[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-10783

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

ELVIN I. LEWIS, JR., 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 0:19-cr-60034-RKA-1

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10783

Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

A grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted 

Elvin Lewis for one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), and ten counts of the 

substantive offense of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(i). The charges stemmed from his role in a “business email compromise” scheme (BEC).1 

Mr. Lewis pled not guilty, and the case proceeded to trial. 

The government’s theory of the case was that (1) Mr. Lewis received money from businesses which received fraudulent emails as 

part of the BEC scheme; (2) Mr. Lewis would then transfer the

funds between his own bank accounts and that of his accomplice, 

and finally to an account overseas; and (3) Mr. Lewis did so as part 

of a conspiracy to launder the fraudulently obtained funds for an 

unknown individual in China, while keeping a percentage of the 

funds as payment for his role. 

Through witness testimony and voluminous documentary 

evidence—such as business records from the victim business, 

phone records demonstrating communications between Mr. Lewis 

and his co-conspirators, and bank records showing the transfer of 

1 A business email compromise scheme is one where scammers hack into the 

employee emails of a legitimate company to cause the unauthorized transfer 

of funds or the disclosure of confidential information. 

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22-10783 Opinion of the Court 3 

funds to and from Mr. Lewis’ accounts and to his co-conspirator’s 

accounts—the government presented evidence of the BEC scheme

and Mr. Lewis’ involvement. The government also introduced several summary charts depicting key events in the BEC scheme and 

the money laundering conspiracy. 

After a 5-day trial, the jury found Mr. Lewis guilty on all 

counts. The district court sentenced him to 151 months of imprisonment, at the top of the applicable advisory guideline range. 

Mr. Lewis now appeals his convictions and sentence. He argues that the district court plainly erred by admitting the government’s summary exhibits and by failing to provide limiting instructions to the jury regarding their use. He also argues that the district 

court imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence when it considered his lack of remorse in determining his sentence. After reviewing the parties’ briefs and the record, we affirm.

I 

We first address Mr. Lewis’ arguments that the admission of 

the government’s summary exhibits and the district court’s failure 

to provide limiting instructions as to their use constituted reversible 

error. Because Mr. Lewis did not object to the admissibility of the 

exhibits or the jury instructions at trial, we review both of his challenges for plain error. See United States v. Hawkins, 934 F.3d 1251, 

1264 (11th Cir. 2019) (failure to object to the admissibility of evidence resulted in plain error review); United States v. Iriele, 977 F.3d 

1155, 1177 (11th Cir. 2020) (failure to object to jury instructions resulted in plain error review). We will only reverse for plain error if 

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Mr. Lewis can first show that the district court committed error 

that was plain and that affected his substantial rights. See Hawkins, 

934 F.3d at 1264.

II

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 1006, a party “may use a 

summary, chart, or calculation to prove the content of voluminous 

writings, recordings, or photographs that cannot be conveniently 

examined in court.” Summary evidence is generally permitted, 

and it is within the district court’s discretion to admit summary evidence at trial. See United States v. Richardson, 233 F.3d 1285, 1293 

(11th Cir. 2000). Nevertheless, the district courts must ensure that 

a defendant “is not unjustly convicted in a trial by charts.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Summary evidence need not “be free from reliance on any 

assumptions.” See id. at 1294 (quoting United States v. Diez, 515 F.2d 

892, 905 (5th Cir.1975)). Instead, district courts have wide discretion to admit summary evidence incorporating certain assumptions so long as there is evidence in the record to support them, the 

supporting evidence has been previously presented to the jury, and 

the district court makes clear “that the ultimate decision should be 

made by the jury as to what weight should be given to the evidence.” See id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

A

At trial, the government introduced various flow charts that 

summarized key aspects of the BEC scheme and the money laundering conspiracy. The charts in large part diagramed (1) the flow 

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of funds from the company victims to accounts controlled by Mr. 

