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18-215-cr 

United States v. Cean 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 

SUMMARY ORDER 

Rulings by summary order do not have precedential effect. Citation to a summary order filed 

on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted and is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate 

Procedure 32.1 and this Court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a 

document filed with this Court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an 

electronic database (with the notation “summary order”). A party citing a summary order 

must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at 

the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, 

on the 24th day of June, two thousand nineteen. 

PRESENT: RALPH K. WINTER, 

JOSÉ A. CABRANES, 

REENA RAGGI, 

Circuit Judges. 

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 18-215-cr 

v. 

CASSANDRA CEAN, 

Defendant-Appellant, 

SHANE BROWNE, BIBI OMAR, A/K/A ZAMEENA 

OMAR, KIM RAMLOCHAN A/K/A KIM CUPELES AKA 

KIM YOHAY, 

Defendants. 

 
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FOR APPELLEE: Emily Berger, Maria Cruz Melendez, and 

Margaret Gandy, Assistant United States 

Attorneys, for Richard P. Donoghue, 

United States Attorney, Eastern District 

of New York, Brooklyn, NY. 

FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: Cassandra Cean, pro se, Danbury, CT. 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New 

York (Sterling Johnson, Jr., Judge). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, 

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the January 16, 2018 order of the District Court be and 

hereby is AFFIRMED. 

Defendant-Appellant Cassandra Cean (“Cean”), an attorney proceeding pro se, appeals from 

the District Court’s January 16, 2018 order requiring that she and her co-defendants pay $243,148.51 

in restitution to Impac Funding Corporation (“Impac Funding”) as master servicer for Impac 

Secured Asset Series 2007-2 Trust (“Impac Trust”). In 2014, Cean was convicted of wire fraud, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 1343, 1349, in connection with her involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme. We affirmed Cean’s 

conviction and sentence but remanded for entry of a revised restitution order. See United States v. 

Browne, 621 F. App’x 44 (2d Cir. 2015). That revised order, entered pursuant to the Mandatory 

Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”), 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, after proceedings before Magistrate Judge 

Ramon E. Reyes, Jr., is the subject of this appeal. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. 

We review MVRA restitution orders “deferentially, . . . revers[ing] only for abuse of 

discretion.” United States v. Boccagna, 450 F.3d 107, 113 (2d Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). A district court abuses its discretion when “a challenged ruling rests on an error of law, a 

clearly erroneous finding of fact, or otherwise cannot be located within the range of permissible 

decisions.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Cean principally attacks the District Court’s conclusion that Impac Trust is a “victim” for 

the purpose of the MVRA.1

 As relevant here, the MVRA defines a “victim” as “a person directly and 

 

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 Cean also challenges the District Court’s decision to accord victim status to Santander National 

Bank (“Santander”). Consistent with Magistrate Judge Reyes’s recommendation, the District Court 

declined to order restitution in Santander’s favor because it suffered no loss. Ordinarily, this alone 

would not be dispositive, since victims can “petition the court for an amended restitution order” 
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proximately harmed as a result of the commission of an offense.” 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(2). This 

definition requires a showing that the defendant’s criminal conduct was the direct—or “but for”—

and proximate cause of the claimed loss. See Robers v. United States, 572 U.S. 639, 645 (2014) 

(interpreting word “proximate[ ]” in § 3663A(a)(2) as requiring that defendant’s conduct be 

proximate cause of loss); United States v. Marino, 654 F.3d 310, 322–23 (2d Cir. 2011) (interpreting 

word “direct[ ]” in § 3663A(a)(2) as requiring that defendant’s conduct be the “but for” cause or 

“cause in fact” of loss). As to proximate cause, “[t]he basic question . . . is whether the harm alleged 

has a sufficiently close connection to the conduct at issue”—i.e., whether it is “foreseeable.” Robers, 

572 U.S. at 645 (internal quotation marks omitted). In addition, the MVRA requires the 

Government to establish that the victim suffered an “actual loss,” which we have held it can do by 

proffering “a reasonable approximation of losses supported by a sound methodology.” United States 

v. Gushlak, 728 F.3d 184, 196 (2d Cir. 2013). 

We have little difficulty in concluding that the Government satisfied these requirements with 

respect to Impac Trust. First, Cean’s criminal conduct directly and proximately caused Impac Trust’s 

injury. As to direct cause, but for Cean’s participation in the fraudulent scheme, the mortgage that 

Impac Trust acquired to its detriment would not have existed. And although Impac Trust’s status as 

a “successor lender” marginally complicates the proximate cause inquiry, its purchase of the 

fraudulently obtained mortgage was foreseeable in light of the common industry practice of selling 

loans on the secondary market. In other words, it was foreseeable both that the mortgage originator 

would rely on the fraudulent mortgage application, and that a mortgage issued on the basis of such 

applications could be sold to a “successor lender” unaware of the fraud.2

 

within 60 days of discovering “further losses.” 18 U.S.C. § 3664(d)(5). Here, however, Judge Reyes 

concluded that Santander’s unreasonable delay in liquidating the subject property after foreclosing 

on it in 2010 has functionally severed the causal chain between Cean’s fraudulent conduct and 

Santander’s claimed loss. Because additional delay will only serve to further undercut any argument 

Santander might have concerning restitution, it seems to us highly unlikely that it will ever be able to 

avail itself of its right under § 3664(d)(5). For the avoidance of doubt, however, we affirm the 

District Court’s conclusion that Santander is a victim for substantially the same reasons as those 

stated below. 

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 Magistrate Judge Reyes also required the Government to show that Impac Trust relied to some 

extent on the misrepresentations in the mortgage applications. Our cases on this issue are not 

entirely consistent. Compare Marino, 654 F.3d at 322 (concluding that, in securities fraud context, an 

“investor may meet the causation requirement of the statutory definition of ‘victim’ without showing 

individual reliance” because “[t]he very nature of the crime—concealment—indicates the harm 

deemed to result from public ignorance”), with United States v. Reifler, 446 F.3d 65, 125, 135–36 (2d 

Cir. 2006) (vacating restitution order where certain claimed victims purchased stock after fraud was 

revealed and could not have relied on misstatements, and the Government failed to show that 

certain other claimed victims in fact relied on misstatements). We need not resolve whether a 

showing of reliance is required because, even if it is, we agree with Judge Reyes that one might 
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Second, the Government established that Impac Trust suffered an “actual loss.” The evidence 

at trial showed that Impac Trust purchased the mortgage from Impac Funding for $427,500, its face 

value. After the property was liquidated in a short sale, Impac Trust received $184,351.49, a 

difference of $243,148.51. This is, in our view, “a reasonable approximation of losses supported by a 

sound methodology.” Id.

Cean’s attempts to undermine these commonsense conclusions fall flat. She argues, for 

instance, that alleged underwriting improprieties and breaches of duty by Impac Funding sever the 

causal chain between her criminal conduct and Impac Trust’s loss. At trial, an expert called by the 

defendants opined that Impac Funding’s underwriting process was insufficient. But, as Magistrate 

Judge Reyes found, improvements in Impac Funding’s underwriting practices would not have 

necessarily revealed the defendants’ fraud. The record concerning Impac Funding’s alleged breach of 

its contractual obligations to Impac Funding is, at a minimum, open to some dispute. To the extent 

the District Court credited the Government’s version of events, we see no error in its decision. In 

any event, we agree with Judge Reyes that the claimed deficiencies in Impac Funding’s practices are 

insufficient to sever the causal chain between Cean’s fraud and Impac Trust’s loss. 

Cean’s remaining contentions are similarly unavailing. She argues that the District Court 

erred by conferring victim status on Impac Funding. But the District Court did no such thing. The 

victim here is Impac Trust. The District Court’s direction that restitution be paid to Impac Funding, 

as opposed to Impac Trust, reflects Impac Funding’s status as master servicer for Impac Trust; it 

does not render Impac Funding a victim. Cean also contends that the subject property was 

liquidated for an inadequate price. All available evidence suggests, however, that the short sale 

Impac Funding undertook was entirely proper. And the possibility that Impac Trust might recover 

less than it paid for the mortgage was certainly a foreseeable consequence of the fraudulent scheme 

in which Cean engaged. See Robers, 572 U.S. at 645–46 (“[L]osses in part incurred through a decline 

in the value of collateral sold are directly related to an offender’s having obtained collateralized 

property through fraud.”). 

In sum, we see no abuse of discretion here. We have reviewed all of the arguments raised by 

Cean on appeal and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the 

January 16, 2018 order of the District Court. 

 FOR THE COURT: 

 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court 

 

reasonably infer that Impac Trust relied on Impac Funding’s underwriting process, which depended 

on the veracity of information in the mortgage applications.