[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 16-15519

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 0:14-cr-60312-KAM-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

GREGORY MOORE, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(April 4, 2018)

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, MARCUS, Circuit Judge, and ROSS,* District 

Judge.

PER CURIAM: 

 * Honorable Eleanor Louise Ross, United States District Judge for the Northern District 

of Georgia, sitting by designation.

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 1 of 13 
2

A jury found Gregory Moore guilty of five counts of carjacking, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2119(1), and five accompanying counts of carrying and using a firearm during 

and in relation to crimes of violence, id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii), (iii). He was sentenced 

to 1,452 months imprisonment, which reflected the mandatory consecutive terms 

for the firearms charges. He appeals his convictions and sentence.

I.

A.

Moore met Danielle Roland in the summer of 2014, and the two began 

dating. When Roland broke up with Moore a few months later, Moore grew angry, 

began calling her repeatedly, and threatened to kill her. One night Moore broke 

into her home, and Roland and her new boyfriend found Moore asleep in her bed

with a gun. The police were called to the scene, and Roland moved out the next 

day.

Two days later, on December 2, 2014, Moore committed a series of 

carjackings in his attempt to get to and from Roland’s workplace, Reimer 

Insurance. First, he stole a Suzuki Aerio while it was stopped at an intersection. 

He climbed into the back of the car, pointed a gun toward the front, and ordered 

the driver to drive onto the highway. When she did not, Moore pulled the 

emergency break and ordered the driver and her son out of the car. He drove the 

Suzuki until he wrecked it. Moore then approached a Chevy Silverado stopped at a 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 2 of 13 
3

stoplight and told the driver to “get the fuck out of the car” while pointing a gun at 

his head. He drove that truck to Reimer, pulling into the parking lot a few minutes 

before Roland and her boyfriend arrived. 

When Moore saw Roland’s car driving into the lot, he ran toward it and 

began shooting into the front windshield. Roland tried to escape by driving down a 

back alley, but it was blocked. Moore walked up to the car, shot Roland five times 

in the stomach and legs, pulled her out of the car by her head, and “pistol whipped” 

her, while saying “Bitch, Imma kill you.” Moore also shot Roland’s boyfriend, 

who managed to escape the car but died later that day from gunshot wounds. 

Leaving Roland for dead, Moore climbed back into the truck and drove toward I95. 

While driving down the interstate, Moore stopped the truck twice and 

attempted to steal the cars stopped behind him. The driver of a Kia Soul testified 

that Moore stopped the truck, got out, and walked toward him with a gun pointed 

toward his face. Fearing for his life, the driver accelerated, hit Moore, and drove 

away. A driver of a Saturn Outlook similarly testified that Moore stopped in front 

of him, got out of the truck, and pointed a gun toward his face. Fearing for his life, 

that driver also accelerated and drove away. 

During this second encounter, Moore’s truck had continued forward and it 

crashed into a cement wall located in the median. Stranded, Moore turned to a 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 3 of 13 
4

silver Mercedes stopped a few feet away. He walked toward the driver with a gun 

pointed toward her head and told her to “get out of the car, bitch, or I’ll blow your 

head off.” He then pulled her out of the car and fired a shot as she ran away. 

Moore later abandoned the Mercedes along I-95 and went into hiding. FBI agents 

found and arrested him a few days later, and a grand jury indicted him on five 

counts of carjacking and five counts of carrying and using a firearm during and in 

relation to crimes of violence.

B.

Before trial on those charges, Moore sought to exclude as irrelevant and 

unduly prejudicial evidence of what happened at Roland’s home before the string 

of carjackings began. He had broken into the home and was asleep with a gun in 

Roland’s bed. He also sought to exclude evidence showing that after he was 

arrested for the entry and then released, Moore went to Roland’s workplace and 

shot her and her boyfriend, who died. The court denied both motions, finding that 

evidence of the entry was relevant to Moore’s identity, intent, and motive, and that 

evidence of the shooting was relevant because it was “inextricably intertwined” 

with the carjackings and “pertain[ed] to the chain of events and explain[ed] the 

context, motive and set-up of the charged crimes.” The court also found that under 

Rule 403 evidence of both events was admissible because its probative value 

outweighed any prejudicial effect. Although the court admitted evidence of both 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 4 of 13 
5

events, it gave a limiting instruction on prior acts evidence during trial and as part 

of its final instructions, informing the jury that the evidence could be used to 

establish only Moore’s intent, motive, or plan, but not “to decide whether Mr. 

