UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4492

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

VERONICA LEVONNE JONES,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle 

District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, 

Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:13-cr-00451-WO-1)

Submitted: December 16, 2014 Decided: December 19, 2014

Before WILKINSON, SHEDD, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Mireille P. Clough, 

Assistant Federal Public Defender, Winston-Salem, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. Stephen Thomas Inman, OFFICE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North Carolina, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Veronica Levonne Jones appeals from her conviction and 

thirty-nine month sentence imposed pursuant to her guilty plea 

to filing false tax returns and aggravated identity theft. On 

appeal, counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. 

California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), averring that there are no 

meritorious issues for appeal but questioning whether Jones’ 

sentence was greater than necessary to meet the goals of 

sentencing. The Government has declined to file a brief. 

Although informed of her right to do so, Jones has declined to 

file a pro se supplemental brief. We affirm.

Jones contends that her fifteen-month sentence for 

filing false tax returns is substantively unreasonable because 

it is greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012). She avers that, given the mandatory 

two-year, consecutive sentence on the identity theft charges and 

her mitigating circumstances, the sentence was too harsh. We 

review a sentence for reasonableness, applying “a deferential 

abuse of discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 

38, 41 (2007). We examine the substantive reasonableness of the 

sentence under “the totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 51. 

A sentence “within or below a properly calculated 

Guidelines range is presumptively reasonable [on appeal].” 

United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir.), cert. 
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denied, 135 S. Ct. 421 (2014). The defendant bears the burden 

to rebut this presumption “by showing that the sentence is 

unreasonable when measured against the . . . § 3553(a) factors.” 

Id. In evaluating the sentence for an abuse of discretion, this 

court “give[s] due deference to the [d]istrict [c]ourt’s 

reasoned and reasonable decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on 

the whole, justified the sentence.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 59-60.

 Considering the totality of the circumstances, we 

conclude that Jones cannot rebut the presumption of substantive 

reasonableness accorded to her within-Guidelines sentence. To 

the extent Jones attacks the district court’s failure to give 

more weight to her mitigating circumstances, the court 

considered Jones’ lengthy oral argument requesting a 12-15 month 

sentence and noted the mitigating concerns, but declined to vary 

her sentence after weighing all the factors in the case. The 

court found that the totality of the circumstances warranted the 

most lenient sentence within the Guidelines range but did not 

warrant a variance. Given the district court’s consideration of 

the relevant § 3553(a) factors and the fact that the imposed 

sentence fell within Jones’ requested range, the court’s 

decision was not an abuse of discretion.

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire 

record in this case for meritorious issues and have found none. 

Accordingly, we affirm Jones’ convictions and sentence. This 
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court requires that counsel inform his client, in writing, of 

her right to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for 

further review. If the client requests that a petition be 

filed, but counsel believes that such a petition would be 

frivolous, then counsel may move in this court for leave to 

withdraw from representation. Counsel’s motion must state that 

a copy thereof was served on the client. We dispense with oral 

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately 

presented in the materials before this court and argument would 

not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED