United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted March 13, 2020*

Decided March 16, 2020 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1925 

YVES M. MABONEZA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

OFFICER KINCAID, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 2:19-cv-02044-CSB 

Colin S. Bruce, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Yves Maboneza, an Illinois prisoner, applied to proceed in forma pauperis 

(“IFP”) in his federal lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that, because he is “a tutsi 

true man of God,” several prison guards orchestrated his assault by a fellow prisoner. 

The district court denied his request, reasoning that he had received too much income 

in the preceding six months to be considered indigent. After Maboneza failed to timely 

*

 The defendants-appellees were not served with process in the district court and 

are not participating in this appeal. After examining the appellant’s brief and the 

record, we have concluded that oral argument would not significantly aid the court. 

See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-1925 Page 2 

pay the full filing fee, the court dismissed his case without prejudice. We conclude that 

the district court permissibly found that Maboneza was not indigent, so we affirm.1

On his IFP application, Maboneza declared that he was currently incarcerated, 

had no financial obligations and no money in checking or savings accounts, and had 

received no income, including gifts, in the past twelve months. As required by the 

Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2), Maboneza attached a certified 

statement from his prison trust account showing his “funds available” and the charges 

that he had made during the previous six months. The statement revealed that, 

although his account balance at the time of filing was $0.75, Maboneza had received 

approximately $200 per month from his family during the past six months and spent it 

on phone calls and commissary items. 

The district court denied Maboneza’s application because his account ledgers 

showed that he received “more than $1,500 in the past six months.” The court directed 

Maboneza to pay the $400 filing fee in full or face dismissal of his suit. One week before 

the fee was due, Maboneza requested to pay the filing fee in installments (which is what 

occurs when a court grants IFP status to a prisoner, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1)), explaining 

that he did not have $400 and that his family could not come up with the money 

without facing substantial hardship. He further explained that his family provided him 

with $200 monthly for phone use and daily necessities. The court denied this motion, 

reiterating that money from family “is considered income for purposes of determining 

whether Plaintiff is indigent.” After Maboneza failed to pay the full filing fee within the 

allotted time, the court dismissed his case without prejudice. 

Maboneza moved for reconsideration. He explained that he had received only 

$1,242, not $1,500, over the prior six months and that he had not intended to mislead the 

court—he had not seen a place on the IFP application to record support from family 

members, but he provided account ledgers that accurately reflected the deposits. The 

court denied the motion for two reasons: even if he received only $1,200 over the past 

six months, he was not “indigent,” and by checking the “no” box, he had untruthfully 

1 Despite dismissing the complaint “without prejudice” the district court made 

plain that it was “finished with” the case, Taylor-Holmes v. Office of Cook Cty. Pub. 

Guardian, 503 F.3d 607, 609 (7th Cir. 2007), including by declaring it “closed.” (This 

despite its specific direction for the clerk not to enter judgment.) We therefore have 

appellate jurisdiction. See Waypoint Aviation Servs. Inc. v. Sandel Avionics, Inc., 469 F.3d 

1071, 1073 (7th Cir. 2006). 
No. 19-1925 Page 3 

denied receiving any gifts over the past six months. Maboneza attacks both of those 

reasons on appeal, and we review the district court’s decision for an abuse of discretion. 

See McWilliams v. Cook Cty., 845 F.3d 244, 246 (7th Cir. 2017). 

First, Maboneza argues that he did not intend to mislead the court by checking 

“no” next to gifts; it was an accident, and an inconsequential one at that because he 

provided the district court with accurate account ledgers. We agree with him that the 

district court’s emphasis on his purported misrepresentation was improper. If an IFP 

applicant lies on his court-provided form, the appropriate sanction is dismissal of his 

case, not denial of his application. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(A). And this case would not 

justify that sanction because the court never determined that Maboneza’s 

misrepresentation was intentional. See Robertson v. French, 949 F.3d 347, 352 (7th Cir. 

2020) (only deliberate misrepresentations warrant dismissal). Moreover, dismissal is not 

appropriate when information is missing from an application form but is nonetheless 

“already in the court’s hands.” McWilliams, 845 F.3d at 247. Because Maboneza’s 

account ledgers allowed the court to consider the income he received from his family, 

his failure to mark on the form that he had received these gifts was inconsequential. 

Maboneza also contends that the district court erroneously concluded that he 

was not indigent—“unable to pay,” in the words of the statute—because, with no 

prison job and only $200 per month in income, he could not possibly come up with $400 

in less than a month. But the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding 

otherwise. Federal law requires district courts to determine whether a prisoner has 

shown that he is unable to pay the required fee up front. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1). The 

applicant need not show that he is “absolutely destitute,” but must represent that, 

because of his poverty, he is unable to pay court fees and costs while also providing 

necessities for himself and his dependents. Adkins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 

335 U.S. 331, 339 (1948). Courts have broad discretion in assessing the sufficiency of an 

applicant’s evidence of poverty, especially when it comes to prisoners, who have fewer 

demands on their income because prisons provide them with food, clothing, shelter, 

and medical care. See Kennedy v. Huibtregtse, 831 F.3d 441, 443 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Here, based on its review of Maboneza’s application and account ledgers, the 

district court determined that he had sufficient income to pay the entire filing fee up 

front. And that prediction bore out: Maboneza received $820—twice the amount of the 

filing fee—during the two months between filing his complaint and the deadline set by 

the court. See Sultan v. Fenoglio, 775 F.3d 888, 890–91 (7th Cir. 2015) (subsequent 

developments in an inmate’s finances are material to the IFP determination when they 
No. 19-1925 Page 4 

suggest that the prisoner is seeking to avoid assessment of a greater filing fee). That 

Maboneza spent his income on phone calls and commissary items does not necessitate a 

finding of indigence. Cf. Lucien v. DeTella, 141 F.3d 773, 774–75 (7th Cir. 1998) (prisoner 

who spent money on clothing and sundries not entitled to forgo filing fee).

Maboneza further argues that the court should have considered that he qualifies 

as an indigent person under Illinois law. See 735 ILCS 5/5-105(a)(2)(ii) and (iii). But 

federal courts have no specific standard of poverty to apply to those seeking IFP status. 

See generally 28 U.S.C. § 1915. Our construction of “unable to pay” is discretionary. 

See Kennedy, 831 F.3d at 443. Congress could have tied determinations of indigence to 

the laws governing state court proceedings, or set its own standard, but it did not. 

Nothing stops a district judge from considering a state’s indigence guidelines in its 

discretion, but those standards are not binding in the federal courts. 

AFFIRMED