NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

SOLOMON JALLOH, AKA Sulaiman 

Jalloh, AKA Suliman Jalloh, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-50411 

D.C. No. 

8:15-cr-00129-CJC-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Cormac J. Carney, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted December 9, 2019**

Pasadena, California

Before: N.R. SMITH and WATFORD, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,*** District 

Judge.

Solomon Jalloh challenges his convictions on eight counts of wire fraud, his 

* 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 Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for 

the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

FILED

DEC 11 2019

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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87-month sentence, and the district court’s order of $2.1 million in restitution. 

Finding no error, we affirm. 

1. Count 8 was properly joined with the first seven counts. All eight counts 

are clearly of the “same or similar character,” as they shared the same evidence, the 

same modus operandi, and the same statutory offense. United States v. Jawara, 

474 F.3d 565, 578 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 8(a)). Although

there is a temporal gap between the activity charged in the first seven counts and 

the conduct charged in the eighth, all eight counts took place within the time frame 

alleged in the indictment and proved at trial. There was no error, much less plain 

error, in joining the charges.

2. Jalloh waived his contention that the district court abused its discretion in 

failing to sever the special sentencing allegation from the remaining charges. “It is 

well-settled that the motion to sever must be renewed at the close of evidence or it 

is waived.” United States v. Sullivan, 522 F.3d 967, 981 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Jalloh failed to renew his pretrial motion, thus waiving 

this claim. Even if not waived, the claim lacks merit. The district court did not 

abuse its discretion in concluding that the sentencing allegation was inextricably 

linked to Count 8. The same evidence required to prove Count 8 would be 

required to prove that Jalloh committed “an offense” for purposes of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3147, making a second trial wasteful and duplicative. 
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3. The district court did not abuse its discretion in permitting testimony 

from two victims not specifically mentioned in the indictment. When an 

indictment alleges a general scheme, “evidence of uncharged transactions is not 

evidence of ‘other’ crimes or acts under Rule 404(b), because it is evidence of part 

of the crime charged in the indictment—the overall scheme to defraud.” United 

States v. Loftis, 843 F.3d 1173, 1176 (9th Cir. 2016). The indictment alleged “a 

scheme to defraud investors . . . by means of materially false and fraudulent 

pretenses.” The victims who testified at trial were defrauded by that very scheme. 

Their testimony was therefore direct evidence of Jalloh’s crime. 

Nor did Federal Rule of Evidence 403 bar the admission of the testimony. 

Although Jalloh highlights the portions of the witnesses’ testimony describing the 

harm the loss had caused them, the majority of the testimony was dry and factual. 

One emotional remark by each witness does not outweigh the highly probative 

value of their testimony as a whole. 

4. The district court correctly imposed sentence enhancements for ten or 

more victims and for losses exceeding $1.5 million. Jalloh’s challenges to these 

enhancements fail to account for the fact that, when prescribing sentences for

scheme-based crimes, the Sentencing Guidelines explicitly require consideration of 

all acts “that were part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan 

as the offense of conviction.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(2); see also United States v. 
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Fine, 975 F.2d 596, 600 (9th Cir. 1992) (en banc) (“[C]onduct which was part of 

the scheme is counted, even though the defendant was not convicted of crimes 

based upon the related conduct.”). Over the four-year period charged in the 

indictment, Jalloh defrauded many more victims than just the undercover officer, 

and the district court permissibly included them in its calculations. Based on the 

evidence provided by the government (the factual accuracy of which Jalloh does

not challenge), the district court did not clearly err in determining that the scheme 

resulted in a loss of more than $1.5 million to 21 victims.

5. Jalloh’s restitution argument fails for the same reason. The Mandatory 

Victims Restitution Act requires that restitution be made to anyone “harmed by the 

defendant’s criminal conduct in the course of the scheme.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3663A(a)(2). As already established, Jalloh defrauded the victims not named in 

the indictment as part of the scheme charged. The very same false documents, 

phone numbers, and promises alleged in the indictment induced these other victims 

to invest their money with Jalloh. Their losses thus “flow[ed] directly from the 

specific conduct that is the basis of the offense of conviction.” United States v. 

May, 706 F.3d 1209, 1214 (9th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).

AFFIRMED.