NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 21a0348n.06

No. 20-4077

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

TAMIKO PARKER,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO

OPINION

BEFORE: SUTTON, Chief Judge; SUHRHEINRICH and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges.

NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. Tamiko Parker stole money from a charitable 

organization while she served as its executive director. She was indicted for theft of federal funds

and pled guilty. See 18 U.S.C. § 666(a). In calculating Parker’s Sentencing Guidelines range, the 

district court applied several enhancements before sentencing Parker to 33 months in prison. 

Parker now says the application of two of these enhancements amounted to impermissible double 

counting. We AFFIRM. 

I.

Tamiko Parker formerly served as the executive director of Collinwood & Nottingham 

Villages Development Corporation (CNVDC). CNVDC, a recipient of federal funds, is a 

charitable organization that acquires, owns, leases, and develops property in Cleveland, Ohio.

Among other things, CNVDC refurbishes blighted or run-down properties and rents them to 

members of the community under a federal rent-to-own program. 
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Parker’s responsibilities included overseeing CNVDC’s development projects. As a result, 

Parker had access to the organization’s bank accounts, including checks, debit and credit cards, 

and other finances. Unfortunately, Parker abused her privileges. She wrote checks and money 

orders from CNVDC’s accounts that she cashed for herself; she used the company debit card to 

make personal purchases at Harley Davidson, T.J. Maxx, Sephora, Pier I, Victoria’s Secret, and a 

casino; she withdrew cash from CNVDC’s accounts for her own use; and she double deposited her 

paychecks. In the end, Parker stole over $195,000 from CNVDC. 

After Parker left CNVDC in shambles, a grand jury indicted her for violating 18 U.S.C. 

§ 666(a). Section 666(a) prohibits agents of certain organizations from stealing or embezzling the 

organization’s money. See 18 U.S.C. § 666(a). Parker pled guilty, and the district court sentenced 

her to 33 months in prison. That sentence fell at the high end of Parker’s Sentencing Guidelines 

range. 

The meat of this appeal is in the district court’s calculation of Parker’s Guidelines range. 

Parker says the district court “double counted” some of her conduct when it calculated her 

Guidelines range. The district court’s math here is easy to track: The court started off with a base 

offense level of six, corresponding to the level set for violations of § 666(a). See U.S.S.G. 

§ 2B1.1(a)(2). It then applied three enhancements. First, it added ten levels to Parker’s base level 

because she stole over $150,000. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(I). Then it imposed a pair of twolevel enhancements, the first for Parker’s misrepresentations that she was acting on behalf of 

CNVDC, see U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A), and the second because Parker abused her position of 

public trust, see U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3. After Parker accepted responsibility for her crimes at 

sentencing, giving her a three-level reduction, her base offense level landed at 17. Combined with 
No. 20-4077, United States v. Parker

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Parker’s criminal history category of II, her Guidelines range was 27 to 33 months. And as we 

already noted, the district court imposed a 33-month sentence. 

Parker now appeals her sentence. She makes two arguments. First, she says the district 

court engaged in impermissible “double counting” when it imposed a two-level enhancement for 

Parker’s misrepresentations that she was acting on behalf of CNVDC. According to Parker, her 

base offense level already captured that conduct. And second, Parker argues that the application 

of both § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) for her misrepresentations and § 3B1.3 for her abuse of trust likewise

double counts the same conduct. 

Neither of these arguments persuades us. We address them in turn. In reviewing the district 

court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines, we “must ‘accept the findings of fact of the 

district court unless they are clearly erroneous and . . . give due deference to the district court’s 

application of the guidelines to the facts.’” United States v. Simmerman, 850 F.3d 829, 832 (6th 

Cir. 2017) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)).

II.

A.

Parker’s first argument is that applying the enhancement from U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A)

is “double counting” because the conduct the enhancement targets was already counted in Parker’s

base offense level. In some cases, it may indeed be impermissible for a district court to “double 

count” a defendant’s conduct when sentencing her. “Double counting occurs when precisely the 

same aspect of a defendant’s conduct factors into his sentence in two separate ways.” United States 

v. Walters, 775 F.3d 778, 782 (6th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up). It follows, then, that “[n]o double 

counting occurs if the defendant is punished for distinct aspects of his conduct.” Id.
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Section 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) punishes conduct distinct from that captured by Parker’s base 

offense level. Indeed, “an examination of the language in [Parker’s] [i]ndictment, the relevant 

statutes, and the Sentencing Guidelines reveals that” there was no impermissible double counting.

Walters, 775 F.3d at 783.

Start with Parker’s indictment. It accused her of embezzling, stealing, and obtaining by 

fraud at least $5,000 belonging to CNVDC. This tracks the language of 18 U.S.C. § 666. The 

statute prohibits “agents” of certain “organizations” from “embezzl[ing], steal[ing], [or] 

obtain[ing] by fraud . . . property that is valued at $5,000 or more, and is owned by, or is under the 

care, custody, or control of such organization.” 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(A). So the statute targets 

specific acts by the organization’s agent: Embezzling, stealing, or obtaining the organization’s

money by fraud. 

But § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) takes aim at different conduct. It increases a defendant’s offense level 

for “misrepresent[ing] that the defendant was acting on behalf of a charitable, educational, 

religious, or political organization, or a government agency.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A). The 

district court applied § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) because Parker collected and pocketed cash rent, made 

debit and credit card charges to CNVDC accounts for personal benefits, and withdrew cash from 

CNVDC’s bank accounts by misrepresenting that she was doing so on behalf of CNVDC. 

Applying the enhancement here did not cause double counting. We need only consider

Parker’s rent-collection scheme to see why. This scheme was part of Parker’s broader 

embezzlement and theft spree. Parker would go to CNVDC tenants and demand rent in cash or 

threaten eviction. The tenants would cede to these demands—after all, Parker was CNVDC’s 

executive director, and they were renting from CNVDC. Of course, rather than deposit the cash in 

CNVDC’s accounts, Parker would pocket it. 
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Section 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) captures the first half of this scheme—Parker’s 

misrepresentations—and § 666(a) captures the second half—Parker’s theft of the cash. So the 

enhancement punished different aspects of Parker’s crime from what § 666(a) targets. See Walters, 

775 F.3d at 782. Indeed, if Parker went to the tenants, demanded cash rent, but walked away 

emptyhanded, she would not have violated § 666(a) (though she might incur other liability). 

Likewise, if tenants simply mailed in their rent checks and Parker intercepted them before they 

could make it into CNVDC’s bank accounts, then § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) would not apply. 

As we have already stated, “where a defendant is penalized for distinct aspects of his 

conduct, no double counting takes place.” Walters, 775 F.3d at 784. Because § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A)

punishes Parker for her misrepresentations, and not her distinct act of pocketing CNVDC’s money 

for her own use, the district court’s application of the Guideline did not lead to impermissible 

double counting. 

B.

We turn next to Parker’s second claim, which also relies on a double-counting theory. This 

time, Parker says the district court engaged in double counting when it applied both U.S.S.G. §§ 

2B1.1(b)(9)(A) and 3B1.1. This argument meets the same fate as the first. 

For starters, Parker did not preserve this objection below. Though Parker contended before 

the district court that applying § 2B1.1 caused double counting vis-à-vis her base offense level, 

she never suggested that application of § 2B1.1 together with § 3B1.3 created similar problems. 

Not when the district court solicited objections to Parker’s presentence report early in Parker’s 

sentencing, and not when the district court fielded the parties’ Bostic objections. See United States 

v. Bostic, 371 F.3d 865, 872–73 (6th Cir. 2004). So, as the government points out, we review the 

application of the enhancements together for plain error. See United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 
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382, 385 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc). That means Parker must show the application of both 

enhancements was an “obvious or clear” error that affected both Parker’s “substantial rights” and 

“the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” Id. at 386 (quoting United 

States v. Gardiner, 463 F.3d 445, 459 (6th Cir. 2006)). 

But Parker does not establish any error, let alone plain error. We noted above that 

§ 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) bumps a defendant’s offense level up two if the offense involved “a 

misrepresentation that the defendant was acting on behalf of a charitable . . . organization.” 

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A). Compare that to § 3B1.3, which imposes a two-level enhancement 

when “the defendant abused a position of public or private trust . . . in a manner that significantly 

facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3B.1.3.

These enhancements target different aspects of Parker’s crime. Consider our decision in 

United States v. Smith, 516 F.3d 473 (6th Cir. 2008). There, Smith landed a job as executive 

director of a local Red Cross chapter. While serving in that position, Smith “used . . . donations 

and other money from the chapter’s bank accounts to support her drug and alcohol habits, to pay 

for a personal vacation and to buy furniture, jewelry, electronics and a tractor/snowblower.” Id. at 

475 (cleaned up). The district court there applied both § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) and § 3B1.3, and we 

affirmed. “The abuse-of-trust enhancement accounts for Smith’s exploitation of her position as 

executive director,” we reasoned, “while the misrepresentation enhancement accounts for Smith’s

deceptions in misleading contributors that their donations would go to charitable purposes rather 

than her own.” Id. at 476.

So too here. Just as the § 2B1.1 enhancement in Smith punished Smith for her deception in 

misleading contributors, here it punishes Parker for misleading CNVDC’s tenants and vendors. 

That is distinct from the § 3B1.3 enhancement for abuse of trust, which sanctions Parker for her 
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“exploitation of her position as executive director.” Id. The former harmed CNVDC’s 

beneficiaries, including its tenants, and the latter the organization itself. See id. So the two 

enhancements here target not only different conduct, but they also penalize different harms. 

“In the final analysis, it is not double counting, but single counting, to punish [Parker] twice for 

distinct aggravating qualities of her offense.” Id. at 477. 

The district court did not double count Parker’s conduct in applying both §§ 2B1.1 and 

3B1.3. 

III.

We AFFIRM the district court.