and razors edge and despite the fact that the government of mr honey explained on multiple occasions that any lack of reconciliation between those two systems would have actually been to the benefit of the defendant the defendant persisted in raising this objection that the defendant went out and taint an expert to look into that doesn't that take away a little bit from the frivolous nature of any arguments i think the fact that the defendant went and got an expert but persisted in making arguments that were in the museum systems might think that that is a valid criticism a valid challenge to make and yet when the response comes back both from the government and from the government's expert as to why logically that actually works to her benefit and the at the challenge per s i think at that point the line has been fully crossed i think also we have a situation here distinguishable from some of the cases that defendant sites in which the defendant did not express remorse during the sentencing hearing and i think that's something that the district court also fairly consider acceptance of responsibility was one that it deemed at the end of the day harmless with respect to its overall sentencing decision it was a determination of this report made it so clearly found that this was acceptance we did rely our entire approach to the challenging of the mountains based on the appointed act forensic accountants opinions to the extent did the judge  thanks as well to the government will take the case under advisement