UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4215

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

JALIL G. BURTON,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever III, 

Chief District Judge. (5:13-cr-00249-D-1)

Submitted: December 16, 2014 Decided: February 24, 2015

Before KEENAN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Mitchell G. Styers, BANZET, THOMPSON & STYERS, PLLC, Warrenton, 

North Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States 

Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant 

United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Jalil Burton was sentenced to forty-two months’ 

imprisonment and ordered to pay $133,300 in restitution for 

conspiring to pass counterfeit currency, in violation of 18 

U.S.C. § 371 (2012). On appeal, Burton contends that (1) the 

district court clearly erred in calculating his Guidelines 

range, (2) his sentence was unreasonable, and (3) the district 

court abused its discretion in fashioning its restitution order. 

We affirm.

In assessing a challenge to the district court’s 

application of the Guidelines, we review the district court’s 

factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de 

novo. United States v. Alvarado Perez, 609 F.3d 609, 612 (4th 

Cir. 2010). A procedural sentencing error is harmless when “the 

district court would have reached the same result even if it had 

decided the [G]uidelines issue[s] the other way,” and “the 

sentence would be reasonable even if the [G]uidelines issue[s] 

had been decided in the defendant’s favor.” United States v. 

Savillon-Matute, 636 F.3d 119, 123 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

We have reviewed the record and conclude that, even if

the district court erred in calculating Burton’s Guidelines 

range, any such errors were harmless. Savillon-Matute, 636 F.3d 

at 123-24; United States v. Hargrove, 701 F.3d 156, 161-63 (4th 
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Cir. 2012) (discussing assumed error harmlessness inquiry). The 

first prong of the harmless error test is satisfied by the 

district court’s explicit statement that it would impose the 

same forty-two-month sentence even if it had wrongly calculated 

Burton’s Guidelines range. Under the second prong, we consider

whether the district court’s sentence was substantively 

reasonable. We “examine the totality of the circumstances to 

see whether the sentencing court abused its discretion in 

concluding the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set 

forth” in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012). United States v. GomezJimenez, 750 F.3d 370, 383 (4th Cir.) (alteration and internal 

quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 305 (2014). 

“In reviewing a variant sentence, we consider whether the 

sentencing court acted reasonably both with respect to its 

decision to impose such a sentence and with respect to the 

extent of the divergence from the sentencing range.” United 

States v. Washington, 743 F.3d 938, 944 (4th Cir. 2014). Here, 

the district court explicitly referenced several § 3553(a) 

factors in announcing its sentence, and we conclude that the 

district court’s sentence was substantively reasonable. Because

both prongs of the harmless error test have been met, we reject 

Burton’s challenges to the district court’s Guidelines 

calculation and sentence.
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The subject of Burton’s final challenge, the district 

court’s restitution order, is reviewed for abuse of discretion. 

United States v. Leftwich, 628 F.3d 665, 667 (4th Cir. 2010). 

Under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”), 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 3663A-3664 (2012), the district court must order the 

defendant to make restitution to victims of an offense against 

property. § 3663A(a), (c)(1)(A)(ii). When “return of the 

property . . . is impossible, impractical, or inadequate,” the 

defendant must pay “the greater of— (I) the value of the 

property on the date of . . . loss . . . or (II) the value of 

the property on the date of sentencing, less” the value of the 

property, if any, that is returned. § 3663A(b)(1)(B). 

Under the MVRA, a “victim” is “a person directly and 

proximately harmed as a result of the commission of an offense 

for which restitution may be ordered.” § 3663A. In a 

conspiracy, this includes “any person directly harmed by the 

defendant’s criminal conduct in the course of the scheme, 

conspiracy, or pattern.” § 3663A(a)(2). In other words, “for 

purposes of ordering restitution under a comparable statute, 

losses caused by a conspiracy include not only those resulting 

from the defendant’s individual actions but also others caused 

by the conspiracy itself.” United States v. Newsome, 322 F.3d 

328, 341 (4th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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We have reviewed the record and conclude that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in fashioning the 

restitution order. In particular, the court appropriately 

weighed the thorough spreadsheet presented by the government, 

detailing the conspiracy’s numerous transactions.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this Court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED