Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-03190/USCOURTS-caDC-05-03190-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Antonio C. Bras
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 20, 2006 Decided April 20, 2007

No. 05-3190

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ANTONIO C. BRAS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cr00051-01)

Joseph J. Aronica argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Suzanne G. Curt, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With her on the brief were Kenneth L. Wainstein,

U.S. Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Roy W.

McLeese, III, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., and Steven J. Durham,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: GARLAND and BROWN, Circuit Judges, and

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

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GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Antonio C. Bras pled guilty to

conspiracy to commit bribery and highway project fraud in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, an offense for which the statutory

maximum is five years in prison. He was sentenced to 37

months’ incarceration under the regime announced in United

States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). The validity of that

sentence is the only issue on appeal. 

Bras raises four challenges to his sentence. First, he

contends that the district court sentenced him in violation of

Booker principles, because it increased his sentence based on

facts found by the court itself, using a preponderance of the

evidence standard. Second, Bras maintains that the court

violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses

against him, by increasing his sentence based upon testimonial

evidence that was not subject to cross-examination. Third, he

argues that the court used unreliable evidence to calculate the

loss that his crime caused the government, and thereby erred in

calculating his advisory Sentencing Guidelines range. Finally,

Bras claims that his sentence was unreasonable, because the

district court failed to adequately consider the relevant statutory

sentencing factors. Finding these challenges to be without

merit, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

I

On February 5, 2003, a grand jury issued a fifteen-count

indictment against defendant Bras, charging him with

participating in a conspiracy in which Fort Meyer Construction

Corporation, through the use of bribes and false documents,

overcharged the District of Columbia Department of Public

Works (DPW) for asphalt used to pave District streets. See 18

U.S.C. §§ 371 (conspiracy to commit an offense against or to

defraud the United States), 201 (bribery of a public official),

1020 (highway project fraud). Trial commenced on December

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1, 2003. The evidence at trial, supplemented by the defendant’s

admissions during his mid-trial guilty plea, established the

following facts.

Fort Meyer contracted with the DPW to repair and resurface

roads in the District of Columbia. Using funds provided largely

by the Federal Highway Administration, the District paid Fort

Meyer based on the weight of asphalt it delivered, in amounts

ranging from $38 to $50 per ton. The amount of asphalt

delivered in each truckload was recorded on an “asphalt ticket,”

which a Fort Meyer employee gave to a DPW employee when

the asphalt arrived on site. At the end of each day, relying on

the asphalt tickets, a DPW inspector prepared an Inspector’s

Daily Report (IDR), which recorded the total weight of asphalt

delivered to the job site. After the data from the IDRs was

entered into a computer, the DPW prepared a voucher that

authorized payment to Fort Meyer for the asphalt and paving

work. 

Bras was initially employed by Fort Meyer as an asphalt

foreman. He was promoted to asphalt superintendent in October

1996, when his superior, Keith Armentrout, could no longer

perform his day-to-day responsibilities due to health problems.

Thereafter, Bras was responsible for ensuring that Fort Meyer

delivered the proper amount of asphalt to DPW job sites.

As superintendent, Bras continued a bribery scheme that

had been initiated by Armentrout. Bras conspired with other

Fort Meyer employees, and with DPW inspectors and engineers,

to pay the DPW employees to accept false asphalt tickets

reflecting tons of asphalt that had never been delivered. The

DPW employees then prepared IDRs that included the false

weights, and the DPW paid Fort Meyer based on the resulting

calculations. At trial, five DPW employees -- inspectors David

Brown and Thomas Smith, and engineers Timothy Martin,

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1

Bras was sentenced under the 2000 edition of the Guidelines.

See Gov’t Br. 24 n.23. Accordingly, the citations in this opinion are

to that edition.

Clarence Short, and Jonathan Gant -- testified that they took

bribes from Bras as part of this scheme.

At the close of the government’s case, the district court

dismissed eight of the fifteen counts against Bras. The

following Monday, pursuant to a written plea agreement, Bras

pled guilty to Count One of the original indictment (which had

not been dismissed). That count charged Bras with conspiring

to defraud the United States and to bribe DPW employees to

accept false tickets for never-provided asphalt, in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 371. At the subsequent plea proceeding, Bras signed

a Statement of Facts that was read into the record. The

Statement described the aforementioned bribery scheme and

listed numerous specific occasions, from July 16, 1997, to

September 24, 1997, upon which Bras gave false asphalt tickets

to DPW employees, thereby “inflating the quantity of asphalt

delivered to a job site” and “fraudulently inflating” a federal

contract. Appendix (App.) 42-43. 

