UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. RICHARD M. ARNOLD SR., Defendant - Appellant. No. 16-6152 (D.C. No. 5:14- CR-00347-D-1) (W.D. Okla.)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before HARTZ , MATHESON , and MORITZ , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ Richard Arnold Sr. appeals the district court’s restitution award arising from a scheme involving vehicle-fina ncing rebates. Arnold argues that the district court erred in awarding restitution to certain lenders and in calcu lating the amount of restitution owed. Finding no reve rsible error, we affirm.

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judi cata, and collateral estoppel. But it may be cited for its persuasive value. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1; 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### July 3, 2017 Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court2 I Arnold pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud a nd conspiracy to commit wire fraud. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1349. Acco rding to the indictment, Arnold—along with his wife Ro byn and his sons Ri cky and Robert (collectively, the Arnolds)—concocted a scheme to defraud individuals out of the financing-incentive rebates those individuals re ceived when they purchased new vehicles. Specifically, the Arnolds represented to thei r victims that if they reli nquished their rebates to the Arnolds, a charitable trust would then pay off their car loans. But while the Arnolds made some payments on the loans, they eventually stopped making payments and instead used the remaining rebate funds fo r their own personal expenses. Eventually, the individual victims either took over the lo an payments or relinquished the vehicles to the lenders. The lenders then resold th e vehicles for less than the remaining balance on each loan. After sentencing, the district court or dered Arnold to pay restitution to, inter alia, those lenders who reposse ssed vehicles and resold th em at deficiencies. This included both so-called “captive” lenders, Ap lt. Br. 11—i.e, financing units owned and operated by the automobile companies— and their successors—i.e., lenders that assumed the financial interest s of the original lenders. Wh ile not entirely clear from either the record or the part ies’ briefing, it appears that the district court calculated the restitution due to the captive lenders as the amount of principal remaining on the loans after the repossession a nd sale of the vehicles.3 The district court ultimatel y ordered Arnold to pay $2 80,075.15 in restitution. Arnold appeals. II On appeal, Arnold argues that the distri ct court erred in (1) finding that the captive and successor lenders were victims en titled to mandatory restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, and (2) failing to credit Arnold with in terest that he paid prior to repossession and resale of the vehicles. In evaluating th ese arguments, we review the district court’s application of the MVRA de novo and its fa ctual findings for clear error. See United States v. Shengyang Zhou , 717 F.3d 1139, 1152 (10th Cir. 2013). A Arnold first argues the district court e rred when it concluded that the captive lenders constitute victims fo r purposes of the MVRA. The MVRA defines the term “victim” to mean, in relevant part, “a person directly and proximately harmed as a resu lt of the commission of an offense.” § 3663A(a)(2). A victim is “p roximately harmed as a re sult of” a defendant’s crime, id. , “if either there are no inte rvening causes, or, if there are any such causes, [they] are directly related to the defendant’s offense,” United States v. Speakman , 594 F.3d 1165, 1172 (10t h Cir. 2010). Arnold argues that the government failed to meet its burden to show that he “was the proximate cause of the losses cl aimed by the [captive] lenders” because the government failed to prove that the empl oyees of the captive lenders—and therefore4 the captive lenders themselves —weren’t involved in the Ar nolds’ fraudulent scheme. Aplt. Br. 9. For this propositi on, Arnold relies on Speakman , 594 F.3d 1165. There, Merrill Lynch financial consultant Larry Speakman illegally tr ansferred money from the Merrill Lynch account of hi s wife, Carolyn Speakman. Id. at 1166-67. Unrelated to the criminal case the government subseque ntly brought against Larry, Carolyn also initiated an arbitration su it against Merrill Lynch. Id. at 1168. The arbitration panel found some liability on Merrill Lynch’s part and, as a result, ordered it to pay Carolyn $1,225,000. Id. Larry ultimately pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and the district court ordered him to pay $1,225,000 in restitution to Merr ill Lynch, finding that Merrill Lynch was a “victim” under the MVRA. Id. at 1168, 1170

. The district court based this decision on the facts contained in Larry’s presente nce investigation report, which explained the amount of—but not the basis for—Me rrill Lynch’s liability to Carolyn. Id. at 1168. On appeal, we reversed and remanded fo r the district court to determine the basis for the arbitration panel’s fi nding of Merrill Lynch’s liability. Id. at 1172-73. In doing so, we noted that Merrill Lynch was only a “victim” of Larry’s fraud under the MVRA if, inter alia, Larry’s fraud pr oximately caused Merri ll Lynch’s loss. See id. at 1171. And we explained that intervening causes break the chain of proximate cause unless they are directly rela ted to the offensive conduct. See id. at 1172. Finally, we determined that two such poten tial intervening causes existed. Id.5 First, Carolyn’s initiation of the arbitr ation action was an intervening cause of Merrill Lynch’s harm. But beca use the initiation of that ac tion was directly related to Larry’s fraud, we held that it didn’t br eak the chain of causation for purposes of determining whether Merri ll Lynch was a victim. Id. Second, we noted that Merrill Lync h’s own wrongdoing, if any, might constitute an intervening cause. See id. at 1172. And we reasoned that if the basis of Merrill Lynch’s liability to Carolyn was it s own intentional acts, those acts would indeed break the chain of causation between Larry’s fraud and Merrill Lynch’s loss. See id. at 1173-74. But that wouldn’t be th e case if the basis of Merrill Lynch’s liability to Carolyn instea d sounded in respondeat superior or negligence. Id. at 1173. Thus, we remanded for the district court to dete rmine whether Merrill Lynch’s liability to Carolyn was base d on respondeat superior, its own negligence, or its own intentional involvement in Larry’s fraud. Id. at 1172-74. Here, Arnold argues that the government failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he proximately caused harm to the captive lenders because the government didn’t show that the captive lenders weren’t complicit in the Arnolds’ fraud. Arnold suggests that Speakman requires as much. In ot her words, he suggests that Speakman required the government to dispr ove the existence of any possible intervening causes in order to satisfy its burden of showi ng that the captive lenders in this case are victims under the MVRA. We disagree. In Speakman , the arbitration award c onstituted evidence that at least arguably suggested an interveni ng cause may have broken the chain of6 proximate causation. See 594 F.3d at 1172-73. Thus, Speakman doesn’t stand for the proposition that the government must di sprove any and all potential intervening causes before the district court can char acterize an entity as a victim under the MVRA. Instead, Speakman merely establishes that the government must address potential intervening causes wh en at least some evidence suggests those intervening causes might break the chain of proximate causation. Arnold points to no such evidence here . That is, he doesn’t identify any evidence that would even hint that th e captive lenders or their employees intentionally participated in Arnold’s fraud. And in the absence of such evidence, the district court didn’t err in finding that th e captive lenders and th eir successors were victims—even though the government didn’ t disprove the possibility of their involvement in Arnold’s fraud. Finally, in passing, Arnold cites United States v. Washington , 634 F.3d 1180 (10th Cir. 2011), and assert s that the government failed to prove that “successor lenders were a standard practice within the automobile sales and distribution system.” Aplt. Br. 14. But Arnold provides no cont ext, argument, or explanation for this assertion. Accordingly, a ny argument that Arnold might be attempting to advance here is inadequately briefed, and we decline to consider it. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A) (requiring argument section of a ppellant’s brief to contain “appellant’s contentions and the reasons for them”); Bronson v. Swensen , 500 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007) (expla ining that court routinely declin es to consider inadequately briefed arguments).7 B Next, Arnold challenges the district court’s method of calculating restitution. At the outset, we note that Arnold makes no effort to explain how, precisely, the district court actually dete rmined the amount of restitution owed to each lender. Nor is the district court’s me thod entirely clear from its re stitution order. True, that order notes that the amount of restitution ow ed is the amount of the loan deficiency remaining after the lenders applied any pr oceeds from the sale of each repossessed vehicle. But the order doesn’t specify whet her the final amount owed consists solely of the remaining undischarged principal af ter subtracting the sale proceeds from the principal due, or whether it instead incl udes other components, such as additional accumulated interest. Based on our review of the record, however, it appears that the amount the district court ultimately relie d on in imposing restitution was simply the outstanding principal remaining on the loans after the lenders resold each vehicle and applied the proceeds. That is, while the lenders’ records do note additional accumulated interest, it doe sn’t appear that the district court added that amount to the remaining principal after appl ying the resale proceeds. Arnold suggests that the di strict court erred in simp ly subtracting the sale proceeds from the remaining principal balan ce on each loan. Instead, he appears to assert, the district court s hould have also subtracted fr om the remaining principal balance any interest paid prior to reposse ssion. Failure to do so, Arnold complains, “would allow [each] lender to collect th e interest twice. ” Aplt. Br. 16. Arnold makes no attempt to explain how the district court’s fa ilure to subtract8 from the principal balance any interest paid over the life of each loan would allow the lenders to “collect . . . interest twice.” Id. Instead, as we see it, Arnold’s proposed method of calculating restitu tion—i.e., his suggestion that the district court should have subtracted from the principal bala nce owed the amount of interest already paid—would deprive the lenders of the oppor tunity to collect in terest at all. We decline to adopt this approach. Fi rst, Arnold cites no authority suggesting that the lenders aren’t en titled to interest under the MVRA. We could reject his argument on this basis alone. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A); Bronson , 500 F.3d at 1104. Second, as the government points out, our cases indicate that the lenders are entitled to interest as a component of restitution. Cf. United States v. Williams , 292 F.3d 681, 687, 689 (10t h Cir. 2002) (“The car was not sold at auction until July 9, 1997. Accrued interest at th e contract rate of 9.5 perc ent during the intervening time period as well as credit union e xpenses and fees incurred in the repossession and sale of the Jaguar reasonably account for [amount of restitution that dist rict court imposed under MVRA].”); United States v. Patty , 992 F.2d 1045, 1050 (10th Cir 1993) (approving prejudgment interest as a component of res titution under Victim Witness Protection Act because it reflects vict im’s “inability to use the money for a productive purpose, and is therefore n ecessary to make the victim whole”— particularly when “victim is a financia l institution”). Thus, we reject Arnold’s assertion that the restitution order some how overcompensates the lender-victims by failing to subtract from the restitution ow ed any interest those lenders previously9 collected. As a final matter, Arnold complains that “some of the claims” for which the district court imposed restitu tion also “included costs a ssociated with repossession and processing.” Aplt. Br. 16. But because the argument section of his brief doesn’t contain any citations to the record that might support this fact ual assertion, Arnold has waived any challenge to the district court’s alleged inclus ion of such costs. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A); Bronson , 500 F.3d at 1104. * * * Arnold fails to demonstrate that the district court er red in (1) concluding that the captive lenders and thei r successors constitute “vic tims” for purposes of the MVRA or (2) calculating the amount of restitution owed. Accordingly, we affirm.

Entered for the Court
Nancy L. Moritz Circuit Judge