Moore engaged in the activity alleged in the indictment.” 

At trial, the government called all of the carjacking victims, each of whom 

testified that Moore took or attempted to take his or her car while pointing a gun in 

their direction or at their face. The government also called a number of witnesses 

to the shooting, including Roland, and submitted evidence showing that DNA from 

Roland was found in what appeared to be a small blood stain in one of the 

carjacked cars and that bullets and bullet casings found at Reimer matched the gun 

found where Moore abandoned the fifth car. Last, the government presented the 

testimony of Moore’s cousin, Jonathon Marion, and the mother of his child, 

Tequila Ingram. While Moore was hiding with Marion and Ingram, he confessed 

that he shot Roland and committed several carjackings to get to and from Reimer. 

At the end of Ingram’s testimony the government asked her, “[W]hat is the 

only thing that the Government ever has asked you to do?” Ingram responded, 

“Not to bring up [Moore’s] priors.” The government then refined its question, “In 

terms of your testimony and what you’re going to talk about today, what is the 

only thing that we’ve ever asked of you?” To which Ingram responded, “To tell 

the truth.” After that testimony, Moore moved for a mistrial because Ingram 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 5 of 13 
6

“gratuitously spouted out not to mention his priors.” Moore acknowledged that the 

government was trying “to get her to say we’ve told you to tell the truth,” but 

maintained that Ingram’s comment was “highly prejudicial.” The court denied the 

motion but offered to read a curative instruction, which Moore declined. 

After both sides rested, the jury found Moore guilty of the five carjackings 

and the five correlating firearms charges. And the court, over Moore’s objections, 

sentenced him to 1,452 months imprisonment. That sentence was the total of the 

following ten sentences: 168 months, concurrent, on each of the five carjackings; 

84 months, consecutive, on the first firearms offense; and 300 months, all 

consecutive, on each of the four remaining firearms offenses. This is Moore’s 

appeal. 

II.

We review for an abuse of discretion the district court’s evidentiary rulings 

and the denial of a mistrial. Vista Mktg., LLC v. Burkett, 812 F.3d 954, 979 (11th 

Cir. 2016); United States v. Newsome, 475 F.3d 1221, 1227 (11th Cir. 2007). We 

review de novo constitutional sentencing issues and questions of statutory 

interpretation. United States v. Harris, 741 F.3d 1245, 1248 (11th Cir. 2014); 

United States v. Maturin, 499 F.3d 1243, 1245 (11th Cir. 2007). 

Moore contends that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the 

government to introduce evidence that Moore entered Roland’s home and that he 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 6 of 13 
7

shot Roland and her boyfriend. He also contends that the court abused its 

discretion by denying Moore’s motion for mistrial after Ingram referenced 

Moore’s prior criminal history before the jury. And he contends that imposition of 

four consecutive 300-month (25-year) sentences on four of the five firearms counts 

are counter to the rule of lenity and violate the Eighth Amendment. 

A.

Moore argues that evidence showing that he broke into Roland’s house, was 

found asleep with a gun in her bed, and that two days later he shot Roland and her 

boyfriend was irrelevant and substantially more prejudicial than probative. We 

disagree.

Moore first asserts that evidence of those other acts is irrelevant because its 

only purpose was to illustrate his alleged criminal propensity, and under Federal 

Rule of Evidence 404(b) “[e]vidence of a crime, wrong, or other act” is 

inadmissible when used to show a person’s propensity to act in conformance with a 

particular character trait. Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). But Rule 404(b) applies only 

when the disputed evidence is extrinsic to the charged offense. See United States 

v. Edouard, 485 F.3d 1324, 1344 (11th Cir. 2007). Evidence is intrinsic, and 

therefore outside the scope of Rule 404(b), when it is “inextricably intertwined” 

with the evidence regarding the charged offense. Id.

Evidence that Moore planned to harm Roland is “inextricably intertwined”

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 7 of 13 
8

with the five carjackings. Each carjacking, though an independent crime, was part 

of Moore’s larger plan to get to Roland’s workplace, shoot her, and then get away. 

Evidence that Moore had been found in Roland’s bed two nights before and that he 

shot Roland during the spree explains why Moore committed the carjackings and 

was “necessary to complete the story of the crime.” Id.; see also United States v. 

McLean, 138 F.3d 1398, 1403 (11th Cir. 1998) (“Evidence, not part of the crime 

charged but pertaining to the chain of events[,] explaining the context, motive[,] 

and set-up of the crime, is properly admitted if . . . [it] forms an integral and natural 

part of an account of the crime, or is necessary to complete the story of the crime 

for the jury.”) (quotation marks omitted). Evidence of the shooting also combatted 

Moore’s primary defense that the government could not identify him as the person

who committed the carjackings. Multiple witnesses identified Moore as the 

shooter, and the government’s physical evidence tied the shooting to the 

carjackings. Roland’s DNA was found in a stain in one of the cars, and the gun 

found near the fifth car matched bullets and casings found at Reimer. 

Moore also asserts that the evidence should have been excluded because “its 

probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice.” 

Fed. R. Evid. 403. Rule 403 is an extraordinary remedy and it should be “limited 

to excluding matter of scant or cumulative probative force, dragged in by the heels 

for the sake of its prejudicial effect.” United States v. Mills, 704 F.2d 1553, 1560 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 8 of 13 
9

(11th Cir. 1983) (quotation marks omitted). As explained above, the probative 

value of the disputed evidence was great because it demonstrated Moore’s motive 

and plan and countered Moore’s primary defense. And the district court lessened 

any prejudice by giving a limiting instruction to the jury during trial and again 

before its final deliberations to consider evidence of prior acts only for the limited 

purpose of proving Moore’s intent, motive, or plan. See United States v. LaFond, 

783 F.3d 1216, 1222 (11th Cir. 2015) (concluding that “the district court lessened 

the prejudicial impact when it repeatedly instructed the jury to consider the 

evidence for only the limited purpose of proving intent and motive”). 

Because the evidence of Moore’s other acts was relevant and its probative

value outweighed any prejudice, the district court did not abuse its discretion by 

denying Moore’s motion to exclude it. 

B.

Moore also contends that the district court abused its discretion when it 

denied his motion for mistrial. He argues that Ingram intentionally stated that

Moore had “priors” and that this reference prejudiced the jury. 

“The mere utterance of the word jail, prison, or arrest does not, without 

regard to context or circumstances, constitute reversible error per se.” United 

States v. Emmanuel, 565 F.3d 1324, 1334 (11th Cir. 2009). Ingram testified that 

the government told her “[n]ot to bring up [Moore’s] priors.” She did not discuss 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 9 of 13 
10

those priors or mention his prior convictions again. Moore admitted at trial that

her answer was unelicited and that she immediately corrected her response to give 

the elicited statement — that the government had told her “[t]o tell the truth.” A 

solitary, unelicited, and vague reference to “priors” in the context of a multi-day 

trial is insufficient to show that the district court abused its discretion by denying 

Moore’s motion for a mistrial. See id. (“[W]here the comment is brief, unelicited, 

and unresponsive, adding nothing to the government’s case, the denial of a mistrial 

is proper.”). 

C.

Moore next contends that the district court erred by imposing four

consecutive 300-month (25-year) sentences under § 924(c). That subsection states 

that “any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence . . . uses or 

carries a firearm” and brandishes that firearm will “be sentenced to a term of 

imprisonment of not less than 7 years.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). But “[i]n the 

case of a second or subsequent conviction” the minimum sentence is 300 months

imprisonment and that sentence must run consecutively “with any other term of 

imprisonment imposed on the person.” Id. § 924(c)(1)(C)(i), (D)(ii). Moore’s 

total sentence for the five § 924(c) convictions was 1284 months (107 years).

1

1.

 1 Moore does not challenge his first § 924(c) sentence of 84 months consecutive, nor 

does he challenge his concurrent 168-month carjacking sentences.