The final sentencing proceedings in the case took place after

the Supreme Court issued its opinion in United States v. Booker,

which excised the federal statutory provisions that made the

United States Sentencing Guidelines mandatory, and thus

rendered the Guidelines “effectively advisory.” 543 U.S. at 245-

46; see United States v. Simpson, 430 F.3d 1177, 1182 (D.C.

Cir. 2005). Looking to the Guidelines for advice, the court

began with the appropriate guideline for the offense to which

Bras pled guilty. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual §

2C1.1 (2000) [hereinafter U.S.S.G.] (offering or giving a bribe);

see also id. § 2X1.1 (conspiracy).1

 This guideline begins with

a base offense level of 10, see id. § 2C1.1(a), to which the court

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added two levels because Bras participated in more than one

bribe, see id. § 2C1.1(b)(1). The guideline further instructs that,

if the loss to the government exceeds $2,000, the offense level

should be increased based upon the amount of loss. See id. §

2C1.1(b)(2)(A) (referencing loss table at U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1).

After two days of evidentiary hearings, the court determined that

the loss to the government was at least $41,000, which

corresponded to a five-level increase in the offense level. See

id. § 2F1.1(b)(1)(F). The court also found that Bras was an

organizer or leader of the scheme, which added an additional

four levels. See id. § 3B1.1(a). 

The resulting offense level was 21, which, in light of the

fact that Bras had no prior convictions, yielded an advisory

Guidelines range of 37 to 46 months’ incarceration. See id. ch.

5, pt. A (sentencing table). After further consideration of other

sentencing factors, the district court sentenced him to a 37-

month prison term. Bras now appeals his sentence, charging

that the court committed a variety of errors in the course of

calculating the sentence.

In Booker, the Supreme Court instructed appellate courts to

review sentencing decisions under a “‘reasonableness’

standard.” 543 U.S. at 262. It also declared that, even

“[w]ithout the ‘mandatory’ provision” that it had excised from

the Sentencing Reform Act, “the Act nonetheless requires

judges to take account of the Guidelines together with other

sentencing goals” listed in the statute. Id. at 259 (citing 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a)). A sentencing court acts unreasonably if it

commits legal error in the process of taking the Guidelines or

other factors into account, or if it fails to consider them at all.

See Simpson, 430 F.3d at 1185-87; United States v. Price, 409

F.3d 436, 442-43 (D.C. Cir. 2005). A defendant may also

challenge the length of a sentence as unreasonable, although we

have held that “a sentence within a properly calculated

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Guidelines range is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of

reasonableness.” United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 366, 376

(D.C. Cir. 2006). With these precepts in mind, we turn to an

examination of Bras’ sentencing challenges.

II

Bras’ first contention is that the district court sentenced him

in violation of Booker principles, because it increased his

sentence based on facts found by the court, using a

preponderance of the evidence standard. According to Bras,

Booker held that, in “applying . . . the Guidelines,” any fact that

is “‘necessary to support a sentence exceeding the maximum

authorized by the facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury

verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury

beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Appellant’s Br. 11 (quoting

Booker, 543 U.S. at 244). Based only on the facts Bras admitted

in his plea, he contends that “the proper maximum authorized

sentence would be the 16 month maximum sentence allowed for

an Offense Level of 12, comprised in this case of a Base Offense

Level of 10 with a 2-level enhancement for making more than

one bribe.” Reply Br. 3. On this calculation, the resulting

sentencing range would have been 10 to 16 months, which Bras

argues should have been reduced still further by consideration

of other sentencing factors. Instead, Bras asserts, the court

“erroneously relied on additional facts the court found by a mere

preponderance” -- particularly facts regarding the amount of the

government’s loss -- “to impose an enhanced sentence of 37

months.” Id.

Bras misapprehends the meaning of Booker. As we have

previously explained, see Simpson, 430 F.3d at 1182, Booker

consisted of two separate majority opinions. In the first,

“substantive” opinion, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth

Amendment is violated when a court imposes a sentence under

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a set of mandatory guidelines based on its own determination of

“[a]ny fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to

support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by the

facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict . . . .”

Booker, 543 U.S. at 244. The Court emphasized, however, that

this conclusion “rests on the premise . . . that the relevant

sentencing rules are mandatory and impose binding

requirements on all sentencing judges.” Id. at 233. “If the

Guidelines as currently written could be read as merely advisory

provisions that recommended, rather than required, the selection

of particular sentences in response to differing sets of facts, their

use would not implicate the Sixth Amendment” even if it

yielded a sentence above that based on a plea or verdict alone.

Id.; see Cunningham v. California, 127 S. Ct. 856, 866 (2007);

United States v. Adewani, 467 F.3d 1340, 1341 (D.C. Cir. 2006);

Simpson, 430 F.3d at 1182.

In the second, “remedial” opinion, the Court found that the

statutory provisions making the Guidelines mandatory were

“incompatible with [Booker’s] constitutional holding” and had

to be “severed and excised.” Booker, 543 U.S. at 245. “So

modified,” the Court said, “the federal sentencing statute makes

the Guidelines effectively advisory.” Id. (citations omitted).

And so modified, the Court made clear, the Sixth Amendment’s

bar against judicial fact-finding does not apply to Guidelines

sentencing. Although judges are still required “to take account

of the Guidelines together with other sentencing goals,” without

“the provision that makes ‘the relevant sentencing rules . . .

mandatory . . . ,’ the statute falls outside [the constitutional]

requirement.” Id. at 259 (quoting id. at 233 (“substantive”

opinion)); see id. at 252; Adewani, 467 F.3d at 1341; Simpson,

430 F.3d at 1182.

Indeed, of the multiple opinions issued in Booker, only one

comes close to espousing the view urged by defendant Bras.

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That is the dissent to the Court’s remedial opinion, which

proposed, as a remedy, that the Guidelines remain mandatory

and the government “prove any fact that is required to increase

a defendant’s sentence under the Guidelines to a jury beyond a

reasonable doubt.” 543 U.S. at 284-85 (Stevens, J., dissenting)

(emphasis omitted). The majority, however, expressly rejected

this view. Id. at 258-59 (“remedial” opinion). Accordingly, we

do so as well. 

Bras further contends that, even if “judicial fact-finding

were permissible as a basis for imposing sentencing

enhancements, . . . such fact-finding must be subject, not to a

mere preponderance standard, but to the more exacting beyond

a reasonable doubt standard.” Appellant’s Br. 16 (internal

quotation marks omitted). There is no support for this

proposition, which is contrary to the Guidelines’ instruction that

“use of a preponderance of the evidence standard is appropriate

to meet due process requirements and policy concerns in

resolving disputes regarding application of the guidelines to the

facts of a case.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3 cmt. 

Prior to Booker, both the Supreme Court and this court had

“upheld the Guidelines’ application of the preponderance of the

evidence standard,” Dorcely, 454 F.3d at 372-73 (citing United

States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 157 (1997), and United States v.

Long, 328 F.3d 655, 670-71 (D.C. Cir. 2003)). If anything,

Booker appeared to reaffirm that precedent. See 543 U.S. at 251

(“remedial” opinion) (noting that the Court “held in United

States v. Watts that a sentencing judge could rely for sentencing

purposes upon a fact that a jury had found unproved (beyond a

reasonable doubt)” (citation omitted)). Following Booker, this

court rejected the contention that a sentencing judge may not

rely on facts found merely by preponderance when a jury has

previously acquitted a defendant of the same conduct. See

Dorcely, 454 F.3d at 372-73. If a court may rely on acquitted

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conduct when proven by preponderance, reliance on previously

untried conduct proven under that standard is a fortiori

permissible. 

We therefore reject Bras’ contention that a judge may not

make findings of fact when employing the Sentencing

Guidelines in an advisory fashion, as well as his fall-back

position that any such fact-finding must be made under a beyond

a reasonable doubt standard. Accord, e.g., United States v.

Smith, __ F.3d __, No. 06-14077, slip op. at 3 (11th Cir. Mar.

