United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 19-1813 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

VINCENT GRAHAM, a/k/a Shawn, a/k/a MAC, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE 

[Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Thompson, Kayatta, Barron 

Circuit Judges. 

Robert Herrick for appellant. 

Julia M. Lipez, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom 

Halsey B. Frank, United States Attorney, was on brief, for 

appellee. 

September 24, 2020 
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KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. After an investigation revealed 

that he had coerced a woman to engage in prostitution, defendant 

Vincent Graham pled guilty to federal charges of sex trafficking, 

drug trafficking, and interstate transportation of a person for 

prostitution in violation of the Mann Act. At sentencing, the 

district court determined that Graham's victim was a "vulnerable 

victim" for purposes of applying a two-level enhancement under 

section 3A1.1(b)(1) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. 

The district court sentenced Graham to 320 months on the sex and 

drug trafficking counts and to concurrent 120-month sentences on 

the Mann Act counts. Graham now challenges the district court's 

application of the vulnerable-victim enhancement. For the 

following reasons, we reject the appeal and affirm Graham's 

sentence. 

I. 

 Because this appeal follows a guilty plea, we draw the 

relevant facts from the change-of-plea colloquy, the revised 

pre-sentence investigation report, and the sentencing hearing 

transcript. See United States v. Zapata-Vázquez, 778 F.3d 21, 22 

(1st Cir. 2015). 

 Graham met J.R. in Biddeford, Maine, during the summer 

of 2015. J.R. was addicted to heroin and engaged in prostitution 

to support her addiction at the time. At their first meeting in 

July 2015, Graham provided J.R. crack cocaine in exchange for a 
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sexual favor and sold her heroin. Over the next month, Graham 

verbally, emotionally, and physically abused J.R., directed her to 

post commercial sex advertisements online, and took her from Maine 

to Lowell, Massachusetts, where he coerced her to engage in 

prostitution. 

 Graham retained nearly all of J.R.'s earnings from the 

prostitution. In exchange, he supplied her with enough heroin to 

keep her from suffering withdrawal symptoms. Graham also paid for 

minutes on a cell phone on which clients would contact J.R., as 

well as for some of the hotel rooms where J.R. would meet 

clients. Graham threatened to withhold heroin from J.R. if she 

did not continue to engage in prostitution, threatened to kill her 

if she left, and severely beat her. When J.R. asked Graham how 

she would be able to continue with prostitution with visible 

injuries, Graham replied that clients would "pay more" out of 

sympathy for her. After Graham assaulted her a second time, J.R. 

managed to escape from him with the help of family and friends. 

 Several months later, in December 2015, Graham saw J.R. 

again and gave her heroin and crack cocaine. He then took her and 

another adult woman to New Hampshire and Massachusetts for purposes 

of prostitution. J.R. continued to engage in prostitution at 

Graham's direction and for his profit until December 22, 2015, 

when Graham seriously assaulted her a third time. With the help 

of a friend, J.R. left after this assault and checked into the 
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Southern Maine Medical Center the next day. At the medical center, 

she reported living with a man who "beat her badly" and for whom 

she worked in prostitution. She described being hit in the face 

and experiencing significant pain. She further stated that she 

would "rather die than keep[] going back to that man," and that 

"[h]e's either going to kill me or I am going to kill myself." 

 Graham was charged with two counts of sex trafficking an 

adult by force, fraud, and coercion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 1591(a)(1), (b)(1), 1594(a); two counts of distributing heroin 

and crack cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), 

(b)(1)(c); and two counts of transporting a person interstate with 

intent that the person engage in prostitution, or aiding or 

abetting such transportation, in violation of the Mann Act, 18 

U.S.C. §§ 2421(a), 2. In January 2019, Graham pled guilty to all 

six counts. 

One sex-trafficking count covered the trafficking in the 

summer of 2015. The second count covered the trafficking in 

December 2015. For purposes of calculating the Guidelines 

sentencing range, the district court treated the counts 

separately, rather than grouping them. For each count, the 

probation office and the government recommended that the court 

apply a two-level enhancement under section 3A1.1(b)(1) of the 

Guidelines, which applies "[i]f the defendant knew or should have 

known that a victim of the offense was a vulnerable victim." The 
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probation office and the government also recommended that the court 

apply the vulnerable-victim enhancement to the Mann Act charge 

arising out of Graham's interstate transportation of J.R. in 

December 2015.1 Graham objected, contending that J.R. was not 

"unusually vulnerable" as specified in the Application Note to 

section 3A1.1(b)(1).