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 10 of 13 
11

Moore argues that the language of § 924(c) is ambiguous and for that reason, 

the district court should have applied the rule of lenity in interpreting its terms and 

vacated his four consecutive 300-month (25-year) sentences. Moore asserts that 

because he used the same firearm in each of the five carjackings, he committed 

only one § 924(c) offense. But the issue under § 924(c) is the number of times a 

firearm is used during a crime of violence, not the number of firearms. See United 

States v. Rawlings, 821 F.2d 1543, 1546 (11th Cir. 1987) (holding that the 

language and legislative history of § 924(c)’s “second or subsequent conviction” 

provision unambiguously shows “Congress’ desire to deter and punish firearm 

use” even when the second or subsequent convictions were brought in the same 

indictment) (emphasis added).2 Given the distinct nature of each carjacking and 

Moore’s use of a firearm during each one, § 924(c) is not ambiguous as applied to 

Moore, and the district court did not err by declining to vacate his four “second or 

subsequent” § 924(c) convictions and sentences. 

2.

 2 Moore cites several cases from other circuits holding that a defendant cannot be 

convicted of multiple § 924(c) charges when there is only one firearm and one use but multiple 

predicate offenses. See, e.g., United States v. Rentz, 777 F.3d 1105, 1107, 1115 (10th Cir. 2015) 

(en banc) (one § 924(c) charge when defendant used a firearm to kill one victim and the same 

bullet hit and killed a second victim); United States v. Wilson, 160 F.3d 732, 735, 749–50 (D.C. 

Cir. 1998) (one § 924(c) charge when defendant used a firearm to kill one victim and the killing 

resulted in one conviction of first degree murder and one conviction of killing of a witness with 

intent to prevent him from testifying). But unlike the defendants in those cases, Moore 

committed several, distinct crimes through several, distinct acts. The five carjackings occurred 

at different times, in different locations, with different victims, and he brandished a gun during 

each carjacking. Those differences make the difference. 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 11 of 13 
12

Moore also argues that his consecutive firearms sentences are 

unconstitutionally excessive under the Eighth Amendment. For Eighth 

Amendment challenges, we have recognized a “narrow proportionality principle 

that applies to noncapital sentences.” United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218, 

1255 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted). To succeed on such a challenge, 

the defendant must make a threshold showing that his sentence is grossly 

disproportionate to the offense. Id. at 1256. If he succeeds, then we will “consider 

the sentences imposed on others convicted in the same jurisdiction and the 

sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions.” 

United States v. Raad, 406 F.3d 1322, 1324 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks

omitted). 

Moore has not shown that his sentence is “grossly disproportionate” to his 

offenses. In noncapital cases “successful challenges to the proportionality of 

particular sentences are exceedingly rare.” United States v. Farley, 607 F.3d 1294, 

1343 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks omitted). And “[i]n general, a sentence 

within the limits imposed by statute is neither excessive nor cruel and unusual 

under the Eighth Amendment.” United States v. Johnson, 451 F.3d 1239, 1243

(11th Cir. 2006) (quotation marks omitted). Moore’s sentence falls within the 

sentencing range established and dictated by § 924(c), and it is not “grossly 

disproportionate” to Moore’s crimes of using a firearm to threaten five different 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 12 of 13 
13

victims in an attempt to steal five different cars. The victim of each carjacking

testified that Moore pointed a gun at them; three testified that he ordered them to 

get out of the car while doing so; and one testified that Moore shot the gun while 

she was running away. See United States v. Yeary, 740 F.3d 569, 572–73 & n.3 

(11th Cir. 2014) (summarily rejecting defendant’s argument that his sentences, 

which included 960 months imprisonment on consecutive § 924(c) convictions, 

violated the Eighth Amendment). Given the violent nature of the carjackings, the 

district court did not err by declining to vacate Moore’s consecutive sentences 

under § 924(c). His sentence was not grossly disproportionate to his crimes, nor 

did it amount to cruel and unusual punishment. 

AFFIRMED.3

 3 Although this case was originally on the oral argument calendar, it was removed under 

11th Circuit Rule 34-3(f). 

Case: 16-15519 Date Filed: 04/04/2018 Page: 13 of 13