United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued April 28, 2015

Decided June 23, 2015

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 14-3170

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

REBECCA JEAN HOLMAN,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 12-CR-217

C. N. Clevert, Jr.,

Judge.

O R D E R

Rebecca Holman pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin, see 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 846, 841(a)(1), and received a below-guidelines sentence of 36 months’ imprisonment. 

She appeals her prison term, arguing that the district court erred by increasing her 

sentence based on the death of a drug user who had bought heroin from her 

coconspirator. Because the record does not support the district court’s finding that the 

victim’s death was caused by any of Holman’s coconspirators, we vacate Holman’s 

sentence and remand for further proceedings. 

Holman, now 49, developed severe rheumatoid arthritis when she was 39 and 

became addicted to prescription pain killers. Six years after her diagnosis, prescription 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 14-3170 Page 2

opiates became more difficult for her to obtain, and she began using heroin. To finance 

her addiction, she started working with six other individuals to distribute heroin 

throughout Waushara County (80 miles north of Madison). 

In April 2012, Waushara County resident Amalia Henschel died of a heroin 

overdose. Wisconsin law enforcement investigated her death and uncovered the 

drug-distribution ring run by Holman and her coconspirators. Wisconsin police 

conducted a controlled purchase of heroin from Holman and then arrested her, and she 

was charged in federal court with participating in a drug conspiracy involving one 

kilogram or more of a mixture containing heroin, which caused a death, see 21 U.S.C. 

§§ 846, 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). The “causing death” element from § 841(b)(1)(A) was later 

dropped.

Holman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute heroin, see 21 

U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). In the plea agreement, Holman admitted that certain 

facts provided by the government were accurate, including a statement that her 

codefendant Randy Lindgren had supplied Henschel with heroin before she died.

A probation officer calculated Holman’s guidelines imprisonment range at 70 to 

87 months, based on a total offense level of 27 and criminal-history category I. The total 

offense level was not increased as a result of Henschel’s death. The PSR did describe the 

death (noting that it was ruled a heroin overdose) and recounted an admission by 

Lindgren that he had “supplied Ms. Henschel with a line of heroin earlier in the evening 

before she was found dead.” Holman did not object to the inclusion of these facts in the 

PSR.

At sentencing, the district court imposed a below-range prison term of 36 months. 

The court departed from the calculated range because, it explained, Holman was not a 

leader in the conspiracy, she had cooperated with the government, and she “became 

involved in distributing heroin in part because of [her] own addictions.” But the court 

rejected Holman’s request for merely a probationary sentence, describing her offense as

“serious” because the conspiracy “ultimately resulted in the death of someone.” The 

court based this factual finding on “the other hearings” it had conducted (presumably a 

reference to the evidentiary hearing it had held on this issue before Lindgren’s 

sentencing) and “the record as it generally stands.” “Unquestionably,” the court added, 

“the Waushara community has been adversely impacted.” Holman did not object to the 

mention of Henschel’s death in the PSR, so the court noted that it could not “ignore” 

Henschel’s death unless it also ignored a portion of the PSR.
No. 14-3170 Page 3

Around this same time, the government in its separate prosecution of Lindgren

moved to increase his sentence based on Henschel’s death, see U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(a)(2). 

Lindgren vigorously contested the motion. He admitted to giving Henschel heroin on 

the day she died but argued that she ingested the fatal dose later that night, from a 

different supplier. At an evidentiary hearing, he presented expert testimony that a small 

dose of heroin—such as the one he provided—did not cause Henschel’s overdose. The 

expert also testified that within 30 minutes of consumption of a lethal dose, Henschel 

likely would have been asleep, “rapidly going into a coma” and “respiratory distress,”

and that she would have died within an hour. Yet the evidence also was undisputed that 

Henschel walked to a bar an hour after taking the heroin that Lindgren supplied. Three 

other witnesses testified that they heard or saw activity in the area that Henschel was 

found several hours later—at 2:30 that morning.

In April 2015, the district court denied the government’s motion in the Lindgren 

proceedings, concluding that a factual basis did not exist for a finding that his heroin

caused Henschel’s death. 

Holman argues on appeal that the district court wrongly increased her sentence 

based on an unsupported factual finding that Henschel’s death was caused by a 

coconspirator. 

There is insufficient evidence in the record to support the district court’s factual 

finding. Although the court was permitted to rely on the narrow uncontested 

allegation—recounted in Holman’s PSR and plea agreement—that Lindgren provided 

Henschel heroin on the day she died, see FED. R. CRIM. P. 32(i)(3)(A); United States v. 

Brown, 716 F.3d 988, 993–94 (7th Cir. 2013); United States v. Aviles-Solarzano, 623 F.3d 470, 

475 (7th Cir. 2010), the court went further and assumed that the heroin supplied by 

Henschel “ultimately resulted in the death.” But no support for this assumption exists in 

the record of Holman’s prosecution, and in Lindgren’s prosecution the district court 

found the government’s evidence insufficient to show that Lindgren’s heroin caused the

overdose. A sentencing court may not rely on a false or unsupported assumption at 

sentencing. See United States v. Halliday, 672 F.3d 462, 475 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v. 

Bradley, 628 F.3d 394, 400 (7th Cir. 2010). The court’s factual findings here are in conflict 

and irreconcilable, and the case must be remanded so that the record surrounding 

Henschel’s death can be further developed or Holman’s sentence redetermined without 

consideration of the death. 
No. 14-3170 Page 4

Accordingly, we VACATE Holman’s sentence and REMAND for further 

proceedings.