UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08-4568

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff – Appellee, 

 v. 

YOLANDA CRAWLEY, 

 Defendant – Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, District Judge. 

(1:07-cr-00066-JFM-2) 

Submitted: December 24, 2008 Decided: March 30, 2009 

Before TRAXLER, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges. 

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Jack B. Rubin, Flynn M. Owens, RUBIN & OWENS, P.A., Baltimore, 

Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J. Rosenstein, United States 

Attorney, Kwame J. Manley, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 

Rehearing granted, June 16, 2009
PER CURIAM: 

 Yolanda Crawley pled guilty to one count of wire 

fraud, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1343 (West Supp. 2008). The district court 

imposed a sentence of twenty-four months imprisonment and 

ordered Crawley to make restitution in the amount of $200,000. 

Crawley appeals the judgment, arguing that the government 

breached the plea agreement by not recommending a sentence at 

the low end of the advisory guideline range as it was obligated 

to do under the terms of the plea agreement. We agree that the 

government failed to fulfill its obligation under the plea 

agreement. We therefore vacate the sentence imposed by the 

district court and remand for resentencing before a different 

judge. 

 Crawley and the government stipulated that she had 

knowingly and willfully worked with her son, Sean Green, and two 

other people to submit mortgage applications and documents 

containing false information about her income and employment so 

as to obtain loans to buy two properties in Florida, one worth 

over $1 million, the other worth $500,000. The government 

stipulated that it would not oppose a two-level adjustment for 

acceptance of responsibility, U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual

§ 3E1.1 (2007), and that Crawley was eligible for an additional 

2 
one-level reduction under § 3E1.1.1 The government promised in 

Paragraph 13 of the agreement that it would “make a sentencing 

recommendation within the low end of the guideline range 

determined by the Court,” but the agreement also provided that, 

if Crawley breached the agreement, the government would be 

released from its obligations under the agreement and free to 

recommend any sentence that it considered appropriate. 

 The plea agreement provided that Crawley would breach 

the agreement if she knowingly withheld information; gave false, 

incomplete or misleading testimony or information; falsely 

minimized the involvement of any person, including herself; “or 

failed to accept personal responsibility for her conduct by 

failing to acknowledge her guilt to the probation officer who 

prepares the Presentence Report.” When the presentence report 

was prepared, the probation officer recommended a two-level 

adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, stating that 

Crawley had admitted her involvement in the offense and accepted 

responsibility for her actions, and noting that the government 

had agreed to recommend an additional one-level reduction. With 

 1

 The district court may give a two-level reduction in 

offense level if it determines that the defendant has accepted 

responsibility for her offense. USSG § 3E1.1(a). If the 

defendant qualifies for a reduction under subsection (a) and the 

government moves for an additional one-level reduction based on 

the defendant’s timely notice of her intent to plead guilty, the 

district court should grant it. USSG § 3E1.1(b). 

3 
the three-level adjustment under § 3E1.1, the recommended 

offense level was 14. Crawley was in criminal history category 

I. The recommended advisory guideline range was 15-21 months. 

 Before sentencing, and before Crawley filed her 

sentencing memorandum with the district court, the government 

filed a sentencing memorandum in which it agreed with the 

guideline calculation in the presentence report, but stated that 

it had given notice to Crawley that the district court might 

depart upward based on her criminal conduct. The government 

also noted that, “[t]he Court has expressed concern about the 

nature of these crimes and their facilitation of drug-related 

activities.”2 The government asserted that Crawley’s son, Sean 

Green, was a drug dealer, and that Crawley believed he was a 

drug dealer when she committed the offense because “Crawley knew 

that Green had no legitimate income and enjoyed a high-end 

lifestyle of expensive homes, expensive cars, and hundred[s] of 

thousands of dollars in cash.” The government alleged that 

Crawley “personally received over $240,000 in cash from an 

individual [Green] she believed was involved in drug dealing. 

She wired payments, wrote checks, and otherwise facilitated the 

 2

 The court expressed this concern when sentencing Crawley’s 

co-defendants. 

4 
laundering of much of these funds.” The government concluded 

with the following recommendation: 

In short, the Government believes that a significant 

sentence of jail time is appropriate. The Court has 

already expressed concerns as to why Crawley and 

others in this case were not charged in a drug 

conspiracy. As always, the Court can incorporate its 

evaluation of Crawley’s criminal conduct in imposing 

an upward departure under the advisory guidelines 

and/or an upward variance under Section 3553 factors. 

The Government believes a significant term of 

incarceration is appropriate. 

 Crawley responded by asserting in her own written 

memorandum that she had no direct knowledge that Green was 

involved with drugs, and that she believed her son was proposing 

a legitimate business venture when he asked her to help him buy 

real estate using her good credit. She stated that she believed 

he had the money to make the mortgage payments legitimately. 

She denied that she had knowingly helped to launder drug 

proceeds. 

 On the day before sentencing, the government submitted 

a letter to the court disputing Crawley’s assertions that she 

did not know Green was involved with drugs in connection with 

the mortgage fraud and that she believed he had enough 

legitimate income to make the mortgage payments. The government 

represented that, in her post-arrest interview with law 

enforcement officers, Crawley said she suspected that Green was 

dealing drugs, and explained why she did. The government stated 

5 
that it would not move for the additional one-level reduction 

for acceptance of responsibility, and gave notice that it would 

recommend a sentence of thirty months imprisonment. 

