In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 16-3678 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

ALAN H. GOLD, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 15 CR 330 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED APRIL 19, 2017 — DECIDED APRIL 27, 2017 

____________________ 

Before BAUER, POSNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. 

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The defendant was indicted for 

wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and pleaded guilty. The presentence investigation report prepared by the Probation Office 

stated that his guideline prison-sentence range was 70 to 87 

months, a range based on the report’s estimation that the 

loss to the victims of the fraud had slightly exceeded $1.8 

million. The district judge sentenced the defendant to 75 

months in prison, to three years of supervised release, and to 
2 No. 16-3678 

pay restitution to the victims of his fraud. On appeal the defendant argues that the financial loss he caused was closer to 

$1 million, which would have put him in a lower guidelines 

range, see U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1), and that the district judge 

should have considered giving him a shorter prison sentence 

than 75 months for the additional reason that shaving time 

off the term would give him more time to earn the money he 

would need in order to be able to make restitution to his victims. 

Briefly by way of background: after having been dismissed from an investment firm the defendant had launched 

a finance company in Wilmette, Illinois that he called Alan 

Gold & Associates. The company provided investment advice to its clients and also purported to invest clients’ money, 

but the defendant pocketed much of that money, some to 

pay his gambling debts. He told his clients that their portfolios were healthy—as proof he showed them false reports 

and false stock certificates. But six elderly victims of the defendant’s scheme—he had preyed mainly on the elderly—

testified at the sentencing hearing to their losses and losses 

by their family members of money invested with Alan Gold 

& Associates. The testimony of these witnesses was both 

harrowing and uncontradicted. 

The defendant objected that the Probation Office’s estimate of the losses he had caused was too high, but like the 

codefendant named Brown in United States v. Love, 680 F.3d 

994, 999 (7th Cir. 2012)—who we pointed out had presented 

“no evidence that the information contained and summarized in the [government’s] charts is unreliable or erroneous” even though “Brown’s counsel had sufficient time and 

opportunity to fully review all of the information used to 
No. 16-3678 3 

prepare the [government’s] summary charts and has not 

identified any inaccuracies or errors”—Gold provided no 

evidence, documentary or otherwise, to support his challenge to the government’s estimate of the victims’ losses. It’s 

true that the government’s documentary evidence consisted 

only of its own spreadsheet. But the spreadsheet was based 

on financial data, for each of the fourteen victims, taken from 

the defendant’s own bank-account records. The calculation 

of losses was a simple one (money in, money out), and the 

defendant pointed to no errors in the government’s estimate. 

Four of the six victim witnesses testified at the sentencing 

hearing to the amounts lost by them and their families, 

amounting to more than $1.35 million. Gold said he believed 

that “the loss is less than as stated by the government,” but 

he didn’t say how much less, though in written objections to 

the government’s calculations he said the loss amount was 

around $1 million. Yet he failed to present any evidence that 

might have supported a lower estimate of his victims’ losses 

than the government’s or the victims’ estimates. As we said 

in United States v. Mustread, 42 F.3d 1097, 1102 (7th Cir. 1994), 

“a defendant cannot [be permitted to] show that a PSR 

[presentence investigation report] is inaccurate by simply 

denying the PSR’s truth. Instead, beyond such a ‘bare denial,’ he must produce some evidence that ‘calls the reliability 

or correctness of the alleged facts into question.’” 

The defendant’s principal argument was and is that his 

prison sentence should have been substantially shorter than 

75 months in order to give him time after his release to find 

employment that would enable him to make good the restitution he was ordered to pay to his victims. The district 

judge gave no weight to this argument, and was right not to 
4 No. 16-3678 

do so. Even if Gold were given no prison sentence, he would 

be unable to provide substantial restitution to the victims of 

his fraud, given that he was already bordering on elderly (he 

is 60 years old), had never graduated from college, lacked 

full-time employment (earning only $250 a month—walking 

neighbors’ dogs), and had a negative net worth. No way, 

given his conviction, that, even if not imprisoned, he’d able 

to repay his victims the $1.8 million that he owes them, or 

even a significant fraction of that amount. 

As there is no merit to the appeal, the judgment of the 

district court is affirmed.