Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02717/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02717-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Roy Eugene Waters
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Gary A. Fenner, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-2717

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

v. * Western District of Missouri.

*

Roy Eugene Waters, * [UNPUBLISHED]

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: November 4, 2005

Filed: November 17, 2005

___________

Before BYE, McMILLIAN, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

A jury found Roy Eugene Waters guilty of one count of obstructing the

administration of the internal revenue laws or attempting to do so, in violation of 26

U.S.C. § 7212(a), and eight counts of structuring financial transactions to evade

currency reporting requirements or attempting to do so, in violation of 31 U.S.C.

§ 5324(a)(3). The district court1

 sentenced him to concurrent terms of 36 months in

prison and a year of supervised release on the first count, and 97 months in prison and

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3 years of supervised release on the remaining eight counts. For the reasons

discussed below, we affirm Waters’s convictions and sentence.

First, viewing the trial evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we

conclude that the jury could have rationally found all of the elements of the nine

charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Tensley, 334 F.3d

790, 793-94 (8th Cir. 2003) (standard of review). The evidence was sufficient to

show that Waters corruptly endeavored to obstruct or impede the administration of

the internal revenue laws through one or more of the acts alleged by the government.

See United States v. Wilson, 118 F.3d 228, 234 (4th Cir. 1997) (elements of

§ 7212(a)). The evidence was also sufficient to show that Waters engaged in the

eight charged acts of structuring, knowing that the banks were legally obligated to

report currency transactions over $10,000, and intending to evade that reporting

requirement. See United States v. MacPherson, 424 F.3d 183, 189 (2d Cir. 2005)

(elements of § 5324(a)(3)).

Second, the anti-structuring laws apply to private individuals, not just bank

employees. See United States v. Phipps, 81 F.3d 1056, 1058-59 (11th Cir. 1996).

Third, although the district court’s application of sentencing enhancements

based on judge-found facts within a mandatory Guidelines regime was erroneous in

light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in United States v. Booker, 125 S.

Ct. 738 (2005), and although Waters properly preserved an objection at sentencing,

we conclude that the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Not only did the

district court sentence Waters at the top of the Guidelines imprisonment range, it also

responded to his objection by stating that it would impose an even longer prison

sentence if it were not bound by the Guidelines. See United States v. Red Elk,426

F.3d 948, 950-51 (8th Cir. 2005).

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Finally, we have considered the remaining arguments that Waters has presented

in his briefs, and we find them to be without merit.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

______________________________

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