19, 2007); United States v. Hawkins, __ F.3d __, No. 05-4311,

slip op. at 4 (7th Cir. Mar. 9, 2007); United States v. Dare, 425

F.3d 634, 639-42 (9th Cir. 2005); United States v. Magallanez,

408 F.3d 672, 684-85 (10th Cir. 2005); United States v. Mares,

402 F.3d 511, 519 n.6 (5th Cir. 2005).

III

Bras’ second contention is that the district court violated his

Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him by

increasing his sentence based upon “testimonial hearsay

evidence that was not subject to cross-examination.”

Appellant’s Br. 19. In support, he cites the Supreme Court’s

decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), and recites Booker for the proposition that “the protections of the Sixth

Amendment are afforded to defendants during sentencing

proceedings.” Appellant’s Br. 20 (emphasis omitted).

Long before the advent of the Sentencing Guidelines, the

Supreme Court upheld, against constitutional attack, the “ageold practice of seeking information from out-of-court sources to

guide [a court’s] judgment toward a more enlightened and just

sentence.” Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 250-51 (1949).

The sentencing judge “is not restricted,” the Court said, “to

evidence derived from the examination and cross-examination

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of witnesses in open court but may . . . consider responsible

unsworn or ‘out-of-court’ information,” Williams v. Oklahoma,

358 U.S. 576, 584 (1959), and “may appropriately conduct an

inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either as to the kind of

information he may consider, or the source from which it may

come,” United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 446 (1972). Nor

were the hearsay (or other) provisions of the Federal Rules of

Evidence made applicable to sentencing. See FED. R. EVID.

1101(d)(3).

In the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress followed

this tradition by recodifying an earlier statute, which provided

that “[n]o limitation shall be placed on the information

concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person

convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may

receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate

sentence.” 18 U.S.C. § 3661 (recodifying 18 U.S.C. § 3577,

without change). Following Congress’ lead, the Sentencing

Guidelines state that, “[i]n determining the relevant facts,

sentencing judges are not restricted to information that would be

admissible at trial.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3 cmt. Our decisions, and

those of other courts, have repeatedly concluded that the use of

hearsay in Sentencing Guidelines determinations does not

violate the Constitution. See, e.g., In re Sealed Case, 246 F.3d

696, 700 (D.C. Cir. 2001); United States v. Drew, 200 F.3d 871,

879 (D.C. Cir. 2000); United States v. Shevi, 345 F.3d 675, 679

(8th Cir. 2003); Todd v. Schomig, 283 F.3d 842, 853 (7th Cir.

2002); United States v. Zlatogur, 271 F.3d 1025, 1031 (11th Cir.

2001); United States v. Berry, 258 F.3d 971, 976 (9th Cir. 2001).

In Crawford, the Supreme Court held that “testimonial

statements of a witness who d[oes] not appear at trial” are

inadmissible “unless he [is] unavailable to testify and the

defendant ha[s] had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.”

541 U.S. at 53-54. As the quotation indicates, Crawford applies

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only to “testimonial” evidence, and much of what Bras’

sentencing court relied on, see infra Part IV, does not fall within

that ambit. See id. at 56 (noting that business records “by their

nature [are] not testimonial”). Moreover, as the quotation

further reflects, Crawford was a case about the right to

confrontation at trial. See also Whorton v. Bockting, 127 S. Ct.

1173, 1182 (2007) (describing the purpose of the “Crawford

rule” as “ensuring that inaccurate out-of-court testimonial

statements are not used to convict an accused” (emphasis

added)). Nothing in Crawford suggests that the Court intended

to overturn its precedents permitting the use of hearsay at

sentencing. We are certainly not at liberty to do so. See

Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237-38 (1997).

Nor does Booker suggest that a sentencing court may not

rely on hearsay. As noted in Part II, supra, Booker held that the

Sixth Amendment right to a jury’s determination of facts does

not extend to determinations made under advisory guidelines. 

543 U.S. at 233 (“substantive” opinion); id. at 259 (“remedial”

opinion). Moreover, the Court expressed its understanding that

Congress’ direction, that “‘[n]o limitation shall be placed on the

information . . . which a court of the United States may receive

and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate

sentence,’” would continue in force under the modified

Guidelines regime that Booker instituted. Id. at 251 (quoting 18

U.S.C. § 3661) (“remedial” opinion). 

We therefore reject Bras’ challenge, and we join our sister

circuits in holding that nothing in Crawford or Booker “‘alter[s]

the pre-Crawford law that the admission of hearsay testimony at

sentencing does not violate confrontation rights.’” United States

v. Brown, 430 F.3d 942, 944 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting United

States v. Chau, 426 F.3d 1318, 1323 (11th Cir. 2005)); see

United States v. Littlesun, 444 F.3d 1196, 1199-1200 (9th Cir.

2006); United States v. Katzopoulos, 437 F.3d 569, 576 (6th Cir.

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2006); United States v. Stone, 432 F.3d 651, 654 (6th Cir. 2005);

United States v. Roche, 415 F.3d 614, 618 (7th Cir. 2005);

United States v. Luciano, 414 F.3d 174, 179 (1st Cir. 2005);

United States v. Martinez, 413 F.3d 239, 243-44 (2d Cir. 2005).

IV

“Even assuming, arguendo, that the Crawford test were

inapplicable,” Bras maintains that a sentencing court may not

rely on hearsay evidence unless it is “reliable.” Appellant’s Br.

22. Here, he is on firm legal ground. The Guidelines admonish

that, although the sentencing court may rely on evidence that

would be inadmissible at trial, the evidence must nonetheless

have “sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable

accuracy.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3. But while Bras insists that the

court used unreliable evidence to calculate the value of the loss

that his offense caused, we find to the contrary.

A

We begin with a description of the sentencing proceedings

undertaken by the district court. The court conducted a two-day

evidentiary hearing to determine how to calculate the loss to the

government, at which FBI Special Agent Kimberly Alaniz

testified at length. Through Alaniz’s testimony, the government

submitted a series of summary charts estimating the loss

resulting from the scheme at $512,165.18. Alaniz testified that

she prepared the charts based on documents obtained from Fort

Meyer, from DPW records, and from a box of records kept by

Bras’ deceased predecessor, Keith Armentrout. After

Armentrout’s death, his son gave the FBI the box, which

contained Fort Meyer Daily Reports, asphalt tickets,

photocopies of tickets, handwritten notes, and miscellaneous

other documents. 

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Alaniz explained her methodology as follows. For each day

that Fort Meyer delivered asphalt to a DPW site, a Fort Meyer

foreman would prepare a Daily Report listing the actual amount

of asphalt delivered to a particular location. (These should not

be confused with the IDRs -- the daily reports prepared by DPW

inspectors that included the weights from the false tickets.)

Because it was impossible to tell from the face of an asphalt

ticket whether it was false, Alaniz compared the asphalt totals in

the Daily Reports with the totals reflected on the asphalt tickets

for the same date, contract, and location. When the tickets

reflected a greater amount of asphalt than the Daily Report, thus

indicating a fraudulent overstatement, she calculated the

difference in tons and multiplied that amount by the appropriate

price per ton to determine the loss. 

Alaniz testified that the asphalt tickets she used for her

calculations came almost exclusively from the business records

of the DPW. The Daily Reports to which she compared the

asphalt tickets came from two sources: the business records of

Fort Meyer and the Armentrout box. Alaniz testified that, to

ensure the accuracy of the Daily Reports found in the box, she

reviewed them with a Fort Meyer official, who certified them as

copies of the original Fort Meyer documents. In addition, she

spoke with two Fort Meyer foremen, Lawrence Palmer and

Steve Kowalik, who examined and authenticated nearly all of

the Daily Reports from the Armentrout box that bore their

names. Alaniz also testified that, where the numbers recorded

on the Daily Reports were scratched out and replaced by higher

numbers that matched the final totals submitted to the DPW, she

relied on the lower number because Palmer and Kowalik told

her the lower numbers were the correct ones. Alaniz further

testified that “coring” tests were conducted at questionable

paving locations, revealing that less asphalt was laid at those

locations than Fort Meyer had been paid to deliver.

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Bras raised numerous objections to the government’s loss

calculations. These included objections to the following: the use

of certain documents from the Armentrout box; the decision to

rely on scratched-out numbers on specified Daily Reports; and

the use of asphalt tickets signed by DPW employee Robert

Lewis, which Alaniz included based on deceased co-conspirator

Joe Mathis’ statements that Lewis had been involved in the false

ticket scheme.