 At the sentencing hearing, the court noted that 

Crawley had not been charged with a drug crime, but expressed 

concern that she was denying any knowledge of her son’s 

involvement with drug dealing, despite her statements to the 

agents after her arrest. The government asked for a sentence of 

thirty months, stating that it was released from its obligations 

under the plea agreement because Crawley had breached the 

agreement. The court determined that Crawley had not accepted 

responsibility and had tried to conceal the extent of her 

knowledge about the mortgage fraud. Nevertheless, the court 

gave Crawley the two-level adjustment for acceptance of 

responsibility recommended in the presentence report. Crawley’s 

total offense level was thus 15 and her guideline range was 

18-24 months. The court imposed a sentence of twenty-four 

months. 

 “It is settled that a defendant alleging the 

Government’s breach of a plea agreement bears the burden of 

establishing that breach by a preponderance of the evidence.” 

United States v. Snow, 234 F.3d 187, 189 (4th Cir. 2000). 

However, when the defendant fails to raise the issue in the 

district court, we review the issue for plain error. United 

6 
States v. McQueen, 108 F.3d 64, 65-66 & n.1 (4th Cir. 1997) 

(citing United States v. Fant, 974 F.2d 559, 565 (4th Cir. 

1992)). The appellant must show not only that the plea 

agreement was breached, but also that “the breach was ‘so 

obvious and substantial that failure to notice and correct it 

affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of the 

judicial proceedings.’” McQueen, 108 F.3d at 66 & n.4 (quoting 

Fant, 974 F.2d at 565). Crawley did not assert in the district 

court that the government breached her plea agreement. 

Consequently, her claim is reviewed for plain error. 

 “When a plea agreement rests in any significant degree 

on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be 

said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise 

must be fulfilled.” Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262 

(1971). As this court has stated, the interpretation of a plea 

agreement is rooted in contract law and each party should 

receive the benefit of its bargain. United States v. Peglera, 

33 F.3d 412, 413 (4th Cir. 1994) (citing United States v. 

Ringling, 988 F.2d 504, 506 (4th Cir. 1993) (internal quotations 

omitted)). However, because a defendant’s fundamental and 

constitutional rights are implicated when he is induced to plead 

guilty by reason of a plea agreement, this court analyzes a 

breach of that agreement with greater scrutiny than in a 

commercial contract. See McQueen, 108 F.3d at 66. 

7 
 Here, it appears that the government first breached 

the plea agreement in its memorandum of April 1, 2008, when it 

advocated a “significant sentence of jail time,” and suggested 

that the court might wish to depart upward, without mentioning 

that it had agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the 

guideline range. At sentencing, the government again failed to 

recommend a sentence at the low end of the guideline range as it 

had promised to do. 

 The government argues that Crawley breached the 

agreement by failing to accept responsibility and minimizing her 

role in the criminal scheme, thus releasing the government from 

its obligations under the agreement. However, the government 

cannot unilaterally declare itself released from its obligations 

under a plea agreement because the defendant has breached the 

agreement. Only after a hearing and a judicial determination 

that the defendant breached the agreement may the government be 

released from the promises it made. United States v. Guzman, 

318 F.3d 1191, 1196 (10th Cir. 2003); United States v. Frazier, 

213 F.3d 409, 419 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. Simmons, 

537 F.2d 1260, 1261-62 (4th Cir. 1976). The government filed 

its sentencing memorandum several weeks before Crawley filed her 

own memorandum, apparently in reaction to comments made by the 

judge in a related proceeding rather than anything Crawley had 

8 
done or said at that point.3 The government never mentioned its 

obligation to recommend a sentence at the low end of the range, 

either in its written submissions to the court or at the 

sentencing hearing. While the government stated at sentencing 

that Crawley had breached the agreement, and the court appeared 

to accept this explanation for the government’s sentence 

recommendation, the court made no determination that Crawley had 

in fact breached the agreement, the basis for the alleged 

breach, or when the breach might have occurred. 

 Although it is not clear that the district court would 

have imposed a different sentence if the government had kept its 

promise, Crawley did not receive the benefit of her bargain. 

Therefore, we are satisfied that she was prejudiced and that the 

government’s breach constitutes plain error that should be 

addressed on appeal. “[A] government that lives up to its 

commitments is the essence of liberty under law, [and] the harm 

generated by allowing the government to forego its plea bargain 

 3

 Co-defendant David Lincoln’s sentencing hearing began on 

March 20, 2008, and concluded on April 2, 2008. Co-defendant 

Rachel Donegan was sentenced on March 18, 2008. The government 

filed its sentencing memorandum in Crawley’s case on 

April 1, 2008. Crawley filed her sentencing memorandum on April 

23, 2008, and was sentenced on April 24, 2008. The government 

replied to her memorandum in a letter to the court filed 

April 24, 2008. 

9 
10 

obligations is one which cannot be tolerated.” Peglera, 33 F.3d 

at 414. 

 Accordingly, we vacate the judgment and remand the 

case for resentencing before a different judge. We dispense 

with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are 

adequately presented in the materials before the court and 

argument would not aid the decisional process. 

VACATED AND REMANDED