[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 19-15106

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross Appellant,

versus

MACK DOAK,

Defendant-Appellant,

JAYCEE DOAK, 

Defendant-Appellant-Cross Appellee.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Alabama

D.C. Docket No. 1:18-cr-00242-KD-B-1

____________________

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Before GRANT, LUCK, and HULL, Circuit Judges.

GRANT, Circuit Judge:

Mack Doak was convicted by a jury of transporting his three 

adopted daughters across state lines so that he could sexually abuse 

them. From the time he adopted the girls until family members 

finally reported him five years later he subjected them to relentless 

abuse. 

Mack’s wife Jaycee knew what he was doing. Her adopted 

daughters confided in her after Mack abused them, but she refused

to help. She denied their allegations. She also yelled at the girls, 

blamed them for the abuse, and helped Mack travel across the 

country to keep his acts hidden. The jury convicted her of aiding 

and abetting.

The Doaks make an across-the-board effort to challenge 

their convictions, claiming that their indictment was flawed and

that several evidentiary errors infected the trial. Mack also 

challenges the district court’s restitution calculation and its finding 

that he could afford a special assessment. On cross-appeal, the 

government argues that Jaycee’s sentence—the statutory 

minimum—was substantively unreasonable. Other than the 

restitution order, which we partially vacate, we affirm the Doaks’

convictions and sentences.

I. 

The tragic history of the Doak family began in Rhode Island, 

where 27-year-old Mack Doak met 18-year-old Jaycee Thet. 

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Despite the age gap, the two began a romantic relationship. Mack’s 

interests, however, extended beyond Jaycee. While at work as a 

city bus driver, he had his eyes set on one of his regular passengers:

14-year-old Nicole.1 Mack eventually introduced himself to Nicole 

and became very attentive, lavishing her with gifts on Valentine’s 

Day and taking her to Boston for dinner. Nicole (unaware of 

Mack’s relationship with Jaycee) came to believe that she was 

Mack’s girlfriend—and that she owed him physical intimacy. She 

began having sex with him almost every time they met, but then

Jaycee and Nicole learned about each other. Mack told Jaycee that 

he planned to leave her for 14-year-old Nicole, but Jaycee got 

Nicole’s father involved. Nicole ended her relationship with Mack, 

but she never reported Mack to the police. Around the same time, 

Jaycee gave birth to the couple’s first daughter. 

Meanwhile, Mack also used his relationship with Jaycee to

get closer to her younger sister Natalie, who was in elementary 

school. After Natalie turned ten or eleven, Mack began groping 

her—constantly touching “anything that he could”—including her 

breasts, her buttocks, and her genitals. The abuse progressed over 

several years until one day, when Natalie was laying on the couch 

sick, he offered to rub a balm on her back. As he was applying the 

balm, he tried to pull down her pants. When Natalie, who was 12 

or 13 years old, asked Mack what he was doing he told her to be 

1 The victims’ names were changed at trial to protect their privacy, and we 

adopt those same pseudonyms. 

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quiet. He pulled down her pants and raped her. She kept silent

and told no one for years. 

Not long after he raped her little sister, Mack married Jaycee 

and they moved to Rosharon, Texas with Jaycee’s family. Natalie 

moved with them, but she did not remain silent indefinitely. 

Nearly a decade after the move, Natalie told her family that Mack 

had abused her, confronting Mack directly in the process. Jaycee, 

however, leapt to Mack’s defense, and threatened that if Natalie 

reported him to the police, she would report her for stealing 

scratch-off lottery tickets from Jaycee and Mack’s store. Natalie 

backed down. 

Around that same time, Mack and Jaycee adopted six 

siblings, including three girls who became victims: Brenda (11), 

Laura (9), and Leah (6). Right after the children moved in with 

their new parents, Mack started “touching” both Brenda and Laura. 

The abuse was abhorrent. Laura remembers that one night, 

as she slept next to Brenda, she woke up to Mack touching her 

genitals. Mack stripped her naked, and Laura felt him push his 

hand “inside [her] body.” The assault was so “scary” that Laura 

kept silent and tried to forget about it. On another night, Brenda

awoke to Mack touching her, pulling down her pants, and raping 

her. He held her down and ignored her pleas for him to stop. 

Jaycee came to the door. When she opened it, she saw that Mack 

and Brenda were naked from the waist down. When Brenda told 

Jaycee that Mack had been raping her, she promised that she would

“handle it” and everything would be fine. 

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Everything was not fine, and Jaycee apparently knew it. She 

confided in her sister-in-law Donna that she and Mack had gotten 

into an argument and that he had packed his bags and left to live 

with a friend in Alabama. Jaycee also said that she had found a pair 

of “wet” underwear in the laundry belonging to Brenda. Donna 

urged Jaycee to seek medical treatment for Brenda and to report 

the abuse. Jaycee told Donna the next day that she made the 

appointment. 

But when Donna checked in with Jaycee later, Jaycee had 

changed her tune. She told Donna that she now doubted Brenda 

because of her “disability” (Brenda struggled to read and write) and 

told Donna that she planned to go to Alabama to help Mack find a 

place to open a donut shop. That seemed odd to Donna because 

of an earlier conversation with Mack, who had told her after he

started receiving government benefits to support his adopted 

children, “Oh, since I got the kids, I don’t need to work anymore.” 

Jaycee never reported the abuse. For a long time, neither did 

Donna.

Around that same time, Jaycee called her brother (Donna’s 

husband) telling him that Mack had a gun and was about to commit 

suicide. When he rushed to the house to talk Mack down, Mack

admitted that “he had done something really bad and he would not 

go to jail for it.” 

He did not go to jail then. Nor did he kill himself. Instead,

the Doaks quickly moved away from Jaycee’s family to Butler, 

Alabama. In their new home, Jaycee’s treatment of Brenda 

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deteriorated. She began hitting her and calling her a “ho” and a 

“slut.” Brenda was no more than 13 years old. 

Within a year, the family moved again, this time to Florida. 

