IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-41346

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

VANESSA LISLA CLOUD, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 2:14-CR-130

Before WIENER, HIGGINSON, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Vanessa Cloud appeals the application of the “sadism” enhancement

under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(4) to her offense of aiding and abetting sexual 

exploitation of a child. Cloud contends that the sadism enhancement requires 

a finding that she “purposefully” intended to humiliate or degrade her son. 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

November 6, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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Because the district court did not clearly err in making the factual 

determination that Cloud’s conduct was sadistic, we AFFIRM. 

I.

Vanessa Cloud confessed to Child Protective Services that she had been 

sexually molesting her then seven-year-old son, John Doe. Cloud admitted 

that she performed oral sex on Doe; that Doe had sucked her breast and 

penetrated Cloud’s vagina with his sexual organ and fist; and that Doe’s father

had videotaped the activity. When Doe was eight years old, he was interviewed 

and said that he had had sexual intercourse with his mother and he had been 

made to do “sexual things.” Cloud’s cell phone was seized and found to contain 

five videos—all showing sexual activity between Cloud and John Doe with both 

giggling during oral sex. 

Cloud pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the sexual exploitation of a 

child for the purpose of producing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 2251(a), 2251(e), and 2. The Presentence Report applied the four-point 

section 2G2.1(b)(4) enhancement for an offense that involved material 

portraying sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence.

Cloud objected on the ground that humiliation “was not the purpose behind the 

material being made the way it was made.” She also argued that her conduct 

lacked the traditional hallmarks of sadism, and that her conduct didn’t “rise to 

a level of humiliation” under the guidelines. The government agreed with 

Cloud and added that in this case, unlike others in which the enhancement 

had been applied, it was the mother rather than the child who was penetrated.

In response to Cloud’s objections, the probation office stated that the sadism 

enhancement was appropriate because “the victim was debased, causing 

mental pain, for the purpose of sexually gratifying the defendant.” The district 

court rejected Cloud’s objection and the government’s concurrence stating:

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This law protects all children. There is lifelong humiliation and 

degradation to these children from the behavior in Count One. A mother 

imposing upon a seven-year-old child an act that she did of oral sex and 

then attempting an act of intercourse and then also achieving 

penetration of herself by another one of his limbs humiliates and 

degrades children. You cannot take the definition of what would 

humiliate and degrade an adult and apply it to children to the same 

degree. Children are more sensitive, have less defenses built into 

themselves, a greater trust of adults. Their relationship is totally 

different. How John Doe will get over those memories is John Doe's 

struggle.

The district court then adopted the PSR “as written.” 

II.

Whether the district court correctly interpreted the Sentencing 

Guidelines is a question of law that we review de novo. United States v. 

Lyckman, 235 F.3d 234, 237 (5th Cir. 2000). But the district court’s application 

of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts of the case are reviewed only for clear 

error. 1 Id.

III.

Section 2G2.1(b)(4) applies when the “offense involved material that 

portrays sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence.” 

U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(4). The Guidelines do not define the term “sadistic.” We 

thus have interpreted “sadistic conduct” by looking to Webster’s definition of 

sadism — “the infliction of pain upon a love object as a means of obtaining 

sexual release,” the “delight in physical or mental cruelty,” and the use of 

“excessive cruelty.” Lyckman, 235 F.3d at 238 n.19. We have also noted that 

 

1 The government argues that Cloud’s objections in the district court were insufficient 

to alert the court to Cloud’s argument on appeal. An objection must be sufficiently specific to 

alert the court to the nature of the error argued on appeal. United States v. Neal, 578 F.3d 

270, 272 (5th Cir. 2009). The record reflects that Cloud’s objections, insofar as they centered 

on whether the material depicted sadistic conduct for purposes of § 2G2.1(b)(4), sufficiently 

alerted the district court to the argument that Cloud raises on appeal. 

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application of the enhancement is warranted when the “sexual act depicted is 

likely to cause pain in one so young.” Id. at 238. And we have not limited pain

to the physical type. See id. at 239 (“[T]he conduct depicted by the photographs 

caused the children pain, physical or emotional or both, and therefore 

constitutes sadism or violence within the meaning of the guideline.”); United 

States v. Comeaux, 445 F. App'x 743, 745 (5th Cir. 2011) (“[A]n absence of 

physical pain is not per se outside the ambit of the enhancement for sadistic 

acts under § 2G2.1(b)(4)”).

Cloud argues that our case law requires a specific finding that the 

defendant engaged in the conduct for the purpose of degrading and humiliating 

the victim, a finding that she contends the district court did not make. She 

relies on the following sentence in Comeaux: “sadistic and masochistic conduct 

includes sexual gratification which is purposefully degrading and 

humiliating.” 445 F. App’x at 745. This gives too much effect to a single 

sentence in an unpublished opinion that did not purport to describe the only 

situation to which the enhancement applies, especially when the holding in 

that same opinion refers not to intent but to effect: “We hold only that where, 

as here, a district court finds that the child victim depicted in the child 

pornography at issue was humiliated or debased, the enhancement . . . may 

apply.” Id. at 746. That effect on the victim has often been the inquiry in our 

case law. See Lyckman, 235 F.3d at 239 (finding that the “conduct depicted by 

the photographs caused the children pain, physical or emotional or both” and 

“therefore constitutes sadism . . . within the meaning of the guideline”); United 

States v. Desadier, 495 F. App'x 501, 502 (5th Cir. 2012); see also United States 

v. Maurer, 639 F.3d 72, 80 (3d Cir. 2011) (finding that the enhancement should 

apply “whenever an image depicts sexual activity involving a prepubescent 

minor that would have caused pain”); United States v. Delmarle, 99 F.3d 80, 

83 (2d Cir. 1996) (“whatever might be inferred as to the purpose of the act 

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depicted or the reaction of the actor, it was within the court's discretion to 

conclude that the subjection of a young child to a sexual act that would have to 

be painful is excessively cruel and hence is sadistic”). And the Guideline itself 

does not require a “purposeful” finding. U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(4).

Because the district court was not required to separately find that Cloud 

“purposefully” intended to humiliate or degrade John Doe through her conduct, 

we only need review for clear error its finding that the conduct portrayed was 

in fact “humiliating and degrading” for the seven-year-old victim.

That is not a difficult determination. The district court correctly 

recognized that application of the sadism enhancement to cases involving

young victims is not limited to the situation when an adult male penetrates a 

young girl. Lyckman, 235 F.3d at 239. The horrendous conduct inflicted on 

John Doe in this case can easily support a finding that he was humiliated and 

degraded. The judgment is AFFIRMED.

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