Although the court generally approved the government’s

method of calculating loss, as a first adjustment it asked Alaniz

to recalculate the loss by excluding any items not supported by

documentary evidence, whether from the Armentrout box or the

business records of DPW or Fort Meyer. This dropped the loss

from $512,165.18 to $456,959.86, which yielded a nine- rather

than ten-level increase under the Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. §

2F1.1(b)(1) (loss table). The district court then asked the agent

to delete any calculations relying on Daily Reports from the box

as to which there were no duplicate business records obtained

from the DPW or Fort Meyer. This produced a loss of

$226,749, which corresponded to an eight-level enhancement.

See id. At the final sentencing hearing, the court went through

additional iterations, further reducing the loss to eliminate

various of the defendant’s objections. The court concluded that,

although a nine-level enhancement was supported by specific

documentation, reduction to a five-level enhancement --

corresponding to a loss of $41,801 -- would “knock out all of

[Bras’] complaints about the figure.” Sentencing Hr’g Tr. 12

(Oct. 20, 2005); see id. at 61. The court then used the five-level

enhancement to calculate Bras’ total offense level of 21. See

United States v. Bras, No. 03cr00051-01, at 1 (D.D.C. Oct. 20,

2005) (Judgment). 

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B

On appeal, Bras challenges the district court’s reliance on

materials contained in the Armentrout box, on out-of-court

statements made to Agent Alaniz by Fort Meyer foremen Palmer

and Kowalik regarding the meaning of the scratched-out

numbers on their asphalt tickets, and on the plea allocution of

co-defendant Joe Mathis with respect to the falsity of asphalt

tickets signed by Lewis. In large part, however, the defendant’s

objections appear to be based on a misunderstanding as to the

loss enhancement applied by the court. The court did not accept

the government’s original loss estimate of $512,165.18

(corresponding to a ten-level increase), nor its first adjusted

estimate of $456,959.86 (corresponding to a nine-level

increase), nor even its second-order adjustment to $226,749

(corresponding to an eight-level increase). Rather, as the

Statement of Reasons filed by the court makes clear, it

“determined after [the] evidentiary hearing [a] loss at level 5,”

which corresponds to the further adjusted loss estimate of

$41,801. Bras, No. 03cr00051-01, at 1; see U.S.S.G. §

2F1.1(b)(1).

We need not decide whether the court could have relied on

any of the government’s higher estimates in reaching a

conclusion regarding the amount of loss. But see Sealed Case,

246 F.3d at 700 (holding that hearsay of sufficient reliability

may be used at sentencing); United States v. Nesbitt, 852 F.2d

1502, 1521 (7th Cir. 1988) (holding that a sentencing judge may

rely on information obtained during plea proceedings of codefendants). Whatever the reliability of those earlier

calculations, the $41,801 figure was based on the court’s

decision to eliminate all calculations about which the defendant

had any “complaints.” Sentencing Hr’g Tr. 12 (Oct. 20, 2005);

see id. at 61. When the court explained that this was how it had

arrived at the loss figure, the defendant had a fair opportunity to

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2

Bras also argues that, even “[t]hough Agent Alaniz may have

depended upon other methods to subsequently verify which tickets she

believed false, she would not have known where to begin looking for

false tickets out of the universe of 60,000 tickets had she not used Mr.

Armentrout’s box as a ‘guide.’” Appellant’s Br. 24. As there is no

claim that the box was obtained illegally, there is nothing to this

argument. No rule of law bars the government from using hearsay

evidence, reliable or not, to help focus a criminal investigation.

dispute that his complaints had been taken into account. As the

hearing record reflects, and as counsel conceded at oral

argument, he did not do so. See Oral Arg. Recording at 28:50.

Instead, Bras contends that he never admitted that there was

any loss at all. Appellant’s Br. 18; Reply Br. 4; Oral Arg.

Recording at 25:17.2

 This contention is mystifying. Bras signed

the government’s Statement of Facts, which described numerous

occasions on which Bras gave false asphalt tickets to DPW

employees, “thereby inflating” the federal contract. App. 42-43.

At his plea proceeding, the court asked Bras whether he

understood that “in giving a ticket that indicated some asphalt

had been delivered and it hadn’t been delivered, . . . Fort Meyer

would get paid based on that ticket even though they hadn’t

delivered any asphalt.” Hr’g Tr. 35 (Dec. 8, 2003). Bras

answered yes. Id.; see id. at 32-35.