The abuse continued. Mack followed Brenda to the laundry room, 

pulled down her pants, and raped her. Brenda again asked Jaycee 

for help. This time Jaycee did not comfort Brenda; instead, she 

insisted that she was lying and that her “disability” was “playing 

tricks” on her. 

Mack often used the Doaks’ bedroom for cover. It was off 

limits for the children (unless they were with Mack of course) and 

both Brenda and the girls’ brother Eddie noticed that Mack would 

call Laura or Leah to the bedroom and then play music loudly. 

Brenda recognized the tactic from her own experience and feared

that Mack was also abusing her little sisters. 

He was. Laura testified that Mack once called her to his 

room and locked the door behind her. He then touched her 

“private area” and, as Laura testified, put his penis “inside [her] 

private part.” Mack also touched the younger girls while they were 

doing the dishes, and once woke Leah and penetrated her with his 

finger. All three of the girls told Jaycee about Mack’s abuse. When 

they did, Jaycee had an argument with Mack—but the sexual abuse 

continued. And instead of helping the girls, Jaycee became “more 

strict,” yelling at them and hitting them. 

Two years after they arrived in Florida, it was time to move 

again, this time to Thomasville, Alabama. Mack’s abuses

continued. Leah, the youngest sister of the three, testified that he

would touch her in the kitchen and call her to his bedroom where 

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he would force her to have sex with him. And Laura recalled that 

one day, early in the morning, Mack picked her up and put her on 

the washer or the dryer in the laundry room. He took off her bra 

and began touching her breasts. This time her younger brother 

Eddie walked in. Eddie remembered seeing Mack with his pants 

down, one hand on Laura’s thigh and another on her genitals. 

Mack told Eddie to go back to sleep. Eddie complied; he testified 

that he “would have been hurt if [he] didn’t listen.” Mack told him 

to forget what he’d seen, and he stayed quiet. His fears were wellfounded; at least one time Mack gave Eddie a “hard slap” on the 

face, and Jaycee sometimes hit him with a wooden spoon. 

Mack also abused Brenda in Thomasville. He woke her and 

ordered her to do laundry in his room, but instead he raped her. 

Brenda went to Jaycee again. But Jaycee again dismissed her, 

accusing her of lying and calling her names. She also hit her. When 

a teacher’s aide at school noticed the bruises on Brenda’s arms and 

asked her what had happened, Brenda revealed that Jaycee had hit 

her. The very next day the family left for Monroeville, Alabama; 

they had been in Thomasville for less than a year. 

After the move, nothing changed. Mack raped Brenda in the 

house’s storage room when she was putting away groceries, and 

again when she was doing laundry. He called Laura to his room 

and, as Laura said, his “private area went into mine.” Mack 

continued to “force [Leah] to have sex with him.” Laura again told 

Jaycee about the abuse. At first Jaycee assured Laura that she

would be okay, but that attitude did not last; instead she hit Laura 

and otherwise treated her poorly. 

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The family also took two trips while they lived in 

Monroeville. On the first, to Cambodia, Mack and Jaycee brought 

Brenda, who was told that one purpose of the trip was to marry 

her to one of Mack’s cousins. No marriage plans were set. But 

Mack caught her alone while she was getting dressed and began 

groping her. That time Brenda escaped; she managed to leave

“really quick because the door was still open.” 

The second trip was to Rhode Island, a visit to extended 

family. The Doaks’ large van was set up with a mattress in the very 

back behind rows of seating for the rest of the family. Mack took 

advantage of the long drive to abuse the girls. He inappropriately 

touched Brenda while they were sitting in the back seat, and he 

brought Laura back to the mattress and groped her. After they 

arrived in Rhode Island, Mack also grabbed Brenda’s pubic area 

while the two were alone in a hotel elevator. 

The abuse continued when they returned to Alabama. 

Mack raped Brenda; Brenda told Jaycee; and Jaycee did nothing. 

“[T]ired of being sexually touched and abused,” Brenda finally told 

another family member—Jaycee’s brother, Lay Thet. Jaycee’s

family held a meeting and decided to put up cameras in the Doaks’ 

house. Not long after, the family reported the abuse to the police,

who arrested both Mack and Jaycee. As part of the investigation, 

police recovered a semen-stained mat from the Doaks’ house. The 

mat contained DNA traceable to Mack and Brenda, but not to 

Laura or Leah. 

Mack was charged with six counts of transporting children 

with the intent that they “engage in sexual activity for which any 

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person can be charged with a criminal offense,” in violation of 18 

U.S.C. § 2423(a). Jaycee was charged with aiding and abetting that 

activity. See 18 U.S.C. § 2. The indictment also charged Mack with 

three counts of aggravated sexual abuse under 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c), 

specifically crossing a state line “with intent to engage in a sexual 

act” with a child under the age of 12. The indictment included two 

charts, listing the different trips involving “Victim 1” Brenda, 

“Victim 2” Laura, and “Victim 3” Leah:

18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) Transportation of minors

Count Date Individual Transportation of Minor 

1 August 2014 Victim 1

Victim 2

Victim 3 

From Butler, Alabama to Florida.

2 November 2016 Victim 1

Victim 2

Victim 3

From Florida to Thomasville, 

Alabama.

3 November 2017 Victim 1 From Monroeville, Alabama to 

Cambodia. 

4 December 2017 Victim 1 From Cambodia to Monroeville, 

Alabama.

5 December 2017 Victim 1

Victim 2

Victim 3

From Monroeville, Alabama to 

Rhode Island. 

6 December 2018 Victim 1

Victim 2

Victim 3

From Rhode Island to 

Monroeville, Alabama.

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18 U.S.C. § 2241(c) Aggravated sexual abuse

Count Date Person Travel by Defendant 

7 August 2014 Victim 2 From Butler, Alabama to Florida.

8 August 2014 Victim 3 From Butler, Alabama to Florida.

9 November 2016 Victim 3 From Florida to Thomasville, 

Alabama.