The district court opted to apply the enhancement only 

to the sex-trafficking charges arising out of Graham's conduct in 

December 2015.2 The court reasoned that had Graham's relationship 

with J.R. ended in July 2015, it "would find it difficult to come 

to the conclusion that [J.R.] was a vulnerable victim under the 

standard." However, the court concluded that by December 2015, 

J.R. was unusually vulnerable for several reasons. First, because 

Graham "had severely beaten [J.R.] on two occasions," and J.R. had 

"continued to work for him for a period of time even after the 

beatings," Graham "knew that [J.R.] was susceptible as a battered 

woman." Second, because Graham had emotionally abused J.R. in the 

summer of 2015, Graham knew that "he could use emotional 

1 Only one of the Mann Act counts pertained to J.R.

2 The record is not clear as to whether the district court 

applied the enhancement to the December 2015 Mann Act count 

involving J.R. However, because the Guidelines calculation was 

keyed to the count with the highest offense level, whether or not 

the district court applied the enhancement to the Mann Act charge 

did not alter the total offense level. More importantly, both 

parties presume -- and so shall we -- that any ruling on 

applicability of the enhancement to the December sex-trafficking 

count would apply equally to the Mann Act charge. 
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techniques" to control her. And third, Graham "knew [J.R.] was 

susceptible as a drug addict because he had fed her drugs and he 

used drugs as a means of controlling her."

The vulnerable-victim enhancement raised the offense 

level on the trafficking count covering the December 2015 time 

period, generating a total offense level of 41 and a Guidelines 

sentencing range of 360 months to life. The district court then 

weighed the sentencing factors set forth in 18 U.S.C § 3553(a), 

emphasizing that Graham had exploited J.R.'s vulnerability and 

could do the same to other women in the future. Ultimately, the 

district court imposed a sentence of 320 months of incarceration 

on the sex-trafficking and drug counts, and a concurrent sentence 

of 120 months on the Mann Act counts. Graham appeals. 

II. 

 "We review sentencing decisions for abuse of discretion, 

examining findings of fact for clear error and interpretations of 

the sentencing guidelines de novo." United States v. 

Martínez-Mercado, 919 F.3d 91, 107 (1st Cir. 2019). 

In challenging his sentence, Graham argues that the 

district court should not have applied the vulnerable-victim 

enhancement because J.R.'s "vulnerability was . . . typical for 

the offense conduct." But we need not decide that issue. Graham 

concedes that the district court's application of the vulnerablevictim enhancement did not affect his Guidelines sentencing 
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range. Where, as here, the Guidelines sentencing range would have 

been the same regardless of whether the district court's Guidelines 

calculations were correct, we have generally found any potential 

error harmless. See, e.g., United States v. Romero, 906 F.3d 196, 

210-11 (1st Cir. 2018); United States v. Ponzo, 853 F.3d 558, 588 

(1st Cir. 2017); United States v. Battle, 637 F.3d 44, 51 (1st 

Cir. 2011) (collecting authorities). 

Of course, an appellate court may only deem such an error 

harmless "if, after reviewing the entire record, it is sure that 

the error did not affect the sentence imposed." United States v. 

Alphas, 785 F.3d 775, 780 (1st Cir. 2015). "In other words, 

resentencing is required if the error either affected or arguably 

affected the sentence." Id. Thus, on occasion we have reviewed 

a record to make sure that an allegedly erroneous application of 

the Guidelines did not influence the sentencing judge, even where 

the Guidelines sentencing range would have remained unchanged in 

any event. See United States v. Goergen, 683 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 

2012). In conducting such a review, we seek to distinguish between 

a judge's reliance on facts in selecting an appropriate sentence 

and a judge's reliance on the significance that the Guidelines 

appear to assign to those facts in calculating, for example, the 

total offense level or criminal history category. See id. 

Here, Graham asserts that the district court's 

application of the vulnerable-victim enhancement "went to the 
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heart" of its sentencing rationale and therefore was not harmless 

error. But the record tells a different story. While the district 

court based its sentence in part on the vulnerability of victims 

that Graham had harmed in the past and could harm in the future, 

context reveals that the district court was referring to the fact 

that J.R. and others were vulnerable in the ordinary sense of the 

word -- not to its legal determination that J.R. was "unusually 

vulnerable" under the Guidelines. This distinction is sensible, 

as Graham himself concedes by arguing that the ordinary victim of 

these crimes is quite vulnerable to the predations of men like 

him. 

Further, although the district court relied on the 

Guidelines sentencing range of 360 months to life in determining 

Graham's sentence, it did not concentrate on the total offense 

level or on the application of any particular enhancement when 

explaining the sentence. Indeed, in a colloquy with the probation 

officer, the district court confirmed that the Guidelines 

sentencing range would remain the same regardless of whether the 

total offense level was 39 or 41. See Goergen, 683 F.3d at 4 

(citing a similar colloquy as evidence that "the judge focused on 

the [Guidelines] sentence recommendation and not the raw guideline 

number underpinning it" and concluding that the district court's 

alleged misapplication of the Guidelines was harmless). 
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Because the record does not reflect that Graham's 

sentence was even arguably affected by the district court's 

conclusion that the two-level enhancement for vulnerable victims 

was warranted under the Guidelines, we hold that any alleged error 

in the application of that enhancement would have been harmless. 

III. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the sentence.