[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 12-14683

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 6:12-cr-00021-CEH-DAB-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

versus

DIANNA SHADE, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

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(March 22, 2013)

Before CARNES, BARKETT and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Dianna Shade appeals her sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment, imposed 

after she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to make, utter, and possess 

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counterfeit checks in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Because we conclude the 

district court did not clearly err in deciding the amount of loss attributable to 

Shade, we affirm.

Between late 2008 and August 2010, Shade, along with her mother, two 

uncles, and several others, was involved in a check-counterfeiting scheme. Shade 

and her co-conspirators obtained legitimate checks from bank accounts at several 

banks. Several manufacturers would then print counterfeit checks using the 

account and routing data from those legitimate checks. Briefly, Shade also 

manufactured checks. Primarily, however, Shade’s role was to recruit individuals, 

usually from homeless shelters and Salvation Army locations, to cash the

counterfeit checks. Shade would drive the individuals to retail stores to cash the 

checks, collect the cash, pay the casher a bounty, and divide the remainder back up 

the chain. All said, the district court concluded the loss resulting from the entire 

conspiracy during the period Shade was involved amounted to $585,373.82. 

At sentencing, the district court included a 14-level enhancement under 

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(H) in its guidelines calculation, concluding that the full 

loss amount was reasonably foreseeable to Shade. With that enhancement, Shade’s 

guidelines range was 57 to 60 months. Nonetheless, in light of the 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a) factors and because the district court believed the guidelines overstated 

Shade’s culpability, the court varied downward, sentencing her to only 18 months. 

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Shade argues on appeal that her sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the 

district court’s loss calculation was erroneous. 

“The party challenging the sentence bears the burden of establishing that the 

sentence is unreasonable.” United States v. Willis, 649 F.3d 1248, 1258 (11th Cir. 

2011). We review the district court’s amount-of-loss calculation under U.S.S.G. § 

2B1.1(b) for clear error. United States v. Naranjo, 634 F.3d 1198, 1206 (11th Cir. 

2011). A defendant should be held responsible for loss “the defendant knew or, 

under the circumstances, reasonably should have known, was a potential result of 

the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, cmt. (n.3(A)). “A district court may hold 

participants in a conspiracy responsible for the losses resulting from the reasonably 

foreseeable acts of co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy.” United States

v. Mateos, 623 F.3d 1350, 1370 (11th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks 

omitted); see also U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B). “Only after the district court makes 

individualized findings concerning the scope of criminal activity the defendant 

undertook is the court to determine reasonable foreseeability.” United States v. 

Hunter, 323 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2003). We need not reverse if the district 

court failed to make such findings, however, if the record as a whole supports the 

court’s determination of the amount of loss reasonably foreseeable to the 

defendant. United States v. Petrie, 302 F.3d 1280, 1290 (11th Cir. 2002). 

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At sentencing, Special Agent Jeff Starnes of the U.S. Secret Service testified 

that Shade was a recruiter for two check manufacturers, that she was aware of the 

scope of the conspiracy and admitted knowing many of the participants including 

other manufacturers and recruiters, that she drove cashers to cash checks and 

would divide the proceeds, and that she had tried her hand at manufacturing 

counterfeit checks for the conspiracy. That testimony makes this case quite 

different from Hunter, on which Shade relies, because the three defendants in that 

case were check cashers who were aware that a scheme was larger than themselves 

but never functioned at its higher rungs. 323 F.3d at 1320-22. Rather, the case is 

more akin to United States v. McCrimmon, 362 F.3d 725, 732 (11th Cir. 2004), in 

which we concluded the entire loss from a conspiracy was reasonably foreseeable 

to a defendant who “was fully aware of the objective of the conspiracy and was 

actively involved in recruiting [others] to further the . . . scheme.” 

Shade concedes that she “knew these people, and knew some of them 

committed crimes . . . .” She also does not dispute that she functioned at and knew

players within the upper levels of the conspiracy’s hierarchy or challenge the 

court’s finding she was a manager or supervisor in the conspiracy. That Shade was 

not personally involved in every transaction is immaterial to whether she can be 

held responsible for the loss that was objectively likely to result from the activities 

of her co-conspirators in furtherance of the scheme. The guidelines do not require 

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that a defendant have caused the loss in order for her to be held responsible for it; 

only that she objectively could have foreseen its extent. See United States v. 

Mitchell, 146 F.3d 1338, 1346 (11th Cir. 1998) (recognizing that the question of 

whether the actions of co-conspirators were reasonably foreseeable is judged 

objectively). Because Shade has not shown the district court clearly erred in 

finding that she reasonably could have foreseen the extent of intended loss that 

resulted from the entire conspiracy, her 18-month sentence is

AFFIRMED.

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