UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-4970

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

RANDOLPH R. BAKER,

Defendant – Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of Virginia, at Richmond. Henry E. Hudson, District 

Judge. (3:10-cr-00328-HEH-1)

Submitted: May 17, 2012 Decided: August 23, 2012

Before AGEE, DAVIS, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Charles D. Lewis, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H. 

MacBride, United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, Olivia 

L. Norman, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Following a bench trial, the district court convicted

Randolph Baker of conspiracy to distribute and possess with 

intent to distribute oxycodone, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 

and 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). The court sentenced Baker to 156 

months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Baker argues that the evidence 

was insufficient to support his conviction and that the district 

court incorrectly calculated his sentencing range. Finding no 

merit to Baker’s challenges, we affirm.

I.

A.

Because the district court returned a guilty verdict, we 

review the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Government. See United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 862-63 

(4th Cir. 1996) (en banc).

From early June 2010 to early August 2010, Baker sold 

between 200 and 300 oxycodone pills to Natioe Alves on each of 

ten separate occasions. Alves routinely traveled from Boston to 

south Florida to buy pills from Baker and other sources, 

typically for $7 to $8 a pill, then re-sold them in Boston for 

up to $30 a pill. Alves recruited couriers to drive the 

oxycodone pills and money back and forth between Massachusetts

and Florida. One of Alves’s main couriers, Daniel Lennon,
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testified that he transported between $45,000 and $86,000 of 

Alves’s money to Florida on each of seven separate trips and 

accompanied Alves during most of the drug transactions with

Baker. Alves typically traveled to Florida separately from 

Lennon, then used all of the money to buy oxycodone pills from 

Baker and other suppliers. Latoya Williams also testified that 

on several occasions she obtained “a lot” of pills from Baker, 

which she usually purchased through a third party and then resold to Alves. J.A. 347.

In early August 2010, a law enforcement officer stopped 

Lennon in Emporia, Virginia while Lennon was driving a vehicle 

rented in Alves’s name. The officer seized 9000 oxycodone pills 

from Lennon. After further investigation, Drug Enforcement 

Administration agents executed a search warrant at Baker’s home. 

Inside of Baker’s house, the agents found a number of oxycodone 

pills, empty pill bottles, and two firearms. Inside of Baker’s 

car, the agents found more oxycodone pills, pill bottles, 

prescriptions, and business cards for a pain clinic. An 

oxycodone addict, Brian Vogelpohl, approached Baker’s house 

during the search and admitted to the agents that he was there 

to buy 100 oxycodone pills from Baker for $900. In exchange for 

immunity, the United States compelled Vogelpohl to testify at 

Baker’s trial. In the aftermath of the drug scheme, Alves and 

Williams both pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to 
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distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone. 

Lennon pleaded guilty to possession with the intent to 

distribute oxycodone.

B.

On December 7, 2010, a grand jury returned an indictment 

charging Baker with conspiracy to distribute and possess with 

intent to distribute oxycodone. Baker waived his right to a 

jury trial, and on March 31, 2011 he pleaded guilty to the 

charges. On April 14, 2011, Baker filed a pro se motion to 

withdraw his guilty plea, which the district court granted. The 

court then set the case for a bench trial to commence on May 26, 

2011, ultimately finding Baker guilty.

At Baker’s sentencing hearing, the parties agreed that the 

total drug weight involved in Baker’s offense was 158 grams of 

actual oxycodone, which is equivalent to 1058.6 kilograms of 

marijuana under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1. 

Under the Guidelines, this qualifies as a level 32 offense. 

Baker received a two-level adjustment for the two firearms found 

inside of his home, for an adjusted offense level of 34, 

resulting in a Guidelines range of 151 to 188 months. The 

district court sentenced Baker to 156 months’ imprisonment. 

Baker timely appealed.
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II.

We first consider Baker’s challenge to the sufficiency of 

the evidence. We must sustain the district court’s verdict “if 

there is substantial evidence, taking the view most favorable to 

the Government, to support it.” Burgos, 94 F.3d at 862

(internal quotations omitted).

Baker argues that the evidence was insufficient to sustain

his conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to 

distribute oxycodone. He claims that the Government failed to 

establish the existence of an agreement between the codefendants and him, and that the limited number of transactions

demonstrated no more than a mere buyer-seller relationship. We 

disagree.

To prove a conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. § 846, the Government 

must establish “(1) an agreement between two or more persons to 

engage in conduct that violates a federal drug law, (2) the 

defendant's knowledge of the conspiracy, and (3) the defendant's 

knowing and voluntary participation in the conspiracy.” United 

States v. Strickland, 245 F.3d 368, 384-85 (4th Cir. 2001). The 

underlying federal drug law at issue, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), 

states that “it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or 

intentionally--(1) to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or 

possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a 

controlled substance.”
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It is well-established that a defendant need not have 

knowledge of all of the details of the conspiracy. Strickland, 

245 F.3d at 385. The existence of a conspiracy and the 

defendant’s connection to it must be proved beyond a reasonable 

doubt, but “[o]nce a conspiracy has been proved, the evidence 

need only establish a slight connection between any given 

defendant and the conspiracy to support conviction.” Id. at

385. The agreement “need only be a ‘tacit or mutual 

understanding’ between the defendant and his accomplice.” 

United States v. Hackley, 662 F.3d 671, 679 (4th Cir. 2011) 

(quoting United States v. Ellis, 121 F.3d 908, 922 (4th Cir. 

1997)). And “[c]ircumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to 

support a conviction for conspiracy.” Id.

Although a buyer-seller relationship alone is not always

enough to support a finding that a defendant was a conspirator 

under 21 U.S.C. § 846, “evidence of continuing relationships and 

repeated transactions” can support a finding of a conspiracy, 

“especially when coupled with substantial quantities of drugs.” 

