United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued November 13, 2019 

Decided December 16, 2019 

Before 

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge

No. 18-2798 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

ARISTEO GALLARDO-RAMIREZ, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 1:17-cr-00291-1 

Manish S. Shah, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

 Aristeo Gallardo-Ramirez contests the district court’s imposition of a 120-month 

sentence after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to sell heroin. He contends 

that the district court wrongly denied him safety-valve relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f), 

which would have permitted a shorter sentence, because the government ended the 

safety-valve proffer early, preventing him from relaying everything he knew about the 

drug-distribution conspiracy and related criminal conduct. We see the facts differently, 

however, and conclude that the district court did not clearly err by finding that 

Gallardo-Ramirez was not entirely forthcoming as required by § 3553(f), and regardless, 

any such error would be harmless. We therefore affirm. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 18-2798 Page 2 

I 

In March 2016 Gallardo-Ramirez received two kilograms of heroin from his 

supplier, but he returned it because it was of poor quality. He then arranged to meet his 

supplier to pick up better product. He and his brother drove to the pickup location, and 

Gallardo-Ramirez left the car. His brother then picked up the supplier who had a 

backpack containing several individually wrapped packages. After a while, the supplier 

got out of the car but left the backpack in the center console. Officers then approached 

the car, searched it, and discovered that the backpack contained packages weighing 

10.599 kilograms in total and containing 1.8 kilograms of heroin. Gallardo-Ramirez 

ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 

heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1)(A) and 846. 

At his change-of-plea hearing, Gallardo-Ramirez acknowledged that he agreed to 

distribute at least 1.8 kilograms of heroin. But when asked whether “throughout [his] 

participation in the agreement” the conspiracy involved 6.8 kilograms of heroin, 

Gallardo-Ramirez answered: “With regards to what was mine, it was 1.8. With the 

others, I never knew anything about it or ever touched it.” He soon contradicted 

himself, though, by saying that there was more heroin involved “in the group” than 

what he “personally touched.” Gallardo-Ramirez also denied that his brother was 

involved in the conspiracy. Later, his brother admitted in his own plea agreement that 

on five separate occasions, he delivered a kilogram of heroin for Gallardo-Ramirez. 

In connection with the Probation Office’s preparation of the Presentence 

Investigation Report, the government provided a version of the offense conduct stating 

that Gallardo-Ramirez continued to be involved with drug dealing after the police 

seized the 1.8 kilograms of heroin in March 2016. Specifically, on December 9, 2016, 

officers saw someone enter and then exit Gallardo-Ramirez’s house. That person then 

stepped into Gallardo-Ramirez’s car, drove it down the street, got out of the car with a 

package containing a kilogram of heroin, and sold it. The PSR also noted that “all 

parties” had agreed that “the offense involved at least 6.8 kilograms” of heroin. On that 

basis, the Probation Office calculated a base offense level of 32 under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 

(for quantities between three and ten kilograms of heroin). The Probation Office did not 

recommend the two-level increase for obstruction of justice urged by the government. 

When combined with Gallardo-Ramirez’s criminal history category of I, the 

resulting advisory guidelines range was 97 to 121 months’ imprisonment. Because 
No. 18-2798 Page 3 

Gallardo-Ramirez admitted during his plea that he was responsible for at least one 

kilogram of heroin, his conviction carried a statutory minimum sentence of 120 months’ 

or 10 years’ imprisonment. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(i). 

 As a first-time offender, Gallardo-Ramirez was eligible to pursue safety-valve 

relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). That statute would have allowed the district court to 

impose a sentence below the statutory minimum if Gallardo-Ramirez met certain 

criteria. At issue in this appeal is whether Gallardo-Ramirez satisfied § 3553(f)(5), which 

requires that he provide the government with “all the information or evidence” he had 

about “the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a 

common scheme or plan.” 

 Gallardo-Ramirez met with the government to provide information to satisfy the 

safety-valve requirement. The record contains no transcript or notes of the proffer 

session. All we know about what transpired comes from the parties’ statements during 

the sentencing hearing, which took place a few days later. The government told the 

district court that, in its view, Gallardo-Ramirez was not entirely truthful and 

forthcoming regarding the full scope of his offense conduct and knowledge of others’ 

conduct. Gallardo-Ramirez’s attorney admitted that his client “may have had more 

information,” but asserted that he was unable to share it because he “kept being 

interrupted.” His attorney also underscored that Gallardo-Ramirez did provide some 

information, including the name of two associates and the fact that he “made transfers 

in Kentucky.” 

At the district court’s request, the government elaborated on why it thought that 

Gallardo-Ramirez had been less than forthcoming in the proffer. First, it noted that 

Gallardo-Ramirez said he thought there was only one kilogram of heroin in the 

backpack the police seized in March 2016. But the government had phone records 

showing that Gallardo-Ramirez knew that the backpack contained eleven one-kilogram 

packages. Second, the government stated that Gallardo-Ramirez’s denial of any drug 

dealing after March 2016 was inconsistent with its observations that someone was 

dealing drugs out of his home just nine months later, in December. Third, the 

government said that it knew Gallardo-Ramirez had taken multiple trips to Milwaukee 

to deal drugs, but he denied doing so in the safety-valve proffer. After some prodding, 

the government added, Gallardo-Ramirez did admit that he knew Jose Reyes (one of 

the conspiracy’s Milwaukee customers) but said he did not remember ever delivering 

drugs to him. 
No. 18-2798 Page 4 

The district court invited Gallardo-Ramirez to respond to the government’s 

account of what transpired at the proffer. In particular, the court sought an explanation 

about the government’s contention that Gallardo-Ramirez lied about continuing to deal 

drugs, since the December 2016 incident was described in the PSR and GallardoRamirez had not objected to it earlier in the hearing. His attorney said that these alleged 

omissions were nothing more than honest mistakes. He said that Gallardo-Ramirez 

admitted at the proffer meeting that he had sold drugs to Reyes and merely forgot the 

dates on which he did so. He also said that Gallardo-Ramirez knew that there were 

more drugs in the backpack, just not “the exact amount.” As for the government’s 

contention that Gallardo-Ramirez was still dealing drugs in December 2016, the 

attorney responded that “I don’t think we ever got to that in the discussion,” and then 

that he did not “have any comment on it.” 