We further note that, for all of Bras’ complaints regarding

out-of-court hearsay, the testimony at his trial more-thanconfirmed the loss determined by the district court. At Bras’

trial, five witnesses -- all available for cross-examination --

testified that Bras had given them between two and five

completely false tickets on a daily or almost daily basis. See

Trial Tr. 97, 99 (Dec. 2, 2003); Trial Tr. 136, 138 (Dec. 3,

2003); Trial Tr. 37, 173, 210 (Dec. 4, 2003); Trial Tr. 49-50, 62

(Dec. 5, 2003). Each ticket represented approximately twenty

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17

tons of never-delivered asphalt. One of the witnesses, Timothy

Martin, testified that he had taken three to five such tickets on

twenty to thirty occasions in 1997. See Trial Tr. 136, 138 (Dec.

3, 2003). Thus, even if the going rate for asphalt on all of those

days was at its low of $38 per ton, the loss described by Martin

alone was at least $45,600. We have previously upheld

sentences based on similar testimonial quantifications. Cf., e.g.,

United States v. Graham, 317 F.3d 262, 270-71 (D.C. Cir. 2003)

(affirming a sentencing court’s determination of the total

quantity of heroin attributed to a defendant based on the

testimony of co-conspirators regarding the frequency and

amount of individual distributions); United States v. Young, 247

F.3d 1247, 1252-53 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (holding that “testimony

about a conspirator’s intentions alone, even without physical

evidence, may be sufficient to establish the amount of drugs

contemplated as the object of a conspiracy”). 

Under the Sentencing Guidelines, “loss need not be

determined with precision,” and the “court need only make a

reasonable estimate of the loss, given the available information.”

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n.3. Accord United States v. Gottfried,

58 F.3d 648, 651 (D.C. Cir. 1995). In this case, a diligent

district judge held two days of evidentiary hearings, eventually

whittling down the loss estimate to a core as to which Bras did

not object. We find no error in the court’s determination. 

V

Bras’ final contention is that his sentence was unreasonable

because the district court failed to adequately consider the

sentencing factors listed in the Sentencing Reform Act, 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a). Appellant’s Br. 27. Booker does require

sentencing courts to consider the § 3553(a) factors. 543 U.S. at

259-60. As we have noted before:

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18

These include the (now advisory) range established by

the Guidelines. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4). But they

also include such factors as “the nature and

circumstances of the offense and the history and

characteristics of the defendant,” id. § 3553(a)(1); the

need for the sentence to “reflect the seriousness of the

offense,” to “promote respect for the law,” to “provide

just punishment,” to “afford adequate deterrence,” to

“protect the public,” and to “provide the defendant

with needed . . . training [and] medical care,” id. §

3553(a)(2); and the need to “avoid unwarranted

sentence disparities” among similarly situated

defendants, id. § 3553(a)(6).

Simpson, 430 F.3d at 1186; see Cunningham, 127 S. Ct. at 867.

In this case, the district court expressly considered the § 3553(a)

factors, and it did so in detail. The court explained that, among

other things, it considered Bras’ lack of criminal history, and his

education, employment, finances, physical and mental health,

and past and present family circumstances. Sentencing Hr’g Tr.

54-55 (Oct. 20, 2005). The district court is not required to refer

specifically “to each factor listed in § 3553(a),” nor is it required

“to explain sua sponte why it did not find [a particular] factor

relevant to its discretionary decision” if “a defendant has not

asserted the import of [that] factor.” Simpson, 430 F.3d at 1186-

87. 

Bras does not deny that the court addressed many of the

statutory factors; indeed, he does not suggest any relevant factor

that the court failed to mention. Nonetheless, the defendant

regards his 37-month sentence as unreasonable because it is

“‘greater than necessary[] to comply with the purposes’ of

sentencing as set out in the 3553(a)(2) factors.” Appellant’s Br.

27 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)). In support, he argues that the

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19

court’s consideration of certain specific sentencing factors was

inadequate.

