United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 20-10350

United States of America, 

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Chapman Rogers Mays, 

Defendant—Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:19-CR-350

Before King, Elrod, and Willett, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Defendant-Appellant Chapman Rogers Mays was sentenced to an 

above-Guidelines sentence of sixty-months’ imprisonment and ordered to 

pay $1,675,669.44 in restitution after pleading guilty to false bankruptcy 

declaration. On appeal, Mays argues that the factual basis was insufficient to 

support his guilty plea. Alternatively, he argues that his plea agreement is not 

* Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this 

opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited 

circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

April 21, 2021

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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binding because the Government breached it; that in the absence of a valid 

plea agreement, the restitution amount was illegal; and that the district 

court’s upward variance was substantively unreasonable. For the reasons 

that follow, we AFFIRM.

I. 

Defendant-Appellant Chapman Roger Mays was appointed under the 

Texas Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (“TUTMA”), Tex. Prop. 

Code § 141.004, as the custodian of his daughter’s royalty-producing oil, 

gas, and mineral interests. Mays set up two bank accounts to facilitate the 

receipt of royalty payments. Over time, Mays misappropriated these funds 

by, inter alia, building a personal home and spending over $180,000 on travel. 

In total, Mays misappropriated over $1.8 million of his daughter’s royalty 

payments. 

During his appointment as custodian of his daughter’s interests, Mays 

filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the 

Northern District of Texas. Throughout these bankruptcy proceedings, 

Mays failed to disclose the existence of the two bank accounts where the 

royalty payments were deposited; he did not tell his daughter that he was 

using the funds; and he failed to disclose to the bankruptcy court that he had 

used funds in those accounts for his personal benefit.

Subsequently, as a result of his conduct, Mays was charged by 

information in the Northern District of Texas with one count of false 

bankruptcy declaration, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 152(3). Mays waived 

indictment and pleaded guilty pursuant to a plea agreement. Therein, Mays 

agreed to pay restitution to his daughter for all losses resulting from his 

criminal conduct, and the Government agreed to sell the property seized in 

connection with these proceedings and to use the profits from the liquidation 

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toward the restitution amount. Mays also agreed “not to contest, challenge, 

or appeal in any way the government’s disposal of the seized property.” 

At sentencing, the district court calculated Mays’s advisory 

sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines as ten- to sixteen-months’ 

imprisonment. But, after explaining its reasoning for doing so, the court 

varied upwardsfrom the Guidelines range and imposed a statutory maximum 

sentence of sixty-months’ imprisonment. The court also imposed three years 

of supervised release and ordered the payment of $1,675,669.44 in 

restitution. Mays timely appealed. 

Mays argues on appeal that his guilty plea was unsupported by the 

proffered factual basis. In the alternative, he asserts that his plea agreement 

is not binding because the Government breached the agreement and that, in 

the absence of a valid plea agreement, the restitution amount was illegal. And, 

finally, Mays argues that the district court’s upward variance was 

substantively unreasonable. We address each of these arguments in turn. 

II.

A. Proffered Factual Basis

We turn first to Mays’s argument that the factual basis for his guilty 

plea was insufficient. 

As Mays did not raise this argument before the district court, our 

review is for plain error. United States v. Ortiz, 927 F.3d 868, 872 (5th Cir. 

2019). To succeed on plain-error review, Mays must show (1) that the district 

court made an error (2) that is clear and obvious, and (3) affected his 

substantial rights. United States v. Avalos-Sanchez, 975 F.3d 436, 439 (5th Cir. 

2020). Once he has shown as much, we still then have “discretion to correct 

the error and will do so only if ‘the error seriously affects the fairness, 

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integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Id. at 439-40 

(quoting United States v. Marek, 238 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2001)). 

Our first task under this framework is to determine whether the 

district court erred in accepting Mays’s guilty plea, and, based on this record, 

we conclude that it did not. 

Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(3), a district court 

taking a guilty plea must “make certain that the factual conduct admitted by 

the defendant is sufficient as a matter of law to establish a violation of the 

statute to which he entered his plea.” United States v. Trejo, 610 F.3d 308, 

313 (5th Cir. 2010) (emphasis omitted). The factual basis must satisfy each 

element of the crime of conviction. Id.; see also Avalos-Sanchez, 975 F.3d at 

440. In reviewing the factual basis for plain error, we “may look beyond those 

facts admitted by the defendant during the plea colloquy and scan the entire 

record for facts supporting his conviction.” Ortiz, 927 F.3d at 872-73 

(quoting Trejo, 610 F.3d at 313).

Here, Mays pleaded guilty to false bankruptcy declaration under 

18 U.S.C. § 152(3), which prohibits “knowingly and fraudulently mak[ing] a 

false declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of 

perjury . . . in or in relation to any case under title 11.” The elements of the 

offense are as follows: “(1) there was a bankruptcy proceeding; (2) defendant 

made a declaration or statement under penalty of perjury in relation to the 

proceeding; (3) the declaration concerned a material fact; (4) the declaration 

was false; and (5) defendant made the declaration knowingly and 

fraudulently.” United States v. Grant, 850 F.3d 209, 214 (5th Cir. 2017) 

(quoting United States v. Spurlin, 664 F.3d 954, 962 (5th Cir. 2011)).

At issue in this case is only whether the factual basis proffered was 

sufficient to establish that Mays made a false declaration for purposes of 

18 U.S.C. § 152(3). Mays admitted before the district court that he failed to 

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disclose the two accounts and royalty payments in connection with the 

bankruptcy proceeding,1 and that he did so knowingly and fraudulently.

Nevertheless, Mays contends that the royalty payments he received as 

custodian of his daughter’s property interests were not part of the bankruptcy 

estate, and so his failure to disclose them did not amount to a false declaration

under the law. 

18 U.S.C. § 152(3), the provision under which Mays was charged,

broadly prohibits false statements in connection with a bankruptcy 

proceeding; the false statements need not concern the bankruptcy estate.

This stands in stark contrast to other criminal bankruptcy statutes that 

explicitly refer to “the estate” or “the estate of a debtor.”2

The focus of our inquiry, then, contrary to Mays’s assertions, is not 

whether the royalty payments were ultimately part of the bankruptcy estate, 

but whether omitting them or any other information in connection with the 

bankruptcy proceeding amounted to a false statement. It did. 

A debtor in a bankruptcy proceeding must file, among other things, “a 

schedule of assets and liabilities” and “a statement of the debtor’s financial 

affairs” using the official forms prescribed by the Judicial Conference of the 

United States. 11 U.S.C. § 521(a)(1)(B)(i), (iii); Fed. R. Bankr. P.

1007(b)(1)(A), (D), 9009(a). Mays did not list the royalty payments on either 

filing. He did this even though his receipt and use of the funds was directly 

1 Specifically, Mays admitted not only that he failed to list his daughter’s royalties 

“as an asset on his bankruptcy schedules,” but also, broadly, that he “did not disclose that 

he was continuing to collect and use [his daughter’s] royalties for his own benefit.” 

2 For example, 18 U.S.C. § 152(1) criminalizes the knowing and fraudulent

concealment of “any property belonging to the estate of a debtor.” Similarly, 

18 U.S.C. § 152(4) prohibits the knowing and fraudulent presentation of false claims for 

proof against “the estate of a debtor.” 

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pertinent to answering certain questions posed by Official Form 7, the 

statement of financial affairs form, which he signed under penalty of perjury. 

See Bankr. Petition at 34, In re Mays, No. 14-44898 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. Dec. 

3, 2014). 

Specifically, question 2 of Official Form 7 asked for income earned in 

the previous two years “other than from employment, trade, profession, or 

operation of the debtor’s business.” See Bankr. Petition at 34, In re Mays, No. 

14-44898 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. Dec. 3, 2014) (listing as a response to the second 

question of Official Form 7, the “Statement of Financial Affairs,” a 

$24,000.00 gift from his father and $500.00 in mineral income); see also In re 

Crumley, 428 B.R. 349, 360 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2010) (describing this same 

form and question). As the bankruptcy court in In re Crumley recognized, 

withdrawals from accounts for which the debtor is the custodian under 

TUTMA “fall within the expansive definition of income required by 

Question 2.” 428 B.R. at 362.

Like Mays was for his daughter, in Crumley, the debtor was the 

custodian under TUTMA of two bank accounts for his minor children. Id.

The debtor in Crumley used $38,500.00 from the accounts for living expenses 

and construction costs for a home he was building. Id. at 361-62. The 

bankruptcy court reasoned that to the extent the withdrawals were used for 

the benefit of the debtor’s children, as authorized by TUTMA, the 

withdrawals were analogous to child support, which must be reported as 

income under Question 2. Id. at 362. And to the extent the withdrawals were 

not used for the benefit of the children, they were analogous to gifts, which 

also must be reported as income. Id. at 360-62. Hence, under Question 2, 

Mays was obligated to disclose his use of funds from his daughter’s accounts 

as income. He failed to do so, and this omission amounts to a false statement

under § 152(3). See, e.g., United States v. Theall, 525 F. App’x 256, 265 (5th 

Cir. 2013) (“To obtain a conviction, the Government had to show that the 

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[defendants] ‘knowingly and fraudulently’ failed to disclose that 

information.”) (citing to 18 U.S.C. § 152(3)).

