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Parties Involved:
Paul Sinh Tran
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

File Name: 17a0177n.06 

No. 16-5448 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

 Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

PAUL SINH TRAN, 

 Defendant-Appellant. 

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN 

DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY 

BEFORE: GIBBONS, COOK, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges. 

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Paul Sinh Tran was sentenced to 

27 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to tax fraud and to structuring currency 

transactions. Tran appeals the imposition of a two-point enhancement under Section 2S1.3(b)(1) 

of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines). That enhancement applies if Tran 

knew or believed that the funds from his structured transactions were the proceeds of unlawful 

activity or if he intended that the transactions promote unlawful activity. Given his concessions 

before the district court, Tran has waived this claim. Even on the merits, however, the district 

court did not plainly err in applying the enhancement because Tran conceded that his structured 

transactions were intended to promote illegal activity—namely, filing false tax returns. 

Accordingly, we affirm the sentence imposed by the district court. 

I. 

 In July 2015, Paul Sinh Tran was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District 

of Kentucky. Tran was charged with three counts of willfully aiding and assisting in the 

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preparation of materially false tax returns that understated his income for the 2009 (Count 1), 

2010 (Count 2), and 2011 (Count 3) tax years, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(2). Tran was 

also charged with structuring more than $100,000 in currency transactions during a twelvemonth period in order to evade federal reporting requirements while violating another law or as 

part of a pattern of illegal activity, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a)(3).

In January 2015, Tran entered into a plea agreement with the United States. In exchange 

for his agreement to plead guilty to Count 2, the 2010 tax-fraud charge, and Count 4, the 

currency-structuring charge, the government agreed to dismiss Counts 1 and 3 at sentencing. 

The parties stipulated that the government could prove facts sufficient to establish the essential 

elements of both Count 2 and Count 4.

The facts established that Tran, a licensed chiropractor, owned and operated Champion 

Family Chiropractic (CFC) in Kentucky. CFC received a portion of its income directly from 

insurance companies. These payments included a Form 1099 to ensure that there was a record of 

the payment for the IRS. CFC, however, also received payments directly from patients. 

These payments were made by cash, personal check, or through an insurer’s check to the patient 

that was then signed over to CFC. 

Tran used a tax preparer to complete and file his federal tax returns and to account for his 

income from CFC. Instead of reporting all of his income, however, he provided the tax preparer 

with only the 1099 forms that CFC received when it was reimbursed directly by an insurance 

company. Tran did not provide personal or business bank statements, which would have 

reflected additional income. In total, by so limiting what he disclosed to his tax preparer, Tran 

failed to report $44,820 of income in 2009, $26,680 in 2010, and $30,060 in 2011. This resulted 

in an outstanding tax liability of $36,575.70 to the IRS. 

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At the same time, Tran was withdrawing and depositing cash at various financial 

institutions to support his gambling habit. He kept his transactions just below $10,000 to keep 

from triggering the institutions’ obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act to file a Currency 

Transaction Report with the federal government. In total, Tran made $196,190.71 in structured 

transactions, over $100,000 of which occurred during 2010 while he was assisting in the 

preparation of false tax returns.

In the plea agreement, Tran and the government also agreed to non-binding calculations 

under the November 2015 Sentencing Guidelines pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(B). The 

agreement contemplated a base offense level of 16 with a two-point enhancement under 

§ 2S1.3(b)(1) because Tran knew or believed that the funds were proceeds of unlawful activity or 

intended to promote unlawful activity and a two-point enhancement under § 2S1.3(b)(2) because 

the currency transactions were committed as part of a pattern of unlawful activity involving more 

than $100,000 in a twelve-month period. The calculation also included a two-point reduction for 

acceptance of responsibility and a one-point reduction for Tran’s timely notice of intent to plead 

guilty. This resulted in a total offense level of 17. Tran and the government did not reach an 

agreement as to Tran’s criminal-history designation. The parties, however, did agree that the 

IRS was entitled to $36,575.70 in restitution and that Tran must forfeit $108,600 for the 

structured transactions. 

Tran waived his right to appeal his guilty plea and conviction as well as his right to 

collaterally attack his plea, conviction, or sentence on any ground other than ineffective 

assistance of counsel. Tran did not waive his right to appeal his sentence. 

On January 4, 2016, the district court accepted the plea agreement as well as Tran’s 

guilty plea. In advance of sentencing, the United States Probation Office issued a Pre-Sentence 

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Report (PSR). The PSR concluded that Tran’s total offense level was 17, which included the 

two-point enhancement under § 2S1.3(b)(1). The PSR also noted that Tran’s criminal-history 

category was III, resulting in a guideline range of 27–33 months’ imprisonment. There were no 

objections to the PSR. Tran, however, filed a sentencing memorandum arguing that, given the 

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, he should receive a sentence at the low-end of the guideline range. 

