UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-4898

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

WILLIAM RONDELL COLLINS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Liam O’Grady, District 

Judge. (1:10-cr-00045-LO-1)

Submitted: April 18, 2011 Decided: April 29, 2011

Before KING, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Lana Manitta, RICH ROSENTHAL BRINCEFIELD MANITTA DZUBIN & 

KROEGER, LLP, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H. 

MacBride, United States Attorney, Ryan S. Faulconer, Special 

Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

William Rondell Collins appeals his forty-two month 

prison sentence after pleading guilty to one count of bribery as 

a public official in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2) (2006) 

and one count of unlawful salary supplementation in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 209(a) (2006). On appeal, Collins contends that the 

district court erred in calculating his advisory range of 

imprisonment using the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (USSG) 

and erred by upwardly departing from the Guidelines range. We 

affirm.

We review the district court’s imposition of a 

sentence under a deferential abuse of discretion standard. 

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). In analyzing 

whether a district court properly applied the Guidelines, we 

review factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de 

novo. United States v. Osborne, 514 F.3d 377, 387 (4th Cir. 

2008).

The district court properly found that Collins’s 

offense conduct involved more than one bribe or extortion, and 

thus enhanced his offense level pursuant to USSG § 2C1.1(b)(1) 

(2009). Bribery as a public official may be found even where 

the official act offered in exchange for the bribe is not 

harmful to the government or inconsistent with the official’s 

legal obligations. United States v. Quinn, 359 F.3d 666, 675 
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(4th Cir. 2004). It is irrelevant whether the public official 

would have to change his or her conduct to satisfy the payor’s 

expectations. Id.

Moreover, Collins promised to do more than just 

fulfill his official duties in exchange for payment. Collins 

promised to “cover” his supervisor, the primary overseer of the 

contract. Such activity constitutes bribery activity, and 

coupled with Collins’s other admitted bribery scheme, 

demonstrates Collins’s involvement in more than one bribe.

Collins also challenges the district court’s finding, 

under USSG § 2C1.1(b)(2), that a six offense level enhancement 

was appropriate because his schemes resulted in a combined loss 

and gain of over $30,000. We review such a factual 

determination for clear error, mindful that loss need not be 

determined with precision. United States v. Miller, 316 F.3d 

495, 503 (4th Cir. 2003). A district court need only make a 

reasonable estimate, given the available information before it. 

Id.

We find no clear error in the district court’s loss 

and gain calculations. According to the parties’ joint 

statement of facts, the first scheme was set to yield Collins 

400 Kuwaiti Dinar per month — a sum equivalent to, as agreed by 

the parties, approximately $1400. The parties agreed that four 

such payments were made and it was not clear error for the 
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district court to find that a fifth such payment was made, or at 

least contemplated, based on the overwhelming evidence in the 

record. Thus, the value of the money obtained or to be obtained 

through Collins’s first scheme totaled at least $7000.

The joint statement of facts chronicled a cash payment 

of $5775 to Collins, representing one-half of his share of the 

proceeds of the second scheme. Thus, Collins’s full share would 

amount to $11,550 and, combined with the full share of his 

partner, the total value to be obtained by Collins and his 

partner was to be $23,100.1

 Adding the two totals together, as 

directed by USSG § 2C1.1 cmt. n.2, yields a total anticipated 

gain or loss of at least $30,100 based on the offense conduct.2

 1 This figure also represents the anticipated amount of loss 

to the Government.

 

We note that this figure is conservative, as the schemes were 

seemingly anticipated to continue further into the future. But 

for our purposes, this calculation demonstrates that the 

district court’s finding as to the amount of the loss or gain 

was not clearly erroneous.

2 Collins makes much of various currency exchange rates in 

his appellate briefing. Use of such rates is unnecessary given 

that the district court’s findings are not clearly erroneous 

using the figures contained in the parties’ joint statement of 

facts. It is not dispositive that other reasonable ways to 

calculate the loss or gain may exist; we review only the 

propriety of the district court’s calculation.
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Lastly, Collins contends that the district court acted 

substantively unreasonably in departing upwardly from the 

advisory Guidelines range of imprisonment. The district court 

provided a cogent explanation of adequate reasons to justify 

Collins’s forty-two month sentence. In light of the deference 

due to the district court’s sentence, we do not find it 

unreasonable under a totality of the circumstances.

We therefore affirm Collins’s sentence. We deny 

Collins’s motion seeking leave to file a pro se supplemental 

brief. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and 

legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials 

before the court and argument would not aid the decisional 

process.

AFFIRMED