The government insists that we may review this claim only

for “plain error,” because Bras did not argue in the district court

that his “37-month term was ‘unreasonable,’ or object that the

court did not adequately consider the factors” set forth in §

3553. Gov’t Br. 59. The plain error test does apply to

objections that should have been raised at sentencing. See

Booker, 543 U.S. at 268. Reasonableness, however, is the

standard of appellate review, see id. at 262, not an objection that

must be raised upon the pronouncement of a sentence. As the

Seventh Circuit has held:

To insist that defendants object at sentencing to

preserve appellate review for reasonableness would

create a trap for unwary defendants and saddle busy

district courts with the burden of sitting through an

objection -- probably formulaic -- in every criminal

case. Since the district court will already have heard

argument and allocution from the parties and weighed

the relevant § 3553(a) factors before pronouncing

sentence, we fail to see how requiring the defendant to

then protest the term handed down as unreasonable will

further the sentencing process in any meaningful way.

Certainly we do not mean to . . . suggest that our

longstanding insistence on proper objections as to other

sentencing issues, e.g., the application of a guideline

adjustment, should be relaxed. All we conclude here

is that our review of a sentence for reasonableness is

not affected by whether the defendant had the foresight

to label his sentence “unreasonable” before the

sentencing hearing adjourned.

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United States v. Castro-Juarez, 425 F.3d 430, 433-34 (7th Cir.

2005). We therefore proceed to apply the “‘reasonableness’

standard of review.” Booker, 543 U.S. at 262.

Although Bras contends that the district court’s analysis

was inadequate in numerous respects, only two are worthy of

comment. First, he argues that a 37-month sentence is

unreasonable because his involvement in the conspiracy was

exaggerated. “Mr. Armentrout was the leader of the

conspiracy,” Bras maintains, while he merely “stepped in to

‘serve as his arms and legs’” after Armentrout was

incapacitated. Appellant’s Br. 28. We see no error in the

court’s decision, under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a), to add four levels

to Bras’ offense level because he “was an organizer or leader of

a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was

otherwise extensive.” Id. § 3B1.1(a). “There can, of course, be

more than one person who qualifies as a leader or organizer of

a criminal association or conspiracy,” id. cmt. n.4, and the trial

testimony readily established that the requirements of Guideline

3B1.1(a) were satisfied. 

Nor was there anything inadequate about the court’s more

general consideration of this issue. As the court explained, Bras

had “a leadership role and an organizational one in the sense that

he had to organize [the conspiracy] to make it work both at Fort

Meyer as well as the DPW in order to have the scheme actually

continue, and under his leadership I think it increased.”

Sentencing Hr’g Tr. 37 (Oct. 20, 2005). Further, the court cited

trial testimony that, “as soon as the defendant became asphalt

superintendent, . . . he approached” DPW inspectors “about the

bribes,” and “either continued with those who had been doing it

[or] recruited a new one.” Id. He “certainly had substantial

operational authority,” id., “was involved in . . . distributing the

false tickets, . . . directed the dispatcher and certain personnel in

terms of producing the false tickets, [and] got the cash to pay the

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21

bribes and distribute[d]” them, id. at 38. The court further found

that Bras had “minimized his role when he pled,” id. at 52, and

that “he blamed others [and] falsely denied the extent of his

role.” Id. at 53. We have no basis for second-guessing any of

these determinations.

Bras’ second contention is that his 37-month sentence

creates an “unwarranted sentence disparit[y],” 18 U.S.C. §

3553(a)(6), with those of his co-conspirators, including DPW

inspectors, who received sentences of probation. Appellant’s

Br. 30. But as the district court told Bras directly, his coconspirators did not hold comparable positions, either in the

conspiracy or in their workplaces, “nor were they paid the kind

of salary that you were being paid in terms of your position.”

Sentencing Hr’g Tr. 58 (Oct. 20, 2005). Equally important, the

co-conspirators who received probation provided substantial

assistance in the investigation of the scheme, while Bras did not.

“Without, frankly, the cooperators,” the court explained, other

“individuals would not have come forward [and] the extent of

the scheme would not have been known.” Id. at 59. The court

found this distinction “very important,” id. at 60, and rightly so,

cf. U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 (authorizing a downward departure from

the Guidelines range when a defendant “has provided substantial

assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person

who has committed an offense”).

In sum, Bras has offered no basis for concluding that the

district court’s consideration of the relevant sentencing factors

was inadequate, or that the sentence it imposed was otherwise

unreasonable.

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VI

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court

is 

Affirmed.

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