United States v. Reid, 523 F.3d 310, 317 (4th Cir. 2008). 

“Evidence of a ‘buy-sell transaction . . . coupled with a 

substantial quantity of drugs’ ” can also “ ‘support a reasonable 

inference that the parties were co-conspirators.’ ” Id. (quoting 

United States v. Mills, 995 F.2d 480, 485 n.1 (4th Cir. 1993)).
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In United States v. Hackley, we found sufficient evidence 

for the jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Hackley 

was part of a conspiracy on these facts: (1) Hackley’s statement 

to a government informant that he was getting his supply of 

crack from his “family” in Maryland; (2) a government 

informant’s testimony that Hackley was “still” getting cocaine, 

that he had known Hackley since 1992, and that they had 

discussed crack cocaine previously; and (3) a “cryptic 

conversation” between Hackley and one of his girlfriends in 

which Hackley referenced the “drug game.” 662 F.3d at 680.

Here, as in Hackley, the evidence of “continuing 

relationships and repeated transactions,” id. (internal 

quotations omitted), supports Baker’s conspiracy conviction. In 

fact, the evidence upon which Baker’s conviction rests is far 

more persuasive than the minimum standard of sufficiency we 

established in Hackley. During the summer of 2010, Baker 

regularly supplied oxycodone pills--usually hundreds at a time--

to Alves. Baker also sold to Williams on a less frequent basis, 

and he sold to Lennon on one occasion. Alves and Baker were in 

close contact with each other throughout the summer--Alves’s

phone records showed ninety outgoing calls from Alves’s phone to 

Baker’s phone and twenty-two incoming calls from Baker’s phone

to Alves’s phone between July 22, 2010 and August 6, 2010. 

Lennon and Alves both testified that Baker knew Alves traveled
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from Boston to Florida to purchase oxycodone pills and returned

to Boston after buying them. As the evidence shows, Baker had 

extensive relationships with convicted members of a drug 

conspiracy and engaged in numerous drug transactions. The 

compelling evidence that proves Baker’s conspiracy conviction

far surpasses the evidence we held adequate to support Hackley’s 

conviction.

Attempting to resist this conclusion, Baker claims that 

there was no “ ‘substantial quantity of drugs’ ” involved. 

Appellant’s Br. 11. The trial record, however, belies this 

assertion, revealing that Baker sold to Alves somewhere between 

200 and 300 pills on each of ten separate occasions from early 

June 2010 to early August 2010. This amount is far in excess of 

what an individual could use and proves that Baker did, in fact, 

sell a substantial amount of oxycodone.*

Although Baker may not have agreed explicitly to engage in 

a conspiracy, he had continuing relationships with convicted 

members of a drug conspiracy, engaged in repeated drug 

transactions, sold Alves quantities of oxycodone far beyond what 

 * Vogelpohl testified that he was addicted to oxycodone and 

took approximately three or four 30 mg pills a day, which equals 

approximately 120 pills per month. His testimony supports the 

conclusion that the amount sold by Baker to Alves–-totaling 

roughly 2500 pills over a two-month period--far exceeds the 

amount that an individual could use.
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could be used by an individual, and knew that Alves and Lennon 

routinely transported money and drugs between Florida and

Massachusetts. Accordingly, we find that the evidence presented 

at trial supports Baker’s conviction.

III.

We next turn to Baker’s challenge to the district court’s 

determination of the appropriate Guidelines range. The court’s 

calculation of drug quantity for sentencing purposes is a 

factual finding that we review for clear error. United States 

v. Randall, 171 F.3d 195, 210 (4th Cir. 1999). The Government 

must prove the drug quantities attributable to the defendant by 

a preponderance of the evidence. Id.

Baker claims that the drug weight accepted by the district 

court was not supported by a preponderance of the evidence, and 

the court therefore erred in overruling his objections to the 

relevant conduct determination in the presentence report

(“PSR”). We disagree.

To demonstrate clear error, Baker must make an affirmative 

showing that the facts in the PSR are incorrect. See Id. at 

210-11. This he has not done. Baker claims generally that 

“[t]here is simply no evidence to support the statements made by 

the co-defendants,” Appellant’s Br. 12, but he fails to provide 
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any details, explanation, or case law to support his argument. 

Baker has thus failed to meet his burden on clear-error review.

Further, the district court’s drug weight findings were

made after careful deliberation, during which the court 

considered evidence presented at trial and stipulations made by 

the parties. The district court moreover used a conservative 

calculation of the drug weight to avoid over counting or double 

counting pills. For example, the court excluded the pills that 

Alves obtained from Baker when Lennon was not present, the 

quantity that Lennon obtained directly from Baker, and two empty 

pill bottles seized from Baker’s home dated June 2010. The 

district court also counted only 400 of the oxycodone pills sold 

to Williams, despite Williams’s unequivocal testimony that on 

one occasion she obtained as many as 1000 pills from Baker 

through a third party. And the district court did not include 

the pills that Baker supplied to Vogelpohl, who testified that 

he bought oxycodone pills from Baker for his own personal use “a 

few times a week” from approximately May 2010 until November

2010. J.A. 310.

Not only were the court’s calculations precise and 

conservative, the court continued the sentencing for a month to 

afford the parties ample time to explore the appropriate drug 

weights. During the continuance, the parties produced a “Joint 
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Statement of Parties Regarding Drug Weight,” on which the 

district court relied during Baker’s sentencing hearing.

Accordingly, we find that the district court did not 

clearly err in overruling Baker’s objection to the relevant 

conduct determination, and that the court correctly calculated 

Baker’s sentencing range.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the 

district court. We dispense with oral argument because the 

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED