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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
George Van Til
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued October 6, 2015

Decided December 8, 2015

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

No. 15‐1385

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,        

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

GEORGE VAN TIL,

Defendant‐Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of

Indiana, Hammond Division.

No. 2:13cr68‐001

James T. Moody,

Judge.

O R D E R

Lake County, Indiana, forbids its employees to work on political campaigns for

their supervisors while they are being paid by the county. George Van Til, the county

surveyor, violated those rules and wound up indicted by a federal grand jury on six

counts of wire fraud. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 2(a). Van Til pleaded guilty to those charges

pursuant to a plea agreement in which he waived his right to appeal “all components of

[his] sentence or the manner in which [his] ... sentence was determined or imposed.”

The district court sentenced him to 18 months’ imprisonment, three years’ supervised

release, $600 in special assessments, and $26,502.74 in restitution to the County.

Notwithstanding the waiver we just quoted, Van Til has brought this appeal, in which

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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he asserts that the restitution component of his sentence is too high. Whether or not this

point would have had merit, however, is beside the point. Nothing in the present record

justifies disregarding the appeal waiver, and so we dismiss this appeal.

I

Van Til was elected county surveyor for Lake County in 1992. Once in office, he

required his employees to perform political work on county time: they planned

fundraisers, tracked fundraising efforts, wrote checks, made phone calls, maintained a

political Facebook page, designed graphics, drafted letters, and stuffed envelopes. The

employees were paid by the county, via direct deposit into their bank accounts, for time

that Van Til knew was spent doing political work for him. County regulations

specifically forbade employees from doing political work on county time or from using

county resources for political purposes.

Federal authorities caught wind of Van Til’s activities and opened an

investigation. This resulted in the wire fraud charges that led to Van Til’s guilty plea.

The indictment alleged a scheme that lasted from February 2007 through December

2012. In the plea agreement, Van Til admitted that the loss amount for purposes of the

Sentencing Guidelines was between $10,000 and $30,000, and that he would be required

to pay restitution in an amount to be determined by the court. He also agreed to the

broad waiver of appeal rights mentioned earlier.

We focus here on the restitution component of Van Til’s sentence, as it is the only

part he would like to challenge. The Presentence Investigation Report summarized the

political work that several employees performed for Van Til on county time for the 2008

and 2012 primary and general elections; it adopted the government’s loss calculation of

$26,462.74 as the basis for restitution. At sentencing, the government presented a slightly

revised loss calculation worksheet that calculated a loss of $26,603.74. At sentencing, the

court revised the total to $26,502.74, when the government acquiesced to Van Til’s

argument that employee Christine Tanis was responsible for only $399, not for $500.   

Van Til also objected to the government’s estimate of the loss attributable to John

Mroczkowski, who accounted for most of the total loss identified by the

government—$22,176.00. The government estimated that during the seven‐month

campaign season (January through May for the primary, and September through

October for the general election, in both 2008 and 2012), Mroczkowski had spent 50% of

his time in the surveyor’s office doing political work for Van Til. According to Van Til,

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Mroczkowski was responsible for no more than $9,028.00 in loss; if accepted that change

would have reduced the total loss for restitution purposes to $13,354.74. (Van Til uses

the figure $13,345.74, but that appears to reflect a mistaken transposition of digits. The

difference in figures is immaterial to our analysis.) The district court rejected Van Til’s

argument, however, and entered a judgment requiring Van Til to pay $26,502.74 in

restitution to Lake County.

II

Because this case turns on Van Til’s appeal waiver, it is helpful to see what the

relevant part of the plea agreement, section 7(e), says:   

I understand that the law gives a convicted person the right to appeal the

conviction and the sentence imposed. I also understand that no one can

predict the precise sentence that will be imposed, and that the Court has

jurisdiction and authority to impose any sentence within the statutory

maximum set for my offense(s) as set forth in this plea agreement. with

[sic] this understanding and in consideration of the government’s entry

into this plea agreement, I expressly waive my right to appeal or to contest

my conviction and all components of my sentence or the manner in which

my conviction or my sentence was determined or imposed, to any Court

on any ground, including any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel

unless the claimed ineffective assistance of counsel relates directly to the

negotiation of this plea agreement, including any appeal under Title 18,

United States Code, Section 3742 or any post‐conviction proceeding,

including but not limited to, a proceeding under Title 28, United States

Code, Section 2255. ...   

Relying on the phrase “any sentence within the statutory maximum set for my

offense(s),” Van Til urges that this language limits the waiver to those parts of the

sentence governed by the statutory maximum in the wire fraud statute under which he

was convicted, 18 U.S.C. § 1343. That statute mentions only imprisonment and a fine as

potential punishments; ergo, Van Til reasons, the restitution order (made pursuant to the

Mandatory Restitution to Victims Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A) falls outside the scope of the

waiver.   

He points to United States v. Behrman, 235 F.3d 1049 (7th Cir. 2000), to support this

position, but Behrman does not help him. The appeal waiver there provides that the

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defendant “knowingly waives the right to appeal any sentence within the maximum

provided in the statute(s) of conviction (or the manner in which that sentence was

determined).” Id. at 1051. Van Til’s waiver differs precisely because it is not linked to the

statute of conviction. To the contrary, the waiver refers to “all components of my

sentence or the manner in which ... my sentence was determined or imposed.” As the

government points out, this language does not differ meaningfully from that in the

appeal waiver considered in United States v. Worden, 646 F.3d 499 (7th Cir. 2011). The

court there also confirmed that “restitution is a part of a criminal sentence,” and so when

a defendant “agree[s] not to challenge his sentence, he may not appeal the restitution

order.” Id. at 502.   

Van Til also tries to avoid his waiver with a procedural argument: unlike the

district court in Worden, he suggests, the court in his case did not expressly mention

restitution when discussing the appeal waiver. That argument fails to take into account

everything that was said during the plea colloquy, nor does it acknowledge that the

terms of this waiver are clear and unambiguous. During the plea colloquy, the district

court informed Van Til three times that restitution would be part of his sentence, and it

emphasized the broad scope of his appeal waiver, spelling out that Van Til was waiving

his right to contest “all components of your sentence of the manner in which they were

determined or imposed.” Taken as a whole, this discussion adequately warned Van Til

about the full scope of the waiver, and in particular its coverage of restitution.

Based on the appeal waiver in Van Til’s plea agreement, we hereby DISMISS this

appeal.   

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