The district court then asked which party terminated the proffer. The prosecutor 

said that the government ended the proffer after 90 minutes, because it did not seem to 

be progressing well. The government explained that Gallardo-Ramirez identified only 

one supplier and otherwise was not forthcoming about other customers. 

Based on this exchange, the district court concluded that Gallardo-Ramirez was 

not completely forthcoming as required by § 3553(f), and therefore was not eligible for 

safety-valve relief. As the district court saw things, “while Mr. Gallardo-Ramirez did 

provide some information ... when pressed for additional information, that additional 

information was not forthcoming.” Specifically, Gallardo-Ramirez had provided an 

“insufficient lack of detail” about “the other potential participants’ source of supply and 

downstream customers.” The district court also found that Gallardo-Ramirez had not 

been honest, especially with respect to “the notion that he denied continuing [to sell 

drugs] after March 2016,” which was “just not true,” according to the PSR. 

The district court then concluded that Gallardo-Ramirez had committed 

obstruction of justice during his change-of-plea hearing by lying about the extent to 

which his brother and others were involved in the conspiracy. The court then calculated 

an advisory guidelines range of 151 to 188 months’ imprisonment, and ultimately 

imposed the 120-month statutory minimum. The district court explained that a sentence 

of that length was appropriate “based on the conduct here, the drug quantity, the 

relationship to his brother, and the lack of complete honesty at the change of plea 

hearing.” The judge then emphasized that, for those reasons, he would have imposed 
No. 18-2798 Page 5 

this same sentence even if Gallardo-Ramirez met the requirements for safety-valve 

relief. 

II 

 On appeal Gallardo-Ramirez argues that the district court should have granted 

him safety-valve relief. He contends that the court erred by finding that he had not 

stopped selling drugs after March 2016. He further asserts that he did not have an 

opportunity to discuss the December 9, 2016 drug transaction because the government 

prematurely ended the proffer. Finally, Gallardo-Ramirez argues that the court 

improperly credited the government’s assertion that he withheld information about 

other suppliers and customers. 

None of these arguments can succeed, however, because Gallardo-Ramirez has 

not carried his burden to demonstrate that the district court clearly erred—the strict 

standard under which we must review the district court’s factual findings and its 

ultimate conclusion about safety-valve eligibility. See United States v. Collins, 924 F.3d 

436, 441 (7th Cir. 2019). The district court was entitled to credit the government’s 

explanation that it ended the proffer early because Gallardo-Ramirez was not 

forthcoming. We cannot accept Gallardo-Ramirez’s invitation to second-guess the 

district court’s findings about the meeting. See United States v. Alvarado, 326 F.3d 857, 

862 (7th Cir. 2003). 

Likewise, nothing in the record supports Gallardo-Ramirez’s assertion that the 

district court improperly penalized him for not providing information about 

individuals and suppliers outside of the conspiracy. To the contrary, the district court 

credited the government’s statement that there were customers and suppliers 

“involved” in the conspiracy “that he did not identify.” Insofar as Gallardo-Ramirez is 

suggesting that he was not obligated to provide information about the December 9, 2016 

drug deal (because it was a “different course of conduct or scheme”), the government 

provided evidence that it was related: Gallardo-Ramirez’s house and car were used in 

the transaction. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B). We will not second-guess the district 

court’s decision to credit the government’s account over that of Gallardo-Ramirez, nor 

will we reweigh the evidence that the district court relied on in making its finding. See

Alvarado, 326 F.3d at 862; United States v. Lupton, 620 F.3d 790, 801 (7th Cir. 2010). 

In any event, even if the district court’s denial of safety-valve relief had been 

erroneous, such error would have been harmless. Harmless error applies when it is 
No. 18-2798 Page 6 

clear that the district court would have imposed the same sentence despite the error 

identified on appeal. See United States v. Salgado, 917 F.3d 966, 969–70 (7th Cir. 2019). 

Here, there can be no doubt that the district court would have imposed the same 

sentence even if it had concluded that Gallardo-Ramirez was entitled to safety-valve 

relief. The court could not have been clearer on this point: 

The sentence that I am going to impose would be the same whether or not the 

safety valve applied and whether or not the guidelines for obstruction of justice 

and acceptance of responsibility applied, because, based on the conduct here, the 

drug quantity, the relationship to his brother, and the lack of complete honesty at 

the change of plea hearing, all of that indicates to me that the appropriate 

sentence is, in fact, a sentence of 120 months on Count One of the third 

superseding indictment. 

The court’s statement, combined with the fact that Gallardo-Ramirez’s sentence 

falls well below the bottom of the advisory guidelines range, convinces us that any error 

with the district court’s safety-valve finding was harmless. We therefore decline 

Gallardo-Ramirez’s invitation to remand for resentencing. 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM.