UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08-4344

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff – Appellee, 

 v. 

DONOVAN ANTHONY MONCRIEFFE, 

 Defendant – Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior 

District Judge. (1:07-cr-00177-CMH-1) 

Submitted: February 11, 2009 Decided: March 24, 2009 

Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Christopher R. K. Leibig, Andrea L. Moseley, ZWERLING, LEIBIG & 

MOSELEY, P.C., Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Chuck 

Rosenberg, United States Attorney, Daniel J. Grooms, Edmund P. 

Power, Assistant United States Attorneys, Alexandria, Virginia, 

for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

 Donovan Anthony Moncrieffe was convicted after a jury 

trial of racketeering conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1962(d) (2006), and conspiracy to launder money, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) (2006). The district court sentenced 

Moncrieffe to thirty-three months’ imprisonment, and he timely 

appealed. We affirm. 

 On appeal, Moncrieffe first argues that the district 

court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal as 

to the racketeering count because the Government failed to prove 

that he knew of the entirety of any of the three overarching 

purposes of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment. This 

court reviews the district court’s decision to deny a Rule 29 

motion de novo. United States v. Smith, 451 F.3d 209, 216 (4th 

Cir. 2006). This court will affirm the denial of a Rule 29 

motion if “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to 

the [G]overnment, any rational trier of facts could have found 

the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States 

v. Tresvant, 677 F.2d 1018, 1021 (4th Cir. 1982). This court 

reviews both direct and circumstantial evidence, and permits the 

“government the benefit of all reasonable inferences from the 

facts proven to those sought to be established.” Tresvant, 677 

F.2d at 1021. 

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 Our review of the record leads us to conclude that the 

evidence was sufficient to establish Moncrieffe’s participation 

in at least two of the purposes of the conspiracy - both the 

illegal gambling and money laundering, and therefore, the 

Government was not required to prove he participated in the 

other conspiratorial acts. United States v. Banks, 10 F.3d 

1044, 1054 (4th Cir. 1993). 

 Moncrieffe next claims the district court erred in 

denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy 

to launder money count. Moncrieffe relies on the recent Supreme 

Court plurality opinion United States v. Santos, 128 S. Ct. 2020 

(2008) (Stevens, J., concurring). As Santos was decided after 

Moncrieffe’s trial, and Moncrieffe did not raise this particular 

insufficiency claim in the district court, his claim is reviewed 

for plain error. See United States v. Wallace, 515 F.3d 327, 

331-32 (4th Cir. 2008); United States v. Beaver, 515 F.3d 730, 

741 (7th Cir. 2008). Plain error requires Moncrieffe to 

establish that: (1) there was error; (2) the error was “plain;” 

and (3) the error affected his substantial rights. United 

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). Even if he makes 

this showing, “Rule 52(b) leaves the decision to correct the 

forfeited error within the sound discretion of the court of 

appeals, and the court should not exercise that discretion 

unless the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or 

3 
public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. (quoting 

Untied States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15 (1985) (internal 

quotations omitted)). 

 We reject Moncrieffe’s claim. First, Moncrieffe’s 

case is factually distinguishable from Santos. Unlike the 

situation in Santos, there was no possibility that Moncrieffe’s 

act of supplying payroll checks and false W-2s merged the 

conduct of the Bansals’ illegal gambling and bookmaking with the 

laundering of the profits from that gambling. Moreover, even 

under the Santos “profits” definition of “proceeds,” Moncrieffe 

was properly convicted of conspiring to violate the money 

laundering statute because the “no-show” jobs and false W-2 

forms Moncrieffe provided constitute evidence from which a 

reasonable fact-finder could have found that Moncrieffe 

laundered the profits of the Bansals’ gambling operation.1 

Accordingly, Moncrieffe’s second argument is without merit. 

 Moncrieffe next alleges that the district court erred 

in limiting his closing argument to twenty minutes. “It is 

axiomatic that the limitation of time for arguments of counsel 

 1

 Moncrieffe argues that the Government failed to establish 

that funds loaned to him by the Bansals were the proceeds or 

profits of their gambling operation. That Moncrieffe may have 

also been a victim of the Bansals’ loan sharking operation is 

irrelevant to his money laundering conviction. 

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is within the sound discretion of the trial judge.” Butler v. 

United States, 317 F.2d 249, 257 (4th Cir. 1963). This court 

will reverse a district court’s decision regarding closing 

argument only “when there is a clear abuse of its discretion.” 

United States v. Rhynes, 196 F.3d 207, 236 (4th Cir. 1999), 

vacated in part on other grounds on reh’g en banc, 218 F.3d 310 

(4th Cir. 2000). 

 The record indicates that defense counsel’s inability 

to cover every point in his closing argument resulted, not from 

a “clear abuse of discretion” by the district court, but rather 

from counsel’s inability to conform to the district court’s time 

limitation. We conclude that the district court did not abuse 

its discretion in limiting Moncrieffe’s closing argument.2 

Rhynes, 196 F.3d at 236-37 (citation omitted). 

 Moncrieffe next alleges the district court committed 

prejudicial errors by rejecting certain of his proposed jury 

instructions. A district court’s refusal to give a requested 

instruction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States 

v. Brooks, 928 F.2d 1403, 1408 (4th Cir. 1991). A district 

court’s refusal to give an instruction “is reversible error only 

if the instruction (1) was correct; (2) was not substantially 

 2

 We note that the district court limited the Government 

even more severely, restricting it to a total of fifteen minutes 

for both closing argument and rebuttal. 

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covered by the court’s charge to the jury; and (3) dealt with 

some point in the trial so important, that failure to give the 

requested instruction seriously impaired the defendant’s ability 

to conduct his defense.” United States v. Patterson, 150 F.3d 

382, 388 (4th Cir. 1998). 

 Moncrieffe first argues that the district court erred 

in refusing to instruct the jury that the purposes of the RICO 

conspiracy were contained in paragraph seventeen of the 

indictment. Moncrieffe’s argument fails because his proposed 

instructions were substantially covered by the court’s 

instructions. 

 Moncrieffe next complains that the district court 

committed error in refusing to give his proposed instructions 

numbered 20 and 20A. According to Moncrieffe, the district 

court never explicitly defined the critical terms in Virginia 

Code § 18.2-328 or told the jury that it must find a violation 

of § 18.2-328 to convict him of the RICO conspiracy. We have 

reviewed the transcript and conclude that Moncrieffe’s argument 

fails because the district court’s instructions included all of 

the aspects of illegal gambling that the jury needed to find in 

order to convict Moncrieffe of the RICO conspiracy and provided, 

as an example of illegal gambling, the only portion of 

§ 18.2-328 that the Government alleged had been violated. 

Moncrieffe’s two proposed instructions would have instructed the 

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jury on portions of the Virginia statute not alleged to have 

been violated and on an exception to the Virginia statute that 

the evidence at trial did not support. Accordingly, the 

district court did not err in rejecting Moncrieffe’s 

instructions 20 and 20A. 

 Moncrieffe next claims that the district court erred 

in denying his requested instruction regarding the testimony of 

an admitted perjurer. The district court substantially covered 

Moncrieffe’s requested instruction through its instructions on 

witnesses credibility. Further, there was no impairment to 

Moncrieffe’s defense as he was able to fully argue to the jury 

the credibility and admitted acts of perjury by the witness. 

 Moncrieffe next argues that the district court erred 

in denying his good faith defense instruction. Moncrieffe’s 

argument regarding a good faith defense is simply a claim of 

lack of knowledge or intent of the underlying criminal activity 

or the goals of the conspiracies. The district court gave 

detailed instructions related to the mens rea requirements for 

both counts, and was, therefore, not required to give 

Moncrieffe’s good faith defense instruction. United States v. 

Mancuso, 42 F.3d 836, 847 (4th Cir. 1994). 

 In his last argument related to jury instructions, 

Moncrieffe claims that, based on Santos, the district court 

erred in instructing the jury on the meaning of “proceeds” in 

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the money laundering statute. Moncrieffe failed to object to 

the district court’s instruction, and therefore his claim is 

reviewed on appeal for plain error. 

 Even if we assume that the district court erred in its 

instruction, Moncrieffe fails to establish that he is entitled 

to relief. Moncrieffe cannot show that any error by the 

district court was plain because at the time of Moncrieffe’s 

trial, the definition of “proceeds” in § 1956 was unsettled. 

See Olano, 507 U.S. at 734; United States v. Scialabba, 282 F.3d 

475, 475 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Grasso, 381 F.3d 160, 

167 (3d Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds, Grasso v. United 

States, 544 U.S. 945 (2005). Also, Moncrieffe cannot establish 

that the error affected his substantial rights because there was 

overwhelming evidence that he assisted the Bansals in disguising 

their illegal income. Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 

470 (1997). Accordingly, this claim fails. 

 Moncrieffe next argues that the district court erred 

in not providing the jury with a written copy of the jury 

instructions for their reference during their deliberations. 

The decision to provide a set of written instructions to the 

jury is within the sound discretion of the trial court and will 

not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. See United 

States v. Conley, 503 F.2d 520, 522 (8th Cir. 1974); United 

States v. Parent, 954 F.2d 23, 24 n.1 (1st Cir. 1992); United 

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States v. Smith, 452 F.3d 323, 332 (4th Cir. 2006). This court 

has stated that “we presume that a properly instructed jury has 

acted in a manner consistent with the instructions.” United 

States v. Alerre, 430 F.3d 681, 692 (4th Cir. 2005). At no 

point did the jury express confusion or ask to be reinstructed. 

In light of these facts, Moncrieffe fails to establish error by 

the district court. 

 Moncrieffe next raises several claims related to 

sentencing. Following United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 

(2005), a district court must engage in a multi-step process at 

sentencing. First, it must calculate the appropriate Guidelines 

range. It must then consider the resulting range in conjunction 

with the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006), and 

determine an appropriate sentence. 

 Appellate review of a district court’s imposition of a 

sentence is for abuse of discretion. Gall v. United States, 

128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007); see also United States v. Pauley, 

511 F.3d 468, 473 (4th Cir. 2007). The appellate court must 

first ensure that the district court committed no 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 

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deviation from the Guidelines range. Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 597. 

 If there are no procedural errors, the appellate court 

then considers the substantive reasonableness of the sentence. 

Id. A substantive reasonableness review entails taking into 

account the totality of the circumstances, including the extent 

of any variance from the Guidelines range. Pauley, 511 F.3d at 

473 (quotations and citation omitted). Even if the reviewing 

court would have reached a different sentence result on its own, 

this fact alone is insufficient to justify reversal of the 

district court. Id. at 474. 

 Moncrieffe first alleges that the district court 

committed procedural error in imposing his sentence by failing 

to adequately address his argument at sentencing or explain the 

basis for his sentence. Although the district court was terse, 

the context and record make clear the court considered and 

rejected Moncrieffe’s argument based on the Government’s 

response. Rita v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2469 (2007). 

Moncrieffe, therefore, fails to show the district court 

committed procedural error in announcing its reason for his 

sentence. 

 Moncrieffe next alleges the district court committed 

procedural error in calculating his advisory Guidelines range on 

the money laundering count. We have reviewed the sentencing 

transcript and reject Moncrieffe’s argument. Moreover, any such 

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error would be irrelevant because, under the grouping rules, his 

base offense level was established by his RICO conviction and 

not his money laundering conviction. 

 Finally, Moncrieffe argues his sentence was 

substantively unreasonable in that it created unwarranted 

sentencing disparities among his fellow co-defendants. 

Moncrieffe attempts to compare his sentence to those of 

co-defendants who cooperated or were acquitted of charges of 

which he was convicted. This court may presume a sentence 

within the advisory Guidelines range is reasonable, and 

Moncrieffe has failed to demonstrate that such a presumption is 

unwarranted here. Rita, 127 S. Ct. 2459. 

 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district 

court. We dispense with oral argument as the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED