Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-03003/USCOURTS-ca8-06-03003-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gladys Icaza Peterson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 06-2882

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United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Wellington Icaza, also known as

Arnaldo Javier Garcia,

Appellant.

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No. 06-2883

___________ 

United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Rosaura Amparo JaramilloMartinez,

Appellant.

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Appeals from the United States

District Court for the 

Southern District of Iowa.

Appellate Case: 06-3003 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/10/2007 Entry ID: 3327954
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___________

No. 06-3003

___________ 

United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Gladys Icaza Peterson,

Appellant.

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________________

 Submitted: April 10, 2007 

 Filed: July 10, 2007

________________

Before MELLOY, BOWMAN and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges. 

________________

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge. 

Wellington Icaza, Rosaura Jaramillo-Martinez and Gladys Icaza Peterson pled

guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property and

interstate transportation of stolen property in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 2314.

Jaramillo-Martinez also pled guilty to illegally reentering the United States after

deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The appellants appeal their sentences.

For the reasons discussed below, we vacate the sentences of all three appellants and

remand to the district court for resentencing.

Appellate Case: 06-3003 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/10/2007 Entry ID: 3327954
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I. BACKGROUND

Icaza, Jaramillo-Martinez and Peterson (“the appellants”) traveled across the

United States shoplifting over-the-counter medicines and other items from a multitude

of retail stores. Police apprehended the appellants after employees observed them

shoplifting from a Walgreens in Bettendorf, Iowa. After entry of their guilty pleas,

the district court sentenced the appellants at a single sentencing hearing. Two law

enforcement officials, along with Jerry Biggs, Coordinator of the Organized Retail

Crime Division for Walgreens, testified as to the scope of the appellants’ criminal

enterprise. The Government also introduced a number of ledgers seized from the

appellants indicating quantities of items stolen. An analysis of just one ledger

revealed the value of stolen items detailed in that ledger to be $611,194. In

combination with the value of items recovered after apprehension of the appellants,

this evidence supported a total theft value of $855,833, of which $674,634 could be

tied to thefts from Walgreens stores. A Government witness extrapolated from the

value of items stolen from the Bettendorf Walgreens to estimate that the appellants

shoplifted from approximately 407 Walgreens stores in order to accumulate that

$674,634 worth of stolen items.

At sentencing, in calculating the advisory guidelines range for each appellant,

the district court applied a 14-level enhancement under § 2B1.1(b)(1) of the United

States Sentencing Guidelines for an actual loss of more than $400,000 but less than

$1,000,000. The district court noted that the amount-of-loss enhancement would have

been significantly higher had the Government analyzed and presented evidence from

every ledger instead of just one. In addition, the district court, counting each

Walgreens store as a victim, applied a 6-level enhancement under § 2B1.1(b)(2)

because the offense involved 250 or more victims. The resulting advisory guidelines

ranges were 46 to 57 months for Icaza, 57 to 71 months for Jaramillo-Martinez and

51 to 63 months for Peterson. Each appellant was sentenced within his or her

advisory guidelines range. The court sentenced Icaza to 47 months, JaramilloAppellate Case: 06-3003 Page: 3 Date Filed: 07/10/2007 Entry ID: 3327954
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Martinez to 57 months, and Peterson to 63 months in prison. On appeal, each

appellant argues that the district court erred in finding that each Walgreens store was

a separate victim for purposes of the § 2B1.1(b)(2) number-of-victims enhancement.

B. DISCUSSION

We must consider whether the district court erred in finding that each retail

store of a corporation counted as a separate victim for purposes of the § 2B1.1(b)(2)

number-of-victims enhancement. We review the district court’s interpretation and

application of the guidelines de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. United

States v. Mashek, 406 F.3d 1012, 1017 (8th Cir. 2005). We hold that the district court

erred in interpreting the term “victim” in § 2B1.1(b)(2) to include each individual

store when only the Walgreens corporation sustained an actual loss.

Section 2B1.1(b)(2) of the sentencing guidelines provides:

(Apply the greatest) If the offense--

(A) (i) involved 10 or more victims; or (ii) was committed through massmarketing, increase by 2 levels;

(B) involved 50 or more victims, increase by 4 levels; or

(C) involved 250 or more victims, increase by 6 levels.

Section 2B1.1 Application Note 1 defines “victim” as “any person who sustained any

part of the actual loss determined under subsection (b)(1). . .‘Person’ includes

individuals, corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and

joint stock companies.” Therefore, a victim must be an individual, corporation or

company of some type that sustained part of the actual loss determined by the district

court. 

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The district court found that each of the 407 Walgreens stores were separate

victims of the actual $674,634 loss and applied a six-level enhancement. However,

Walgreens’ Biggs testified as follows at sentencing:

Q. [Defense counsel]: Assuming that the defendants were found

responsible in this case for $674,000 in loss, and restitution was ordered,

to whom would that restitution go?

A. It would go to our corporation.

Q. There aren’t any individual stores that would receive any of that

benefit or any of the money?

A. No. Those stores would be – they would – everything is done by

budget. They have inventoried – they have taken their loss, but

ultimately the corporation takes the loss.

Q. The corporation ultimately bears the loss of the product and the lost

value in it?

A. Yes, sir.

Accordingly, the individual Walgreens stores did not “sustain[] any part of the actual

loss determined under subsection (b)(1)”; instead, Walgreens corporation “sustained

. . . the actual loss determined under subsection (b)(1).” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n.1.

Therefore, Walgreens corporation is the only victim for the $674,634 loss under

§ 2B1.1(b)(2).

We do not believe, as the Government argues, that the decision in United States

v. Longo, 184 Fed. Appx. 910 (11th Cir. 2006) (unpublished per curiam), suggests a

different result. Longo embezzled funds from four employee benefit plans, two of

which had a combined membership of more than 110 members. Id. at 912. The

Longo court held that the district court did not err in counting the 110 individual plan

members, rather than just the four plans, as victims for purposes of the § 2B1.1(b)(2)

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The Eleventh Circuit noted:

In particular, the record showed that Longo’s fraud and theft diminished

the total plan assets. The liquidation and eventual freezing of the plans’

assets also resulted in more direct problems for the individual plan

participants, especially retired individuals who used the money to pay

living expenses. For instance, one man was forced to return to the

workforce after his retirement, another had to get two jobs to make ends

meet, and a third had to borrow $ 10,000 to avoid losing his retirement

home. 

Longo, 184 Fed. Appx. at 912.

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enhancement. Id. at 913. However, the record in Longo showed that plan members

“each individually suffered pecuniary harm because they each owned a pro rata share

of the plan assets and held them jointly and severally.” Id.1

 By contrast, in the instant

case, there is no evidence that Walgreens’ corporate structure gives individual

Walgreens stores ownership of a pro rata share of corporate assets to be held jointly

and severally. Furthermore, Biggs testified that no individual Walgreens store

ultimately bore the pecuniary harm. For similar reasons, we also reject the

Government’s alternative argument that every shareholder of Walgreens is a victim

for § 2B1.1(b)(2) purposes. See United States v. Carralero, 195 Fed. Appx. 874, 878-

79 (11th Cir. 2006) (unpublished per curiam) (affirming a § 2B1.1(b)(2) enhancement

based on 20 corporate victims, presumably credit-card issuers, where the defendant

possessed 112,000 unauthorized credit card numbers).

For these reasons, we find that the district court erred in counting each

Walgreens store as a separate victim for purposes of the § 2B1.1(b)(2) number-ofvictims enhancement. Absent a showing that the error was harmless, an error in

calculation of the sentencing guidelines requires remand. Mashek, 406 F.3d at 1015.

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The Government argues that any sentencing error with respect to Peterson is harmless

because the district court stated with respect to Peterson’s sentence:

I’m saying that what I think is sufficient but not greater than necessary

sentence, which is the charge the district court is given, I think it’s 63

months, and to the extent that I have done a sword dance in accepting or

rejecting role, amount of loss, number of victims, I think 63 months is a

fair sentence under the Booker analysis and the Haack analysis.

The Government argues that the guidelines calculation error is harmless because “it

is clear from the record that the district court would have given the defendant the same

sentence regardless of which guidelines range applied.” United States v. Staples, 410

F.3d 484, 492 (8th Cir. 2005). However, we have held that a statement by a district

court such as the one above is not detailed enough to support a finding of harmless

error:

[W]here, as here, the sentencing court pronounces an identical alternative

sentence, not based on any alternative guidelines calculation but instead

intended to cover any and all potential guidelines calculation errors, the

sentencing court effectively has ignored the requirement of Haack to

“first determine the appropriate guidelines sentencing range” for the

alternative sentence. We cannot make a finding of harmless error where

the identical alternative sentence was not based on a correctly calculated

advisory guidelines range. 

Our conclusion is supported by the fact that the absence of an

identifiable advisory guidelines range for the alternative sentence thwarts

our review of the sentence for reasonableness. Because a sentence

within the properly calculated guidelines range is presumptively

reasonable, a correctly calculated guidelines range is the necessary

starting point for assessing the reasonableness of a variance.

United States v. Bah, 439 F.3d 423, 431-32 (8th Cir. 2006) (internal citations omitted);

see also Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ---, No. 06-5754, slip op. at 7 (June 21, 2007)

Appellate Case: 06-3003 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/10/2007 Entry ID: 3327954
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(holding that “a court of appeals may apply a presumption of reasonableness to a

district court sentence that reflects a proper application of the Sentencing

Guidelines”).

Thus, to support a finding of harmless error, the record clearly must show not

only that the district court intended to provide an alternative sentence, but also that the

alternative sentence is based on an identifiable, correctly calculated guidelines range.

Here, the district court did not determine an alternative guidelines range without the

disputed number-of-victims enhancement and explain a variance from it based on

§ 3553(a) factors, but rather it made a blanket statement that 63 months is a “fair”

sentence. Such a statement cannot provide the basis for a finding of harmless error.

Furthermore, the remainder of the record indicates the district court did not

intend to pronounce the same sentence if the § 2B1.1(b)(2) enhancement was rejected

on appeal. In fact, the district court explicitly disavowed such an intent later in the

record in response to the Government’s request for an alternative sentence if

§ 2B1.1(b)(2) was found not to apply: 

I’m gonna leave the sentence at 63 months based upon the guideline–the

advisory guideline and the other 3553(a) factors. So I think the record

is solid here that the number of victims, the amount of the loss, her

criminal history category is not in dispute, so I’m going to stay with what

the Court has made a record on.

This statement indicates that the district court based its 63-month sentence on the

advisory guidelines range as determined by the record before the court, which

included the miscalculated number of victims. For these reasons, we conclude that the

guidelines miscalculation does not constitute harmless error. 

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III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, we vacate the sentences of all three appellants and remand to the

district court for resentencing. 

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Appellate Case: 06-3003 Page: 9 Date Filed: 07/10/2007 Entry ID: 3327954