NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff

- Appellee,

v.
ELSEDDIG ELMARIOUD MUSA, dba Arizona One Medical Transportation, LLC.,

Defendant

- Appellant. No. 19

- 10046

D.C. No. 2:15

- cr
- 01265

- DLR

- 1

MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Douglas L. Rayes, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted December 17 , 20 19 ** Phoenix, Arizona
Before: GRABER, HURWITZ, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Elseddig Musa was convicted of 35 counts of healthcare fraud (18 U.S.C.
§ 1347) and four counts of aggravated identity theft (18 U.S.C. § 102 8A). T he

district court found him responsible for approximately $1 .2 million of loss to the

* 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). 

# FILED

DEC 19 2019

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (“AHCCCS ” ).

The district court premised its original loss calculation on “unmatched

claims”

— claims for reimbursement f or transportation for which there was no
corresponding medical billing to AHCCCS. See United States v. Musa , 742 F.
App ’ x 265, 267 (9th Cir. 2018)

. In a previous appeal , we vacated Musa’s sentence
and remanded, reasoning that “the record does not adequately demonstrate that
relying entirely on the amount of ‘unmatched claims’ was a sufficiently reliable
method of estimating loss” because the record showed that unmatched claims “are
not always fraudulent.” Id. We ordered “ the district court to det ermine whether
review of [Musa’s] trip reports and daily schedules is a more accurate method of
calculating loss; if the court concludes that it is not, it may again base the loss

calculation on the value of unmatched claims.” Id.
On remand, the district court conducted an evidentiary hearing and concluded
that calculating loss using unmatched claims was the most accurate method

. The
district court therefore reimposed the original sentence

. We have jurisdiction under
18 U.S.C. § 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 129 1 and affirm.

1. The district court did not clearly err in finding that the value of

unmatched claims was the most reliable method to estimate the loss attributable to

Musa ’s crimes

. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(C); United States v. Walter

- Eze , 869
F.3d 891, 913 (9th Cir. 2017), cert. denied

, 139 S. Ct. 1196 (2019)

. Testimony at3

the sentencing hearing supported the district court’s conclusion that potentially
legitimate unmatched claims made up a small number of the total unmatched claims.

2. T he district court also did not clearly err in finding that calculating loss
using Musa’s schedules and trip reports was a less reliable estimation of loss. The
government’s expert testified that those records were both incomplete and

inconsistent. Moreov er, even if loss were calculated in this way , the government’s
expert testified that it would have resulted in a loss of more than $1 million, which

would have resulted in the same guidelines sentence that use of unmatched claims

to calculate loss produced

. See United States v. Ali , 620 F.3d 1062, 1074 ( 9 th Cir.
2010).

AFFIRMED

.