case which is united states versus longest sentencing in mitigation i attempted at the sentencing hearing to advance two primary arguments in mitigation which pertain to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the seriousness of the offense the first of those pertaining to the fact that the defendant in the scheme of the overall loss of the scott credit union benefited financially only minimally i believe the criminal loss attributed to his fraudulent loans which spanned a number of years was approximately thirteen point seven million dollars and that he benefited to the tune of about two hundred thousand dollars this argument this first argument was addressed by the court in its sentencing analysis and is not the issue before this it is the second primary argument which i attempted to advance which we are arguing the district court erred by failing to consider and that was the defendant's motivation for these fraudulent loans where those up and whether those individuals who were the recipients of the fraudulent loans or aware of some of those loft space so what we argued to the court was that with respect to many of these loans  small groups of individuals who were the recipients of those loans and that certainly with respect in particular two counts four and five to which he fled that bit of the proceeds of those loans those loans if vance's were funneled into a company known as when door and we also are due to the court that the individuals mentioned by name in the indictment as to counts four and five we argued that those individuals likely had knowledge of those loans why is that a mitigating some factor here as to why knowledge on the part of those individuals would be mitigating your own would it would seem to suggest that the defendant was in cahoots with the folks who are benefiting from his fraud i'm not sure why that's not getting us where you are and i know that the government in its response indicated that in fact it but it was aggravating it was my position your honor the government had submitted for the court's consideration of victim impact letter with respect to the defendant should count four and my concern in part was that the court might understandably find it to be an aggravating factor that this person had been victimized by my client and the victim was the credit union here and to the last twenty five million dollars yes no but i mean a place but according to the victim impact letter  submitted by this individual he had suffered a number of our consequences as a result of these fraudulent loans and we believe that it that it was mitigating your honor that he was not taking advantage of these individuals but rather that they had an understanding and i respect the fact that you could say well that may be so but that only highlights as the court is indicating something that might be aggravated we took a different view on that matter because it was our argument that all these individuals have certainly the individuals with respect to california five that there was an understanding that they were going to keep afloat this company wind or that they had an interest in at some point purchasing that company and we believe that the fact that those individuals had knowledge and these loans were flowing to proper our company which these individuals had at least in the memorandum of understanding profess interest interest well is this this or robin hood argument your honor i got i'm glad you mention that it's kind of a white collar robin hood argument and i believe that it matters i think that's a loser well your honor i respect that fact things like this that you say the judge didn't consider it your honor i guess i guess were i disagree with the court is i don't think that this is a minute issue i mean this is the nature and circumstances of this offense is how this offense was committed we know how much money he gained right yes sir so what where do we go from there were honored that that argument was was addressed by the court and the court did not find that to be mitigating in  context of the overall loss you know we thought however though that this argument was not minimal that the nature and circumstances of the offense matter as judge posner indicated although it may  a loser we think it matters in some context why the offense was committed this is just another example and it's not your fault this way things seem to be pushing constantly is that you want to score to second guess every sentence it to list item by item by item by item if he misses one then you bring it up all right and so they are with that i'm making to the court this morning is that that argument in mitigation was both a principle argument and was not so weak as to not merit some kind of acknowledgment by the court as judge hamilton has pointed out it may in fact unbeknownst to me be an aggravating factor and that would certainly suggest that it's no minimal matter but in fact is relevant and so we believe the court is certainly free to reject and argue certainly is free to reject that argument but needed to address it at sentencing analysis why it rejected it that it wasn't an argument that was so weak as to not merit any discussion and for those read had to do you had a discussion with the judge about this and she didn't understand any more than i do why this is an argument in mitigation at least that was that's my take on the transcript but i would welcome your comment on them your honor i guess i'm sorry to hear that you understand it as well as the district court judge but there certainly was a discussion about it is my reading of that transcript that the judge indicated that she didn't understand the argument had been wondering for some ten minutes perhaps as you may be wondering what what the purpose of the argument is and alternately said though that it would not consider the argument that it was not relevant and we again believe that that was procedural error that she would not consider the argument and i think the fact your honor that she doesn't address that in her sentencing analysis analysis suggests that she did not consider and so all we're saying is again not that the court would have to agree with us in that argument it appears like it wouldn't but nonetheless have an obligation to acknowledge the argument and explain briefly why it was rejecting that argument so for all those reasons we're testing that this court was proper in rejecting the argument is just totally irrelevant to narrow the focus the memorandum of understanding as is counsel conceded had no we go affected never went into effect had it gone into twenty five point eight million total loss so it was of limited utility had that memorandum of understanding when or two of the ect which it didn't it require mr butts and mr shill to only contribute one hundred  it's it was in a row of an argument had minimal impact on the overall loss and this is a an individual that got the you lower end of an advisory guideline sentence of which before the court there was no argument that lowered guideline sentence is it was unreasonable at all but i don't usually ask this would you think you guys got to the bottom of this hour i can tell you that  we tracked because the amount of money that actually not all the money did flow into wintour's inner cities just the amount of money that did flow into one door i actually went with the agents and we tracked and it seemed like a ridiculous and reasonable amount of money in a short period of time to be expensed out at least according to the checks that went out in the receipts it went for window type of business operations it did so whether there were