NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

PATRICIA DIANE SMITH SLEDGE, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-50363 

D.C. No. 

8:12-cr-00234-JVS-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 7, 2019**

Pasadena, California

Before: M. SMITH and OWENS, Circuit Judges, and SETTLE,*** District Judge.

Patricia Sledge appeals from her jury conviction and sentence for mail fraud,

in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and witness tampering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable Benjamin H. Settle, United States District Judge for 

the Western District of Washington, sitting by designation.

FILED

MAR 11 2019

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

§ 1512(b)(3). Sledge, a sales associate for American Family Life Assurance 

Company (“AFLAC”), orchestrated a large-scale insurance fraud scheme. As the 

parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recount them here. We affirm.

1. There was sufficient evidence to support Sledge’s two witness 

tampering convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3). Section 1512(b) prohibits, 

among other things, attempting to “corruptly persuade[]” a witness to lie to 

investigators. 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b). This language encompasses “non-coercive 

attempts to persuade witnesses to lie to investigators.” United States v. Khatami, 

280 F.3d 907, 914 (9th Cir. 2002). Viewing the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found that Sledge 

attempted to corruptly persuade the two witnesses to lie to investigators. 

See United States v. Pelisamen, 641 F.3d 399, 409 n.6 (9th Cir. 2011) (setting forth 

sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard of review). 

2. The district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting Exhibit 1, a 

spreadsheet summarizing the insurance policies and claims generated by Sledge 

that AFLAC identified as fraudulent. AFLAC analyst Susan Gonzales testified 

that she created the spreadsheet, which pulled data from an AFLAC database of 

policy and claims information, at the request of an AFLAC investigator as part of 

the company’s internal investigation. The district court admitted Exhibit 1 under 

Federal Rule of Evidence 1006, which allows for summary charts of voluminous 
3 

records. See Fed. R. Evid. 1006; United States v. Rizk, 660 F.3d 1125, 1130 (9th 

Cir. 2011) (discussing Rule 1006); see also Fed. R. Evid. 803(6) (records of 

regularly conducted activity are not hearsay).

Contrary to Sledge’s contention, Gonzales had personal knowledge of the 

spreadsheet as its creator. Gonzales’s lack of personal knowledge about whether 

the summarized policies and claims were in fact fraudulent affects the weight of 

Exhibit 1, not its admissibility. See Rizk, 660 F.3d at 1131 n.2.

Further, admission of Exhibit 1 did not violate Sledge’s Confrontation 

Clause rights because the spreadsheet was not based on any hearsay from the 

AFLAC investigator. Gonzales only mentioned the investigator to explain why 

she prepared the spreadsheet (i.e., its effect on the listener), not for the truth of any 

statement by the investigator. See United States v. Payne, 944 F.2d 1458, 1472 

(9th Cir. 1991) (holding that challenged testimony was not hearsay because it was 

properly admitted to show its effect on the listener, rather than the truth of the 

matter asserted).

3. The prosecutor did not engage in misconduct by referring to Exhibit 1 

in closing argument. The record shows that the prosecutor correctly described 

Exhibit 1 as summarizing the policies and claims that AFLAC had identified as 

fraudulent. Moreover, aside from AFLAC’s identification, there was independent 

evidence in the record supporting the notion that the policies and claims listed in 
4 

Exhibit 1 were in fact fraudulent.

4. Finally, during sentencing, the district court did not clearly err in 

finding that the amount of loss attributable to Sledge’s fraudulent scheme was over 

$4.1 million, resulting in an 18-level enhancement under U.S.S.G § 2B1.1(b)(1)(J). 

See United States v. Garro, 517 F.3d 1163, 1167 (9th Cir. 2008) (“A calculation of 

the amount of loss is a factual finding reviewed for clear error.”). Likewise, the 

court did not clearly err in ordering restitution of over $4.1 million under the 

Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii). 

See United States v. De La Fuente, 353 F.3d 766, 772 (9th Cir. 2003) (stating that 

factual findings supporting a restitution order are reviewed for clear error).

AFFIRMED.