 The district court held a sentencing hearing on April 4, 2016. After confirming that there 

were no objections to the PSR, the district court reviewed the sentencing calculations, including 

the § 2S1.3(b)(1) enhancement. When asked, counsel for Tran and for the government agreed 

with the district court’s calculation of a total offense level of 17 and a Guidelines range of 27–33 

months. The district court then sentenced Tran to 27 months’ imprisonment on Count 2 and 27 

months’ imprisonment on Count 4, to be served concurrently. Tran was also sentenced to 3 

years’ supervised release. The court ordered restitution and forfeiture in line with the plea 

agreement and granted the government’s motion to dismiss Counts 1 and 3. After the district 

court entered judgment on April 6, 2016, Tran filed a timely notice of appeal challenging his 

sentence.

II. 

The government asks that we dismiss Tran’s appeal because he has waived his ability to 

challenge the § 2S1.3(b)(1) enhancement. Although Tran concedes that he failed to object to the 

sentencing enhancement before the district court, he argues that his actions do not constitute a 

waiver of this claim. 

“[W]aiver is the ‘intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.’” United 

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993) (quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 

(1938)); United States v. Priddy, 808 F.3d 676, 681 (6th Cir. 2015). “A defendant’s failure to 

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object to a sentencing error, or even his acknowledgment that he has no objection, does not 

amount to a waiver of that error.” United States v. Mabee, 765 F.3d 666, 671 (6th Cir. 2014); 

see also United States v. Fowler, 819 F.3d 298, 306 (6th Cir. 2016). “However, where the 

defendant has ‘explicitly agreed’ that a particular guideline calculation or enhancement applies to 

his sentence, any challenge to that enhancement on appeal is waived.” Priddy, 808 F.3d at 681 

(citing United States v. Aparco-Centeno, 280 F.3d 1084, 1088 (6th Cir. 2002)); Mabee, 765 F.3d 

at 671. We have said that an explicit agreement occurs when a defendant expresses a “plain, 

positive concurrence” or a “plain, explicit concession on the record” with respect to the 

application of the enhancement. Mabee, 765 F.3d at 672–73; see also Priddy, 808 F.3d at 681; 

Fowler, 819 F.3d at 306. “After agreeing, the defendant cannot make the opposite argument on 

appeal; the argument is waived and [we do] not review it.” Priddy, 808 F.3d at 681. 

We have held that a defendant waived his right to challenge a calculation or enhancement 

under the Guidelines because he had “explicitly agreed” to its applicability on four different 

occassions. See Aparco-Centeno, 280 F.3d at 1086 (finding that a defendant’s admission in his 

sentencing memorandum that his prior convictions qualified as aggravated felonies precluded 

him from challenging such a designation on appeal); Priddy, 808 F.3d at 682 (relying on AparcoCenteno to hold that a defendant waived his ability to challenge his designation as an Armed 

Career Criminal when his sentencing memorandum and his lawyer’s statements in court 

reiterated that the designation applied); United States v. McBride, 826 F.3d 293, 295 (6th Cir. 

2016) (holding that statements in a defendant’s plea agreement, sentencing memorandum, and 

during his sentencing hearing, which reflected his agreement with his career-offender 

designation, constituted waiver of a challenge to that designation on appeal); United States v. 

Moore, 654 F. App’x 705, 709 (6th Cir. 2016) (finding explicit agreement to a statutory 

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enhancement because a defendant had acknowledged he was subject to the enhancement in his 

plea agreement and during his change-of-plea hearing). 

In this case, Tran explicitly agreed to the applicability of § 2S1.3(b)(1) in his plea 

agreement. At his rearraignment, Tran told the court that he had reviewed the agreement with 

counsel, understood its terms, and was entering the agreement voluntarily. After the government 

summarized the agreement—specifically stating: “In paragraph 7, the parties set out the 

recommended sentencing guideline calculations, and the paragraph permits that the parties may 

object to or argue in favor of other calculations”—both Tran and his attorney agreed that this 

accurately reflected the terms of the parties’ agreement. When Tran returned for his sentencing 

hearing, the district court reviewed Tran’s base offense level, criminal history, and sentencing 

enhancements, including an explicit reference to § 2S1.3(b)(1)’s applicability. When asked, 

Tran’s attorney agreed that the Guidelines were accurately calculated. 

Tran’s situation is thus sufficiently similar to McBride and Moore—where the defendants 

conceded the applicability of sentencing provisions in their plea agreements and in open court—

for these cases to control the outcome here. See McBride, 826 F.3d at 295; Moore, 654 F. App’x 

at 709. Accordingly, we conclude that Tran explicitly agreed to the applicability of 

§ 2S1.3(b)(1) and waived his ability to challenge it on appeal.

III. 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the sentence imposed by the district court. 

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