Before trial, the district court explained how it would 

instruct the jury to assess Mack’s intent under § 2423(a). The court 

proposed referring the jury to Alabama laws that criminalized the 

sexual abuse Mack intended during each covered trip to inflict on 

the girls. Mack objected, arguing that “the Alabama offenses had 

varying degrees and that he had not received notice of which 

degree the court intended to instruct the jury on.” The 

government responded with its own last-minute proposal, 

announcing that it would not rely on Alabama law. Instead, it 

planned to rely on 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b), which outlawed “Travel 

With Intent To Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct,” and § 2423(c), 

which barred “Engaging in Illicit Sexual Conduct in Foreign 

Places,” to identify the criminal sexual abuse that Mack had 

intended to inflict on the girls. The Doaks did not object to that 

proposal. 

At trial, the girls and other family members testified about 

Mack raping and sexually abusing the girls, as well as Jaycee’s role 

in concealing the abuse. The jury convicted both Mack and Jaycee 

of all counts. The district court sentenced each of them to 10 years’ 

imprisonment for the transportation offenses, and Mack received 

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an additional 30 years’ imprisonment for the aggravated-sexualassault offenses. The court also ordered them to pay $150,000 in 

restitution to a conservatorship for the victims’ future therapy and

$75,000 in restitution to Jaycee’s sister Natalie to cover the costs 

that she had accrued during 18 months of caring for the children. 

Finally, the court imposed a special assessment of $30,900 on Mack, 

and of $25,600 on Jaycee. 

The Doaks appeal their convictions, and Mack challenges

the restitution order and his special assessment. For its part, the 

government challenges Jaycee’s sentence as unreasonably low.

II. 

The Doaks begin with their indictment. They argue that the 

charges against Mack for transporting the girls (the § 2423(a) 

offenses) must be dismissed because the government forgot to 

include in the indictment the statutes criminalizing the sexual 

abuse that Mack intended to commit. It was not enough, they say, 

to charge Mack with a general intent to commit criminal sexual 

abuse. The indictment needed to refer to specific sex-abuse 

statutes to inform the Doaks of the accusations Mack faced. 

The Doaks also argue that the government only made things 

worse when it tried to select specific sex-abuse statutes. The two 

statutes that the government eventually picked, they say, did not 

criminalize sexual abuse at all—but only banned travel motivated 

by illicit sex. In their view, the government ended up charging 

Mack with transporting the girls with an intent to have them 

illegally travel—which, at least under § 2423(a), is no crime at all. 

But neither argument holds up.

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A. 

When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of an 

indictment, our review is de novo. United States v. Steele, 178 F.3d 

1230, 1233 (11th Cir. 1999). An indictment is sufficient if it “(1) 

presents the essential elements of the charged offense, (2) notifies 

the accused of the charges to be defended against, and (3) enables 

the accused to rely upon a judgment under the indictment as a bar 

against double jeopardy for any subsequent prosecution for the 

same offense.” United States v. Wayerski, 624 F.3d 1342, 1349 

(11th Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). These requirements derive 

from “the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of notice to the accused 

of the nature and the cause of the accusation, and the Fifth 

Amendment’s assurance that a grand jury will return an indictment 

only when it finds probable cause for all elements of the crime.” 

Id. Simplicity is acceptable; an indictment is constitutionally 

sufficient when it “tracks the wording of the statute, as long as the 

language sets forth the essential elements of the crime.” Id. at 1350 

(quoting United States v. Ndiaye, 434 F.3d 1270, 1299 (11th Cir.

2006)).

The Doaks argue that their indictment fails two of these 

requirements. First, they argue that the government omitted an 

essential element of the offense of transporting the girls for sexual 

activity: the independent statutes that criminalize the sexual 

activity Mack intended to commit. See 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a). The 

Doaks say that the statutory language about intent is too broad on 

its own because it “encompasses a multitude of crimes.” Second, 

the Doaks argue that omitting the sexual-abuse statutes also 

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deprived them of notice of the charges they faced. Neither 

challenge succeeds. 

To start, the Doaks’ indictment included all the statutory 

elements when it charged Mack for transporting the girls with the 

intent to sexually abuse them. It alleged that Mack “[1] knowingly 

[2] transported an individual who had not attained the age of 18 

years [3] in interstate and foreign commerce, with [4] intent that 

such individual engage in sexual activity for which any person can 

be charged with a criminal offense.” See id. 

The critical question, then, is whether the statutes 

criminalizing the intended sexual activity are themselves additional 

elements or only means of proving the element of intent. We must 

draw this distinction because an indictment need not provide those 

facts showing which particular path the defendant took to commit 

a crime—what it must do is include the elements of the crime itself. 

Wayerski, 624 F.3d at 1350. The elements are required, in other 

words, but the means are not (at least for sufficiency purposes). 

Indeed, it is not unusual that “several possible sets of underlying 

brute facts” could satisfy an element of a crime. United States v. 

Jockisch, 857 F.3d 1122, 1127 (11th Cir. 2017) (quotation omitted). 

We confronted substantially the same issue in United States 

v. Jockisch. There the defendant was charged with attempting to 

persuade a minor to engage in “any sexual activity for which any 

person can be charged with a criminal offense.” Id. at 1124 & n.1;

see 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). Jockisch argued that the jury needed to 

unanimously agree on which state criminal offense he had 

attempted to violate because that crime was an element of the 

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enticement offense. Jockisch, 857 F.3d at 1127. We disagreed, 

explaining that the state offenses were only means of showing that 

the pursued sexual activity was criminal. Id. at 1131. The jury did 

not need to be “absolutely sure which precise sex act” the 

defendant “would have actually pursued”; it only needed to be able 

to “reasonably infer that any of these acts would have been 

unlawful.” Id. The element was criminal sexual activity as a 

general category, and the specific state statutes were only means 

by which the jury could identify that the sexual activity was 

criminal.

The same is true here. The intent language in the § 2423(a) 

transport-for-sexual-activity offense mirrors the wording of the 

§ 2422(b) enticement offense. And like in Jockisch, the Doaks’ 

convictions turned on whether Mack intended the girls to commit 

some criminal sexual act—not whether he ultimately forced them

to commit one specific criminal sex act or another. Id. at 1128–29. 

There were plenty of means of violating the two statutes, and the 

government did not omit an element of the offense by failing to list 

every possible law forbidding the sexual acts that Mack had in 

mind.

There were, of course, many such laws. Sexual activity with 

children is banned under numerous federal and state criminal 

statutes. It is, to be more plain, never allowed, and that fact is 

broadly understood. Florida, Alabama, and Rhode Island, the 

States where Mack’s conduct took place, criminalize sexual 

intercourse with—or rape of—young children. See Ala. Code 

§ 13A-6-61(a)(3) (under 12); Ala. Code § 13A-6-62 (under 16); Fla. 

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Stat. § 794.011; R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37-8.1 (under 14); R.I. Gen. 

Laws § 11-37-6 (14 to 16 if assailant over 18). And all three States 

also criminalize sexually touching children’s genitals or digitally 

penetrating them. Ala. Code § 13A-6-67(a)(2) (under 16); Fla. Stat. 

§ 800.04(5) (under 16); R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-37-8.3 (under 14); R.I. 

Gen. Laws § 11-37-4(2) (sexual contact using force, surprise, or 

coercion). Because all of these independently illegal acts are means 

of satisfying the same element—intent to criminally sexually abuse 

a minor—including the statutory language in the indictment was 

enough. 

Even so, the Doaks argue, the indictment should still be 

dismissed because omitting those statutes left them without notice 

of the nature of the intent accusation against Mack. When we 

assess an indictment to decide whether it provided sufficient 

notice, we read it “as a whole” and give it “a common sense 

construction.” United States v. Phillips, 4 F.4th 1171, 1176 (11th 

Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted).

We see no such ambiguity here. When the indictment 

charged the Doaks with transporting the girls to engage in illegal

sexual activity, it listed six trips between Alabama, Florida, 

Cambodia, and Rhode Island; the dates of each trip; and the victims

Mack transported. See 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a). Mack was also charged 

with crossing state lines on two of those same trips with the intent 

to engage in a sexual act with the two younger girls. Read as a 

whole, the indictment divulged the key detail about the criminal 

sexual activity at issue—that Mack intended to sexually abuse the 

girls himself. The Doaks were fully informed that Mack was

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accused of transporting his adopted daughters with the intent to 

sexually abuse them and that Jaycee was accused of aiding and 

abetting that transport. The Doaks were on notice that Mack’s 

sexual interest in and abuse of his adopted daughters underpinned 

the charges against them.

To be sure, it is best practice to include the statutes 

criminalizing the sexual activity that the defendant planned to 

inflict on the transported child. See, e.g., United States v. 

Nicholson, 24 F.4th 1341, 1349 (11th Cir. 2022) (indictment citing 

Florida and North Carolina sex crimes statutes). That best practice 

was not followed here. Even so, the indictment was detailed 

enough to notify the Doaks of the charges against them.

B. 

The Doaks also claim to have found a jurisdictional flaw in 

the indictment. The government, they say, failed to state an 

offense against them because it used a statute that prohibits “travel 

with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct” and one that bars 

“engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places” to identify the 

unlawful sexual activities Mack intended to commit when he 

transported the girls in violation of § 2423(a). See 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2423(b), (c). The Doaks argue that instead of banning

“prostitution or sexual activity” those statutes criminalize only 

travel. In their view, that means the indictment not only failed to 

charge Mack with intending to sexually abuse the girls, but also 

charged Mack with no crime at all. 

Though the Doaks failed to raise this issue below, we review 

the claim de novo because it challenges our subject matter 

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jurisdiction. United States v. Grimon, 923 F.3d 1302, 1305 (11th 

Cir. 2019). 

A district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an 

indictment only when it “alleges facts that conclusively negate the 

existence of any offense against the laws of the United States.” 

United States v. Leonard, 4 F.4th 1134, 1142 (11th Cir. 2021) 

(alteration adopted and quotation omitted). That occurs “when 

the alleged crime simply did not exist in the United States Code; 

when the conduct alleged undoubtedly fell outside the sweep of 

the cited statute; and where the violation was of a regulation that 

was not intended to be a law for purposes of criminal liability.” Id.

(quotations omitted). The Doaks claim that their indictment fails 

on the first ground. 

It does not, for the very plain reason that it does not include 

the statutory provisions that the Doaks complain render it 

insufficient to charge a federal crime. In fact, the Doaks’ complaint 

about the indictment all along has been that it omitted the 

underlying statutes. And because those statutes were omitted, the 

jurisdictional argument that they were wrongly included in the 

indictment cannot succeed. “So long as the conduct described in 

the indictment is a criminal offense,” even the complete “omission 

of an element does not vitiate jurisdiction.” United States v. 

Moore, 954 F.3d 1322, 1336 (11th Cir. 2020). Because the § 2423(a) 

portion of the indictment properly charged a federal crime, the 

Doaks’ jurisdictional challenge falls short. See id. at 1334.

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III. 

Moving past the indictment, the Doaks challenge the 

sufficiency of the evidence. They both say that Mack had innocent 

intent when the family traveled between Alabama and Florida, and 

when he brought his adopted daughters along with him on the trips 

to Florida, Alabama, Cambodia, and Rhode Island. For her part, 

Jaycee argues that even if Mack had a “hidden purpose” of sexually 

abusing the girls, she was merely traveling with her family; 

according to her, the government failed to prove that she “wished” 

Mack would “succeed” in abusing their adopted daughters. These 

sufficiency arguments fail. 

A. 

We review de novo whether sufficient evidence supports a 

conviction. See United States v. Farley, 607 F.3d 1294, 1333 (11th 

Cir. 2010). We resolve “all reasonable inferences in favor of the 

verdict” and consider the evidence “in the light most favorable to 

the government.” Id. (quotation omitted). And the evidence is 

insufficient only if “no reasonable trier of fact could find guilt 

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

To establish intent, the government had to prove that 

Mack’s motive or purpose for traveling (the § 2241(c) offenses) and 

for bringing the girls along on the different trips (the § 2423(a) 

transport offenses) was to sexually abuse them. See Nicholson, 24 

F.4th at 1349–50; Farley, 607 F.3d at 1335. That “illicit behavior 

must be one of the purposes motivating the interstate 

transportation”; it “need not be the dominant purpose,” but it

“may not be merely incidental to the trip.” United States v. 

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Perkins, 948 F.3d 936, 939 (8th Cir. 2020) (quotation omitted). 

Further, an alternative “plausible innocent explanation” is not 

enough to prove that the conduct was not motivated by illicit 

sexual activity. Farley, 607 F.3d at 1335.

The Doaks argue that the government cut corners by 

presenting evidence of Mack’s regular “sex with minors who lived 

in his home” alongside unrelated evidence that the family went on 

a few trips. In their view, nothing “linked the family’s travel to the 

alleged sexual abuse.” In fact, they say, the “overwhelming 

evidence revealed that the purpose of the travel was financial or 

social.” 

Although the Doaks have offered other reasons for their 

travels—say, to open a new business in Florida or to visit family in 

Rhode Island—the jury could have readily concluded that Mack 

intended to bring the girls along so that he could sexually abuse 

them. Unsurprisingly, defendants charged with traveling to have 

sex with children in violation of § 2241(c) are often able to produce 

innocent purposes for their trips; Mack cannot elude liability by 

claiming that he had other reasons for traveling. See id. The 

question is whether Mack’s actions were motivated, at least in part, 

by his desire to sexually abuse the girls.

Starting with the three charges that Mack moved to facilitate 

the sexual abuse of the younger girls, sufficient evidence establishes

that Mack moved the family between Alabama and Florida to keep 

his abuse concealed. See 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c). Before Mack and 

Jaycee adopted the girls, the couple had lived in Rosharon, Texas 

for around a decade. But when Mack began sexually abusing the 

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girls, he also began to frequently uproot the family. Several of the 

moves coincided with an imminent possibility that his sexual abuse 

would be exposed. For example, as soon as Jaycee found out that 

Mack was raping the girls—and discussed the issue with her sisterin-law—the Doaks moved to Alabama, away from Jaycee’s family 

in Texas. And the day after Brenda’s teacher started asking 

questions about bruises on Brenda’s arm, the family moved from 

Thomasville, Alabama to Monroeville, Alabama. 

The jury surely could have concluded that Mack moved to 

keep his adopted daughters isolated and avoid detection. Moving, 

paired with other harsh treatment, kept them silent. Jaycee, for 

example, verbally and physically abused the girls, escalating her 

mistreatment whenever the girls asked her to protect them from 

the abuse. A reasonable jury could identify the pattern and 

conclude that staying on the move was part of Mack’s plan to

sexually abuse the girls. See United States v. Foster, 878 F.3d 1297, 

1305 (11th Cir. 2018).

The charges that Mack transported the girls with the intent 

to sexually abuse them referenced a broader set of trips, including 

a short trip over Christmas to visit family in Rhode Island and the 

trip to Cambodia. Because § 2423(a) is a transport offense, not a 

travel offense, we ask why Mack brought the girls on the trips, not 

why he planned the trips in the first place. So even if Mack can 

provide innocent reasons for taking the trips, we consider all 

aspects of his intent in bringing the girls along with him. 

And here Mack’s consistent desire to sexually abuse the girls 

provides the answer. See Nicholson, 24 F.4th at 1349–50. The 

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evidence leaves no doubt that Mack dominated the girls’ lives and 

coerced them into situations where he could sexually abuse them. 

Sometimes he called them into his bedroom and played loud music 

to disguise the fact that he was raping them. He would follow 

them into the laundry room or the storage room and rape them

there too. Indeed, the jury heard evidence that he groped the girls 

wherever he could—in the kitchen as they washed dishes, in the 

back seat of the family van, and even in a public elevator.

A reasonable jury could easily conclude that Mack kept the 

girls close by so that he could abuse them on demand. And it 

follows that Mack brought the girls with him on the various trips 

to have them accessible when he wanted to grope or rape them. 

The jury had sufficient evidence to convict Mack of traveling and 

bringing the girls with him to sexually abuse them. 

B. 

Jaycee separately challenges the sufficiency of the evidence 

of her intent to aid and abet Mack’s violation of § 2423(a). Under 

18 U.S.C. § 2, a person who aids and abets a criminal act can “be 

found guilty as a principal.” United States v. Sosa, 777 F.3d 1279, 

1292 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation omitted). But such criminal 

liability follows only if she “contributed to and furthered the 

offense” and “intended to aid in its commission.” Id. Jaycee does 

not dispute that she helped Mack transport the girls on their trips. 

But she claims that she did not intend to help Mack violate

§ 2423(a)—she says she disapproved of his rampant sexual abuse. 

But it does not matter whether Jaycee participated in the 

trips “with a happy heart” or with “a sense of foreboding.” 

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22 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. 65, 80 (2014). For “purposes 

of aiding and abetting law, a person who actively participates in a 

criminal scheme knowing its extent and character intends that 

scheme’s commission.” Id. at 77.

Jaycee does not dispute that she knew that Mack 

consistently abused the girls or that it started as soon as the Doaks 

adopted them. In Texas, she interrupted Mack raping Brenda in 

the girls’ bedroom. And while the Doaks lived in Florida and 

Alabama, Brenda asked Jaycee for help more than once after Mack 

raped her. Laura and Leah also shared with Jaycee that Mack was 

raping them. It follows that a reasonable jury could conclude from 

this evidence that Jaycee knew that one reason Mack brought the 

girls with him on the various trips was to sexually abuse them. Cf. 

Nicholson, 24 F.4th at 1349–50. And despite knowing what the 

girls would suffer, she helped Mack transport them anyway. 

What’s more, Jaycee was no passive observer. A reasonable 

jury could easily conclude that Jaycee helped Mack keep his abuse 

a secret. She began abusing the girls herself—not sexually, it’s true, 

but physically and verbally. She hit the girls, and called them 

derogatory, sexualized names. She silenced them to conceal the 

sexual abuse. Though Jaycee may have argued with Mack on a few 

occasions and she almost took Brenda to the doctor after talking

with her sister-in-law—in the end, she refused to help. The 

evidence of her initial resistance is not enough to preclude the jury 

from finding that she acted with intent. See United States v. 

Hurley, 755 F.2d 788, 790 (11th Cir. 1985) (proof of other acts can 

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reveal a lack of intent). The evidence, in short, was sufficient to 

support her conviction for aiding and abetting Mack’s abuse.

IV. 

The Doaks also argue that the district court mishandled 

several evidentiary issues. The court refused to admit evidence 

that Jaycee’s adult brother Lay also had sex with Brenda. It allowed 

expert testimony from an FBI forensic interviewer on debriefing

children suspected of suffering sexual abuse. It admitted a video of 

Mack slapping Eddie to show that the Doaks used violence to 

silence the children and keep Mack’s sexual abuse secret. Even if 

these errors were individually harmless, they say, the cumulative 

effect warrants reversal. But none of those evidentiary decisions, 

in isolation or together, amount to reversible error.

A. 

The Doaks say that the district court should have allowed 

them to present evidence that Mack was not the true abuser. Their

theory of the case was that family members had fabricated the 

sexual abuse allegations against Mack. Physical differences 

between the girls would show, they asserted, that only Brenda had 

experienced vaginal intercourse, and they wanted to admit 

testimony that Lay, Jaycee’s brother, was her abuser. See United 

States v. Culver, 598 F.3d 740, 749 (11th Cir. 2010).

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 412, “evidence offered to 

prove that a victim engaged in other sexual behavior” is generally 

inadmissible. Fed. R. Evid. 412(a)(1). But exceptions apply, 

including for “evidence whose exclusion would violate the 

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24 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

defendant’s constitutional rights.” Fed. R. Evid. 412(b)(1)(C).2 

Defendants have a right “under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to 

introduce evidence in their defense.” Culver, 598 F.3d at 749

(quotation omitted). And while the district court retains “wide 

latitude to impose reasonable limits on testimony” based on 

concerns such as “harassment, prejudice, [or] confusion of the 

issues,” those restrictions may not be “arbitrary or 

disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.” Id.

(alterations adopted and quotations omitted). We review a district 

court’s application of Rule 412 for an abuse of discretion. Id.

Lay’s sexual relationship with Brenda, the Doaks say, would 

have revealed why cameras were put up in the house and why Lay 

went to the police and accused Mack of sexual abuse—to get Mack

out of the way and to conceal his own acts of statutory rape. Mack 

also introduced evidence that, of the three sisters, only Brenda’s 

hymen was not intact. The purpose of this evidence was to suggest 

that only she had had vaginal intercourse. Mack wanted to

2 Mack also argues that he was entitled to introduce the evidence that Lay had 

sex with Brenda to explain why her hymen was not intact under Rule 

412(b)(1)(A), which permits “evidence of specific instances of a victim’s sexual 

behavior, if offered to prove that someone other than the defendant was the 

source of semen, injury, or other physical evidence.” But the exception applies 

only when the government has “directly or indirectly asserted” that certain 

“physical evidence originated with the accused.” Fed. R. Evid. 412 advisory 

committee’s note to 1994 amendment. Here the government did not even 

introduce the physical examinations of the three girls—Mack did. Mack 

cannot fit the evidence through this exception.

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 25

emphasize the story that Lay was the real abuser; he had not 

demonstrated a sexual interest in the younger sisters.

We need not decide whether the district court erred 

excluding the evidence, because at most it was only a harmless 

error. To demonstrate the harmlessness of a constitutional error, 

the government must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that the 

error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.” 

United States v. Pon, 963 F.3d 1207, 1227 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting 

Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 22 (1967)). If the government 

leaves us “firmly convinced that the evidence of guilt was so 

overwhelming that the trier of fact would have reached the same 

result without the tainted evidence,” then we will conclude that

the error was harmless. Cape v. Francis, 741 F.2d 1287, 1294–95 

(11th Cir. 1984).

A review of the record shows that any error here was indeed 

harmless. For one, the district court did not keep the Doaks from

arguing that other family members had ulterior motives in 

accusing Mack of sexual abuse. It even allowed them to introduce 

the fact that “Lay had a sexual interest in Brenda.” It recognized 

that they needed a chance to explain “why the cameras were 

installed” at their home, and to support their claim that Lay both 

falsely reported Mack to the police and influenced Brenda’s siblings 

“to make the same allegations.” The court also allowed the Doaks 

to question Natalie about Lay’s relationship with Brenda. When 

she denied having any concerns, they impeached her using her text 

messages, which showed that she was monitoring Lay’s 

interactions with Brenda. Lay and Jaycee’s father also testified he 

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26 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

noticed Lay “sitting close by” Brenda and that Lay admitted having 

“a sexual interest in Brenda.” 

The government also produced physical evidence

confirming that Mack had sexually abused the girls. A semenstained mat was traced to Mack and Brenda, confirming Brenda’s 

testimony that Mack had raped her in the storage room. And the

jury heard evidence that discounted any suggestion by Mack that 

the fact that Laura’s and Leah’s hymens were still intact meant 

their testimony that they were raped was false. A physician (that 

Mack called as a witness) noted that a child might believe that a 

man was having sex with her if his penis was simply touching her 

vaginal opening, rubbing against it, ejaculating against it, or slightly 

entering it—none of which would necessarily break the hymen. 