Further, in Mays’s amended Official Form 6D, particularly Schedule 

F inquiring about all creditors holding unsecured nonpriority claims, Mays 

stated that he was “custodian for [his] daughter’s mineral trust” and that he 

“took [a] loan from [her] trust to pay for legal and household expenses.” He 

stated that the loan totaled $55,000.00. Mays declared, under penalty of 

perjury, that the information contained in this form was true and correct. But 

as part of the factual resume supporting his plea, Mays admitted to having 

used his daughter’sroyalties for personal expenses totaling over $1.8 million. 

He admitted that he did not disclose that he controlled and used these funds 

in his creditor schedules. And his failure to list his daughter as an unsecured 

creditor as to the two accounts and the royalty payments he took had the 

effect of concealing from her the full extent of her claim against him. This 

omission amounts to a false statement under § 152(3). See Theall, 525 F. 

App’x at 265-66.

Because Mays failed to disclose royalty payments in his statement of 

financial affairs and in his unsecured creditor schedule, a sufficient factual 

basis existed to establish each element of the relevant offense, and the district 

court did not err in accepting his guilty plea.

B. Validity of Plea Agreement

Having established that Mays’s guilty plea is valid, we turn to his 

argument that his plea agreement is not because the Government breached it 

by failing to make sure the proceeds from property it seized were deducted 

from the restitution amount in the judgment. Pursuant to a warrant, the 

Government seized an airplane, funds from various bank accounts, and 

several pieces of jewelry from Mays. Rather than pursue forfeiture of the 

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property, the Government agreed to apply the proceeds from its sale to 

Mays’s restitution obligations. 

But the Marshals Service did not conduct the sale of the property 

before Mays was sentenced, and at sentencing, the district court ordered 

Mays to pay $1,675,669.44 in restitution to his daughter, without making any

concessions based on the value of the seized property. 

On appeal, Mays contends that the Government was obligated to 

ensure that the value of the seized property was reflected in the judgment. As 

with his previous argument, Mays failed to object to the Government’s 

breach before the district court, and so our review is again for plain error. See 

United States v. Cluff, 857 F.3d 292, 297 (5th Cir. 2017).3

Plea agreements are interpreted according to general principles of 

contract law. Id. at 298. In determining whether the Government breached 

the plea agreement, the inquiry is “whether the government’s conduct is 

consistent with the defendant’s reasonable understanding of the 

agreement.” Id. (quoting United States v. Pizzolato, 655 F.3d 403, 409 (5th 

Cir. 2011)).

Under the plea agreement’s plain terms, the parties merely agreed to 

apply the proceeds from the seized property to Mays’s restitution obligation. 

The Government did not promise that the property would be sold before 

sentencing nor did it promise that the judgment would reflect the value of the 

property. The plea agreement cites United States v. Messervey, 182 F. App’x 

318, 319 (5th Cir. 2006), and summarizes the opinion’s holding as “affirming 

3 Although Mays “agree[d] not to contest, challenge, or appeal in any way the 

government’s disposal of the seized property,” appeal waivers do not bar claims that the 

Government breached a plea agreement. United States v. Purser, 747 F.3d 284, 289 (5th Cir. 

2014). Mays’s argument is thus properly before us.

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order for property seized but not forfeit[ed] to be applied to judgment debt.” 

In Messervey, the seized property was not scheduled to be sold until after the 

appeal became final. Id. at 320. On appeal, we rejected the petitioner’s 

argument that the seized property should be returned due to the absence of a 

written agreement concerning restitution where the parties had agreed in 

open court to a post-judgment sale of the seized property to satisfy 

restitution. Id.

With the cite to Messervey, then, the plea agreement in this case 

reasonably contemplated that the seized property would be sold after the 

judgment was entered. Based on this and the plain terms of the plea 

agreement, “the government’s conduct is consistent with the defendant’s 

reasonable understanding of the agreement.” Pizzolato, 655 F.3d at 409

(quoting United States v. Elashyi, 554 F.3d 480, 501 (5th Cir. 2008)). That is 

to say, Mays could not have reasonably understood the plea agreement as 

providing that the seized property would be applied to the restitution prejudgment. Cf. id. at 409-10 (concluding that the reasonable understanding of 

a plea agreement was that the Government agreed only to a particular 

sentencing range and not a particular sentence and that the defendant “could 

not have reasonably understood the plea agreement as providing 

otherwise”). We can identify no “error or defect—[nor any] sort of 

‘[d]eviation from a legal rule.’” Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 

(2009) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-33 (1993)). All 

property that was seized can still be sold and the proceeds of that sale can still 

be applied in accordance with the plea agreement’s terms. Therefore, the 

Government has not breached the plea agreement, and Mays’s challenge to 

the district court’s order of restitution, predicated on this alleged breach,

fails. 

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C. Upward Variance 

At last, we turn to Mays’s challenge of his sixty-month sentence as 

substantively unreasonable. Mays preserved this claim by arguing for a 

shorter sentence below, so review is for abuse of discretion.4 HolguinHernandez v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 762, 766 (2020); see also Gall v. United 

States, 552 U.S. 38, 56 (2007). 

We must first ensure that the district court’s actions below did not 

amount to a “significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or 

improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as 

mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence 

based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen 

sentence—including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines 

range.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. 

If we conclude that the district court’s determinations below were 

procedurally sound, we then consider the substantive reasonableness of the 

sentence imposed. In imposing a sentence, a district court must consider the 

factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). “A sentence is unreasonable when it (1) 

does not account for a factor that should have received significant weight, (2) 

gives significant weight to an irrelevant or improper factor, or (3) represents 

a clear error of judgment in balancing the sentencing factors.” United States 

v. Gutierrez, 635 F.3d 148, 154 (5th Cir. 2011). Whether a sentence is 

reasonable depends on “the totality of the circumstances, including the 

extent of any variance from the Guidelines range.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. “The 

farther a sentence varies from the applicable Guideline sentence, the more 

4 Because we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

imposing a sixty-month sentence, we need not decide whether some of Mays’s specific 

arguments might be subject to plain-error review. See United States v. Holguin-Hernandez, 

955 F.3d 519, 520 n.1 (5th Cir. 2020).

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compelling the justification based on factors in section 3553(a) must be.” 

United States v. McElwee, 646 F.3d 328, 343 (5th Cir. 2011) (quoting United 

States v. Smith, 440 F.3d 704, 707 (5th Cir. 2006)). But, nevertheless, the 

district court’s sentence, including its decision to vary, is owed significant 

deference. Id.; Gutierrez, 635 F.3d at 154.

To begin, it is clear that the district court’s determinations below were 

procedurally sound. Mays argues, however, that his sentence was 

substantively unreasonable because the district court improperly considered 

uncharged conduct in varying upward “to provide just punishment for the 

offense” under § 3553(a). Specifically, Mays contends that his 

misappropriation of royalty payments from his daughter was not part of the 

false bankruptcy declaration “offense” as that term is used in § 3553(a) and 

therefore should not have factored into his sentence.

Even accepting Mays’s characterization of the misappropriation of his 

child’s funds as “uncharged conduct” as accurate—and we do not suggest 

that it is—the district court may consider uncharged conduct at sentencing, 

so long as there is a sufficient connection between said conduct and the 

charged offense. See United States v. Newsom, 508 F.3d 731, 735 (5th Cir. 

2007) (discussing that the Guidelines allow a court to consider uncharged 

conduct that is at least “remote[ly] connect[ed]” with the offense of 

conviction for an “upward departure”); see also U.S. Sent’g Guidelines 

Manual § 1B1.1 cmt. n.1(I) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2018) (defining “offense” 

as “the offense of conviction and all relevant conduct under § 1B1.3 (Relevant 

Conduct) unless a different meaning is specified or is otherwise clear from 

the context”) (emphasis added). The papers accompanying the charging 

instrument in this case indicate that the charges were filed because Mays did 

not disclose the two accounts and royalty payments on his bankruptcy 

schedules and “did not disclose that he was continuing to collect and use [his 

daughter’s] royalties for his own benefit.” The connection between Mays’s 

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misappropriation of funds and the offense to which he pleaded guilty—false 

bankruptcy declaration under 18 U.S.C. § 152(3)—is sufficient. The district 

court therefore did not abuse its discretion in considering Mays’s 

misappropriation of funds from his daughter at sentencing.

Mays also argues that the district court abused its discretion by 

varying upward based on the need “to afford adequate deterrence to criminal 

conduct” under § 3553(a). Mays emphasizes that he has already been 

removed as custodian of his daughter’s accounts and will be unable to 

misappropriate funds from her in the future. But Mays neglects to mention

that after he was removed as custodian, he cashed an $8,900 check that 

should have been turned over to the new custodian—a fact that the district 

court specifically relied on as a reason to vary upward. Further, § 3553(a) 

considers general deterrence directed to the public at large, not just specific 

deterrence directed to the particular defendant. United States v. Stafford, 983 

F.2d 25, 28 (5th Cir. 1993) (discussing the goals of sentencing); see also U.S. 

Sent’g Guidelines Manual ch. 4, pt. A, introductory cmt. (U.S. Sent’g 

Comm’n 2018) (“General deterrence of criminal conduct dictates that a 

clear message be sent to society that repeated criminal behavior will aggravate 

the need for punishment with each recurrence.”). Therefore, the district 

court did not abuse its discretion in varying upward to achieve adequate 

deterrence.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.

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