Lewis and his co-conspirators; (2) the types of transactions made 

in Mr. Lewis’ accounts and the dollar amounts and percentages 

composing each type of transaction; and (3) relevant timelines 

chronicling (a) communications between the company victims and 

the BEC scammers, (b) the wire transfers sent from the company 

victims to Mr. Lewis’ account, (c) communications between Mr. 

Lewis and his co-conspirators, and (d) other key information, such 

as when Mr. Lewis opened and closed the accounts linked to the 

conspiracy and the number of text messages exchanged between 

Mr. Lewis and his co-conspirators. 

On appeal, Mr. Lewis argues that the summary charts were 

improperly admitted under Rule 1006 because they contained 

“markings, headers, highlights, and legal conclusions” that were 

not in the original business records. See Appellant’s Br. at 15–16. 

He also challenges the government’s use of descriptive labels “BEC 

Victim Payments” and “Summary of Fraudulent Emails.” See id. at 

9, 12. His arguments fail, however, because he has not shown plain 

error. 2

2 Mr. Lewis purports to challenge the admissibility of many of the government’s non-summary exhibits. One of the exhibits consists of a demonstrative 

aid that was not used as evidence at trial and the others largely consist of original records or composite exhibits containing extracts from original records.

But he has only challenged the government’s exhibits on the ground that they 

constituted improper summary evidence under Rule 1006. These other exhibits do not constitute “chart[s], summar[ies], or calculation[s]” of other evidence, as contemplated by Rule 1006. Because Mr. Lewis has not properly 

raised the issue of whether the district court plainly erred by admitting the 

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B

As an initial matter, we reject Mr. Lewis’ contention that 

Rule 1006 requires that the summary evidence be “unaltered” and 

thus free from any highlighting or notations “not in the original 

records.” See Appellant’s Br. at 15–17. The plain terms of Rule 1006 

do not impose this requirement, nor does Mr. Lewis cite to any case 

law indicating any such requirement. See generally Fed. R. Evid. 

1006. We therefore see no plain errorin the district court admitting 

summary exhibits on the basis that they contained yellow highlighting, bolding, and other markings not in the original records. 

See United States v. Innocent, 977 F.3d 1077, 1081 (11th Cir. 2020) (“An 

error is plain if . . . the explicit language of a statute or rule or precedent from the Supreme Court or this Court directly resolv[es] the 

issue.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (alteration 

in original).

We also conclude that the district court did not plainly err 

by admitting the disputed charts because they were admitted in 

conformity with Richardson, 233 F.3d at 1294.

First, the information contained in the charts was derived directly from the original records admitted at trial. The record shows 

that the government introduced—without objection from Mr. 

non-summary exhibits, he has abandoned any challenges as to those exhibits. 

See Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014) (“We 

have long held that an appellant abandons a claim when he either makes only 

passing references to it or raises it in a perfunctory manner without supporting 

arguments and authority.”). 

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Lewis—correspondence from the victim companies showing the 

fraudulent wire requests; financial records showing the wire transfers made from the companies to Mr. Lewis’ account and from his 

account to accounts controlled by his co-conspirators; bank statements detailing the transactional activities in Mr. Lewis’ accounts 

during the relevant time period; and extensive phone records, including texts and WhatsApp messages between Mr. Lewis and his 

co-conspirators discussing details of the money laundering conspiracy. This evidence formed the basis of the summary charts. See, 

e.g., D.E. 146 at 159–61 (government expert identifying the bank 

records already admitted in evidence that he reviewed to create 

summary charts showing flow of funds); id. at 266–67 (government

agent confirming that he prepared summary charts from information captured in Mr. Lewis’ WhatsApp pen register, which was

admitted into evidence). 

Second, the two descriptive labels were supported by evidence previously presented to the jury. Before the government introduced the charts with the labels “BEC Victim Payments”—used 

to describe the wire transfers that the companies made to Mr. 

Lewis’ account—and “Summary of Fraudulent Emails”—used to 

describe a summary timeline of the BEC scheme—the government

introduced the underlying email communications and bank records on which the charts and labels were based. 

Third, the jury heard testimony from witnesses representing 

the injured companies who testified to being victims of the BEC

scheme. Their testimony included discussions of the contents of 

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the fraudulent emails, the company servers that were hacked to 

send the fraudulent emails, and the payments that were unknowingly sent to Mr. Lewis’ account. This testimony—which the jury 

heard before the charts were discussed—amply supports the use of 

the labels “BEC Victim Payments” and “Summary of Fraudulent 

Emails.” 

Finally, the jury was generally instructed on the weight to 

give the summary evidence. At the beginning of the trial, the district court instructed the jury to “give every piece of evidence 

whatever weight you think it deserves.” See D.E. 143 at 173. It later 

instructed the jury at the close of arguments that it may use the 

government summary charts as evidence and that, though it “must 

consider all the evidence,” it did not need to accept “all the evidence as true or accurate.” See D.E. 147 at 84, 86. These instructions are consistent with the teachings of Richardson “that the ultimate decision should be made by the jury as to what weight should 

be given to the evidence.” See Richardson, 233 F.3d at 1293.

C

Mr. Lewis contendsthat the district court’s instructions were 

insufficient because they failed to provide any limitations on how 

the jury should assess the summary charts. In support, he relies on 

Richardson and an unpublished case, United States v. Osborne, 677 

Fed. Appx. 648 (11th Cir. 2014), and notes that in those cases, the 

district court both admitted the government’s summary charts and

gave limiting instructions to the jury regarding their use. He 

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argues, therefore, that the district court erred in admitting the summary charts here because it failed to follow the same procedure. 

We are unpersuaded for two reasons. First, in both cases, 

the defendants objected to the summary exhibits, which Mr. Lewis 

did not do here. See Richardson, 233 F.3d at 1293; Osborne, 677 Fed. 

Appx. at 656. Second, under Richardson the district court is only 

required to instruct the jury that the decision as to what weight to 

give the summary evidence is theirs to make. See Richardson, 233 

F.3d at 1293. The district court did that here when it charged the 

jury to “give every piece of evidence whatever weight you think it 

deserves”—“every piece of evidence” necessarily includes the government’s summary charts. See D.E. 143 at 173. Mr. Lewis’ challenge with respect to the jury instructions therefore fails under 

plain error review. 

D

Even if we were to conclude that the summary evidence was 

improperly admitted, Mr. Lewis has failed to demonstrate how he

was prejudiced by the error. 

Mr. Lewis argues that because he was unable to “cross examine the charts nor contest the conclusions contained and/or implied in them” the admission of the charts violated his Sixth 

Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. See Appellant’s Br. at 19. His argument is misguided.

The summary charts were created from non-testimonial 

records and therefore do not implicate the Confrontation Clause 

of the Sixth Amendment. See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 

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56 (2004) (noting that business records are not testimonial); United 

States v. Naranjo, 634 F.3d 1198, 1214 (11th Cir. 2011) (“Summary 

evidence also is not testimonial if the evidence underlying the summary is not testimonial.”). In addition, Mr. Lewis had the opportunity to object to the underlying records, to cross-examine the witnesses who created the summary charts, and to contest any labels 

or conclusion contained in the charts. The likelihood of any error

was therefore reduced. See Richardson, 233 F.3d at 129 (“[W]here 

the defense has the opportunity to cross-examine a witness concerning the disputed issue and to present its own version of the 

case, the likelihood of any error in admitting summary evidence 

diminishes.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Further, Mr. Lewis cannot otherwise show that he was prejudiced by the labels “BEC Victim Payments” and “Summary of 

Fraudulent Emails” because he at no point disputed the conclusions underlying them. Specifically, he did not dispute that certain 

companies were tricked into wiring funds to his account as part of 

the BEC scheme nor that certain company emails were compromised in order to redivert funds to his account. Rather, from the 

outset of the trial, his counsel told the jury that Mr. Lewis did “not 

disput[e] any of the evidence” that the government had as to the 

existence of the BEC scheme and that he agreed that “a crime ha[d] 

been committed.” See D.E. 143 at 198. He further conceded that 

the government had “mountains of evidence” proving the BEC 

scam, and only disputed that he had “any knowledge of th[e] 

scam.” See id. at 198–99. 

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Because Mr. Lewis has failed to show plain error as to the 

admissibility of the summary charts or the district court’s instructions regarding their use, we affirm the admission of the disputed 

charts into evidence.

III

We next address Mr. Lewis’ argument that the district court 

erred when it considered his lack of remorse in fashioning his sentence. 3 

A

We review a sentence for reasonableness under an abuse of 

discretion standard, considering the totality of the circumstances. 

See Irey, 612 F.3d at 1189. “We ordinarily expect a sentence within 

the [advisory] Guidelines range to be reasonable, and the party 

challenging the sentence bears the burden of establishing that the 

sentence is unreasonable according to the facts of the case and the 

§ 3553(a) factors. See United States v. Gonzalez, 550 F.3d 1319, 1324 

(11th Cir. 2008).

A district court abuses its discretion and imposes a substantively unreasonable sentence when it “(1) fails to afford 

3 Mr. Lewis does not specify whether he challenges the procedural or substantive reasonableness of his sentence. We construe his argument that the district 

court improperly considered his lack of remorse when imposing his sentence 

as a challenge to the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. See United 

States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1189 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (providing that a 

sentence is substantively unreasonable, in part, if the district court “gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor”). 

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consideration to relevant [§ 3553(a)] 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.” Irey, 612 F.3d at 1189 (internal quotation marks 

and citation omitted). We will vacate a defendant’s sentence as substantively unreasonable only if we are “left with the definite and 

firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of 

judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence 

that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the 

facts of the case.” United States v. Goldman, 953 F.3d 1213, 1222 (11th 

Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted).

B

Based on a criminal history category of II and a total offense 

level of 31, the district court computed Mr. Lewis’ advisory guideline range at 121 to 151 months. At the sentencing hearing, the 

government requested a sentence at the high end of the advisory 

guideline range. The district court agreed and sentenced Mr. Lewis 

to 151 months of imprisonment. 

Before imposing the sentence, however, the district court

discussed in great length the §3553(a) factors. It addressed—with 

much specificity—(1) “the nature and severity of the offense,” (2) 

Mr. Lewis’ “history and characteristics,” (3) “the need to provide 

specific deterrence to [Mr. Lewis] and to protect the public from 

future crimes that he may commit,” (4) “the need to provide adequate general deterrence,” (5) “the need “to promote[] respect for 

the law and provide[] just punishment for the offense,” and (6) “the 

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need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities.” See D.E. 278 at

87–94.

As relevant here, when discussing the last factor—the need 

to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities—the district court 

considered Mr. Lewis’ lack of remorse. It remarked that though 

one of his co-conspirators, Vanna Clay, had received an immunity 

deal from the government, that did not necessarily mean that Mr. 

Lewis should similarly receive a more lenient treatment. See id. at 

93. Unlike Ms. Clay—who, the district court noted, “accept[ed] responsibility” and “cooperate[d] with the government”—Mr. Lewis 

had shown “no contrition, no remorse, and no acceptance of responsibility, [or given] any kind of cooperation the way that Ms. 

Clay provided” to support a sentence “towards the low end of the 

guideline range.” See id. In describing Mr. Lewis’ lack of remorse 

the district court further stated:

Mr. Lewis has shown absolutely no contrition. Mr. 

Lewis has never apologized to the victims. Mr. Lewis 

has never accepted responsibility. And Mr. Lewis has 

done just the opposite. In his repeated and, frankly, 

frivolous motions to this Court, Mr. Lewis has called

the Court a racist . . . has tried to blame everyone else 

but himself for the victimization that took place in 

this case . . . [which] shows that Mr. Lewis hasn’t accepted responsibility for what he’s done, even today.

Id. 93–94.

Mr. Lewis’ counsel objected to the district court’s comments, stating that “Mr. Lewis . . . genuinely maintain[ed] his

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innocence,” which would explain “his apparent lack of remorse 

and lack of cooperation.” See id. at 97. In response, the district 

court reiterated that it had only considered Mr. Lewis’ lack of remorse when weighing the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing 

disparities:

[W]ith respect to Mr. Lewis’ level of contrition . . .

you’ll note that I didn’t mention any of that in my 

analysis of the first five 3553(a) factors. I didn’t consider that at all in considering the nature and severity 

of the offense, the history and characteristics of the 

defendant, the need to provide specific deterrence to 

the defendant, the need to provide general deterrence 

to the community, or the need to provide just punishment for the offense, or promote respect for the law . 

. .My only point was, with respect to disparity in sentencing . . . I find nothing disparate or unfair about 

the way he’s treated, if only because all of the other[] 

[defendant’s convicted of money laundering in this 

court] have pled guilty and most of them have cooperated . . . And so it’s just not fair to treat Mr. Lewis 

the same as those other people, who, of course, took 

a plea, got three points off, will get low end or lower,

and will get a 5K or Rule 35 for their cooperation 

against the other people in the scheme. That’s not 

because Mr. Lewis shouldn’t be allowed to promote 

his innocence. It’s only to say that those people . . .

should receive a significant benefit . . . and that’s why 

I think they’re being treated differently than Mr. 

Lewis.

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It was also said in the context of Ms. Clay, who, as I

made clear, received a very good deal from the U.S. 

government . . . [T]here were factors at play in Ms. 

Clay’s case that may have led the government to make 

that determination, some of which [include,] her acceptance of responsibility, her turning her family 

members in, and . . . her cooperating against Mr. 

Lewis . . . None of that is to say that Mr. Lewis doesn’t

have a right to plead his innocence or to go to trial. 

It’s all in the way of trying to explain why Mr. Lewis 

is receiving a higher sentence than other money launderers who pled guilty, cooperated, and received a 

benefit.

Id. at 98–99.

C

Mr. Lewis argues that the district court erred when it considered his lack of remorse when determining his sentence. As a 

result, it “punished” him for exercising his constitutional right to 

go to trial by imposing a more severe sentence, at the top of the 

applicable advisory guideline range. See Appellant’s Br. at 20–21. 

But Mr. Lewis is mistaken on the law and misconstrues the record.

First, the district court’s consideration of Mr. Lewis’ lack of 

remorse was not improper. Contrary to Mr. Lewis’ contention, “[a]

district court is permitted to consider lack of remorse in its § 

3553(a) analysis as to several factors,” including “the characteristics 

of a defendant, the need to promote respect for the law, and the 

need to protect society.” United States v. McNair, 605 F.3d 1152, 1231 

(11th Cir. 2010). And we have held that a sentence is not 

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unreasonable because the district court considers a defendant’s lack 

of remorse—despite the defendant maintaining his innocence—

when fashioning a sentence. See United States v. Mateos, 623 F.3d 

1350, 1367 (11th Cir. 2010). In Mateos, for example, we held that 

“[i]t was reasonable for the district court to consider” a defendant’s 

lack of remorse to differentiate between the defendant’s sentence 

and “those of her coconspirators . . . whom accepted responsibility, 

pleaded guilty, and cooperated.” Id. We see no difference in what 

the district court did here.

Second, the district court made clear at sentencing that it 

was not considering Mr. Lewis’ lack of remorse to penalize him for 

going to trial. It specifically stated that Mr. Lewis was “allowed to 

promote his innocence,” and that its determination to sentence 

him at the top end of the advisory guideline range was not because 

“Mr. Lewis d[idn]’t have a right to plead his innocence or to go to 

trial,” but only to distinguish Mr. Lewis from others who had “pled 

guilty” and “cooperated” with the government, like Ms. Clay in this 

case. See D.E. 278 at 98–99. Therefore, Mr. Lewis’ claim that he 

was punished for going to trial belies the record.

IV

We affirm Mr. Lewis’ convictions and sentence.

AFFIRMED.

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