The girls’ testimony of Mack’s repeated sexual abuse along 

with the government’s other evidence leaves us no doubt that the 

jury would have convicted the Doaks even if it had heard 

testimony that Lay had also committed statutory rape against 

Brenda. So even if it was error to exclude evidence that Lay had 

sex with Brenda, the error was harmless.

B. 

The Doaks also object to the FBI forensic interviewer’s

expert testimony. We review the district court’s decision to admit 

expert testimony for abuse of discretion. United States v. Barton, 

909 F.3d 1323, 1330 (11th Cir. 2018). The proponent of expert 

testimony bears the burden of showing that its expert is qualified, 

that the testimony is reliable, and that the explanations will help 

the jury. United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1260 (11th Cir. 

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 27

2004) (en banc). To be admissible, “proposed expert testimony 

must be supported by appropriate validation—i.e., ‘good grounds,’ 

based on what is known.” Id. at 1261 (alterations adopted) (quoting 

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 590 (1993)). 

When a witness relies on experience, she must (1) explain how it 

leads to and supports the conclusion she has reached and (2) show 

how it can be reasonably applied to the facts. Id. (citing Fed. R. 

Evid. 702 advisory committee’s note to 2000 amendment). 

The Doaks claim that the expert’s testimony about how 

“children disclose incidents of abuse” was not shown to be reliable 

because she failed to explain how her experience supported her 

opinions. They say that her testimony was not helpful to the 

jury—that she only provided “common sense observations” and 

that those observations prejudicially bolstered the girls’ credibility. 

We disagree. The expert witness explained the forensicinterview process and described how children pulled out of

suspected sexual-abuse situations disclosed that information. Her 

testimony about the process was reliable because she had handled 

six thousand such interviews herself. Her firsthand experience 

equipped her to identify trends in how children process abuse and 

disclose it. Because her testimony described her experience 

interviewing children suspected to be sex abuse victims, it offered 

a reliable framework to provide to the jury.

And it was a helpful framework, too. As the jurors prepared 

to listen to Brenda, Laura, and Leah testify about being raped 

repeatedly and suffering traumatic sex abuse, the expert testimony 

provided context to help the jurors understand why the girls 

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28 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

responded differently. See, e.g., United States v. Aungie, 4 F.4th 

638, 645 (8th Cir. 2021). It helped the jurors assess why Brenda 

disclosed the abuse almost immediately and only to Jaycee, and 

why it took longer for the younger girls to ask for help. 

The Doaks’ last resort is to claim that the testimony was 

prejudicial and should have been excluded under Rule 403. But as 

explained above, the expert testimony helped the jury, and we 

conclude that its benefit was not substantially outweighed by any 

prejudicial effect it might have had. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. The 

district court thus did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the

expert testimony.

C. 

The district court also acted within its discretion when it 

admitted a video of Mack slapping Eddie, the girls’ brother, to 

show that “the children did not report the alleged sexual abuse 

because they were afraid of physical and verbal abuse if they did 

report.” Mack says the slap was an unrelated act, requiring

exclusion as improper character evidence under Rule 404(b) or as 

unfairly prejudicial under Rule 403. 

The video was neither of those. For one thing, the 

combination of threats and physical abuse the adopted children 

suffered at the hands of the Doaks was “an integral and natural part 

of an account of the crime” and were “necessary to complete the 

story of the crime for the jury.” United States v. Edouard, 485 F.3d 

1324, 1344 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). It was not 

character evidence. The physical abuse displayed in the video 

helped explain why the Doaks’ adopted children felt threatened by 

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 29

Mack and Jaycee, which may have contributed to the years they 

silently endured his sexual abuse. The video was thus admissible 

despite the limits of Rule 404(b). And the district court’s proper 

limiting instruction—admonishing the jury not to rely on it as 

“evidence that they committed the acts charged in the 

indictment”—cured any prejudice. See Barton, 909 F.3d at 1338.

D. 

That leaves Mack’s claim that cumulative error infected the 

trial. “We review the cumulative impact of trial errors de novo, 

and reverse only if, in total, the non-reversible errors result in a 

denial of the constitutional right to a fair trial.” United States v. 

Maurya, 25 F.4th 829, 842 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation omitted). But 

only one (harmless) error remains at most, and a harmless error 

alone cannot have rendered Mack’s trial unfair. Id.

V. 

The parties also raise several challenges to the district court’s 

sentencing decisions—the government to Jaycee’s term of 

imprisonment, and Mack to various financial penalties and 

assessments. We consider each below. 

A. 

The government argues that Jaycee’s sentence—the 

statutory minimum—is substantively unreasonable. We review

the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for an abuse of 

discretion. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 

2010) (en banc). A district court strays beyond the range of 

reasonable sentences when, based on the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) 

sentencing factors, it “(1) fails to afford consideration to relevant 

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30 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

factors that were due significant weight, (2) gives significant weight 

to an improper or irrelevant factor, or (3) commits a clear error of 

judgment in considering the proper factors.” Id. (quotation 

omitted). 

The government says that the district court veered from the

§ 3553(a) factors when it cut Jaycee’s sentence based on its doubts 

about sufficiency (despite its own ruling that the evidence was 

sufficient) and the fact that she did not rape the girls herself. But 

§ 3553(a) directs the sentencing court to consider “the nature and 

circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of 

the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). Jaycee helping with 

transport and concealing the sexual abuse rather than raping or 

groping the girls herself is a relevant circumstance the district court 

could at least consider. Whether we would put so much weight on 

these facts is not the question—the abuse of discretion standard 

offers wide latitude for district courts. Irey, 612 F.3d at 1189. 

The government protests that the court’s consideration of 

those facts conflicted with United States v. Jayyousi, where we 

disapproved of reducing sentences for inchoate crimes on the 

principle of “no harm, no foul.” See 657 F.3d 1085, 1118 (11th Cir. 

2011). It is true that Jaycee must not receive better treatment 

merely because she only helped Mack—an aider and abettor is as 

culpable as and “punishable as a principal.” 18 U.S.C. § 2. If the 

district court had reduced Jaycee’s sentence on the view that she 

only helped Mack rather than violating § 2423(a) herself, that 

would have been a mistake. But the district court did not do so. 

Though it questioned the sufficiency of the evidence for Jaycee’s 

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 31

conviction, it properly suggested that appeal was the venue for 

airing those concerns. The district court thus avoided weighing 

improper factors.

The government also argues that the district court

overlooked Jaycee’s physical abuse of the children and her lack of 

remorse when assessing the nature and circumstances of her 

offense. The record shows otherwise. The court discussed how 

Jaycee “was physically abusive to the children” and “fostered an 

atmosphere” which allowed Mack to sexually abuse them. And it 

considered how she “agreed to protect their welfare” when she 

adopted them but then abdicated that responsibility. 

The government’s final criticism is that the district court 

prioritized the wrong factors. And that is certainly a close call here. 

Each of the girls testified that Mack’s actions went far beyond a 

transportation offense—throughout their years living with him, he 

would on a whim pull them into his room or the laundry room and 

rape them. Jaycee aiding and abetting Mack enabled him to inflict 

serious harm on the girls. She even physically abused them herself. 

While it may be unlikely that Jaycee will repeat this behavior, 

Jaycee’s sentence should show that such cooperation will be firmly 

punished.

But when reviewing for an abuse of discretion, there are 

“occasions in which we affirm the district court even though we 

would have gone the other way had it been our call.” Irey, 612 F.3d 

at 1189 (quotation omitted). This is one of those cases. Jaycee’s

sentence falls at the very bottom of what could be a reasonable 

sentence—indeed, it is the statutory minimum of the offense. 18 

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32 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

U.S.C. § 2423(a). Given the discretion district courts have in 

sentencing, though, we cannot conclude that this sentence is 

unreasonable. 

B. 

Mack contests the special assessment the district court 

imposed under 18 U.S.C. § 3014. He claims that the court clearly 

erred when it held that he was not indigent, because he “has a 

negative net worth, limited accessible assets, no current source of 

income, and no ability to pay a fine.” We review the district court's 

decision that a defendant can afford a special assessment for clear 

error. See United States v. McGuinness, 451 F.3d 1302, 1307 (11th 

Cir. 2006).

The district court held that Mack was not indigent because 

he and Jaycee previously failed to disclose that they owned real 

property in Rosharon, Texas. (After the property was discovered, 

it was sold and the proceeds were allocated to cover restitution.) 

“Evidence that a defendant has failed to disclose” assets may 

“support a determination that the defendant is able to pay a fine 

with those undisclosed assets.” Id. at 1308 (quotation omitted). So 

it was not improper for the district court to rely on Mack’s omission 

to conclude that he was not indigent and levy a special assessment.

C. 

Mack also argues that requiring him to pay $225,000 in 

restitution was unreasonable. The district court concluded that 

therapy for the girls would cost at least $150,000, and that the 

Doaks needed to pay Natalie $75,000 for caring for the children for 

the 18 months leading up to sentencing. Mack claims that the 

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 33

therapist’s estimate of the girls’ therapy costs was unreasonable 

because she practiced in Alabama, not Texas where the girls live. 

And he argues that the living expenses Natalie provided were 

inflated by the costs of caring for her own children and the siblings 

of the victims; he also argues that the amount did not factor in the 

Social Security benefits two of the girls received. 

We review a district court’s award of restitution de novo, 

but review underlying factual findings for clear error. United States 

v. Washington, 434 F.3d 1265, 1267 (11th Cir. 2006). Mack 

challenges only factual findings.

The purpose of restitution is to make victims whole by 

reimbursing “the amount of loss actually caused by the defendant’s 

conduct.” United States v. Sheffield, 939 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir. 

2019) (quotation omitted). That includes estimated therapy costs, 

“as long as the award reflects a reasonable estimate of those costs 

and is based on record evidence.” United States v. Osman, 853 F.3d 

1184, 1190 (11th Cir. 2017).

The district court calculated the girls’ expected therapy costs 

based on the testimony of a licensed clinical psychologist who 

specializes in child sexual abuse victims. She testified that the girls 

should receive multiple years of weekly therapy followed by 

sporadic therapy as needed throughout the rest of their lives. The 

girls exhibited symptoms so severe that she recommended care 

from a “doctoral level provider who has experience working with 

trauma.” In Mobile, Alabama, those services would cost around 

$165 per hour. Even though the girls had moved from Alabama to 

Texas, the district court did not clearly err when it relied on this 

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34 Opinion of the Court 19-15106

testimony to calculate the girls’ therapy costs. $150,000 was a 

reasonable estimate.

The same cannot be said of calculation of the living 

expenses. Natalie estimated that she spent between $3000 and 

$4000 each month on living expenses—but admitted that the 

amount is what she paid for all eight children in her care. The 

district court did not account for that fact and ordered the Doaks 

to pay Natalie over $4000 per month. Even though we do not 

impose a rigid formula for calculating restitution, the government 

must provide “reliable and specific evidence.” Sheffield, 939 F.3d 

at 1278 (quotation omitted). And here the specific evidence shows 

that the district court’s calculation was too high. It was clear error 

to order the Doaks to pay more than what Natalie admitted was an 

overestimate of the living expenses.

* * *

Mack Doak traveled with three young girls intending to 

sexually abuse them. And despite knowing that her husband was 

raping and abusing the girls, Jaycee Doak committed physical and 

mental abuse of her own rather than helping the girls as she 

sometimes promised. What she did help with was family travel, 

which further perpetuated the abuse. Though the Doaks raise 

numerous challenges to the indictment, to the sufficiency of the 

evidence, and to the district court’s evidentiary decisions at trial, 

none warrant reversal. 

We therefore AFFIRM the Doaks’ convictions. We also 

AFFIRM Jaycee Doak’s sentence and Mack Doak’s special 

assessment, AFFIRM IN PART the restitution order as to therapy 

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19-15106 Opinion of the Court 35

costs and VACATE IN PART as to living expenses, and REMAND

for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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