United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued August 3, 2021 

Decided August 17, 2021 

Before

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 20-3147 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

GABRIEL ROSAS, 

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 1:16-CR-00107(1)

Andrea R. Wood, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

After applying a two-level enhancement under the Sentencing Guidelines for 

obstructing justice by lying, the district court sentenced Gabriel Rosas to 78 months in 

prison for two firearm-possession crimes. On appeal Rosas contends that the judge

erred by finding that his lies during pretrial-detention proceedings supported that

enhancement. In United States v. Bedolla-Zavala, 611 F.3d 392, 396 (7th Cir. 2010), we 

ruled that a defendant’s lies during pretrial proceedings about his personal information 

are material to the outcome of the case and therefore warrant the enhancement. Relying 

on that decision, the judge correctly applied the obstruction enhancement. We thus 

affirm. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 20-3147 Page 2 

I. Background

 Rosas was charged with two counts of possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1), and one count of distributing cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Seeking release 

pending trial, Rosas told pretrial services and the magistrate judge that he had cancer 

and needed chemotherapy treatment every three months. Based on this information, 

pretrial services recommended release pending trial, even though other factors weighed 

against it. Because Rosas did not initially provide medical records substantiating his 

treatment, the magistrate judge deferred ruling on detention until Rosas supplied his 

records. 

After receiving those records, the magistrate judge found that Rosas had lied 

about his health. The records showed that although Rosas had been diagnosed with 

cancer in 2012, he was now in remission and had not received chemotherapy treatment 

since 2014. The lies, the magistrate judge explained, undermined Rosas’s credibility and 

placed pretrial service’s recommendation “somewhat on shaky ground.” The magistrate 

judge denied pretrial release for 12 reasons, one of which related to the lies. 

Rosas eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a firearm as a felon. 

In calculating the advisory range under the Sentencing Guidelines, the probation office 

recommended enhancements, including a two-level adjustment for obstructing justice 

based on Rosas’s lies that he needed cancer treatment. See U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. Rosas 

objected to that enhancement. He argued that the statements were not material to the 

detention order because the order was based on 12 distinct reasons, only one of which 

pertained to his lies. He also argued that his lies did not bear on his guilt or innocence 

or otherwise involve relevant conduct. 

After hearing arguments at sentencing, the judge applied the obstruction-ofjustice enhancement. In doing so, she briefly questioned whether the enhancement 

covered Rosas’s situation: “Frankly, it’s not clear to me that this is the type of 

misrepresentation, material misrepresentation, that the obstruction provision of the 

guidelines in [§] 3C1.1 is intended to get at. I think that it is more directed toward 

decisions by the [c]ourt that relate to actual guilt or innocence ... .” Nonetheless, the 

judge concluded for two reasons that she could not ignore the magistrate judge’s 

finding that Rosas had lied about his health status during detention proceedings. First, 

the lies were material to the ruling on pretrial detention; chemotherapy treatment is 

often cited as a reason to release a defendant. Second, the judge observed that under 

Bedolla-Zavala a lie during pretrial proceedings need not affect the defendant’s guilt or 

innocence for the obstruction-of-justice enhancement to apply. 
No. 20-3147 Page 3 

The judge then calculated the Sentencing Guidelines range of 121 to 151 months 

in prison based on a total offense level of 29 and a criminal history category of IV. 

(Without the enhancement for obstruction of justice, the range would have been 100 to 

125 months in prison.) After consulting the factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the judge 

sentenced Rosas to 78 months in prison, below the bottom of the calculated range. She 

explained that the obstruction enhancement overstated Rosas’s offense: “I don’t think it 

reflects on Mr. Rosas’s remorse or his crime, his acceptance of responsibility[,] or is 

something that is the kind of traditional obstruction that usually bumps up a sentence.” 

For “largely” those reasons she imposed a below-Guidelines sentence. 

II. Discussion

Rosas accepts the judge’s factual finding that he lied about his health during the 

pretrial proceedings but nonetheless challenges her decision to impose an enhancement 

for obstruction of justice based on those lies. We review de novo whether the judge 

correctly imposed the sentencing enhancement. See United States v. Bowling, 952 F.3d 

861, 869 (7th Cir. 2020). The obstruction-of-justice enhancement requires a two-level 

adjustment to the offense level when: “[T]he defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, 

or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the 

investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and ... the 

obstructive conduct related to ... the defendant’s offense of conviction ... .” § 3C1.1. 

Application Note 4 lists examples of behavior that warrant the adjustment, including 

“providing materially false information to a judge or magistrate judge,” § 3C1.1 cmt. 

n.4(F), or to “a probation officer in respect to a presentence or other investigation for the 

court,” § 3C1.1 cmt. n.4(H). See also United States v. Owolabi, 69 F.3d 156, 163 (7th Cir. 

1995) (applying to an officer who prepares pretrial-detention reports). 

Rosas contends that the enhancement was improper because his lies about the 

cancer treatment to pretrial services and the magistrate judge were not material to the 

outcome of the case. He no longer argues that the 11 other reasons for denying 

detention render the 12th reason (involving the lies) immaterial. Rather, he argues that 

his lies were irrelevant to his guilt. Even the judge, Rosas observes, recognized in her 

ruling that his lies did not bear on his guilt or innocence of possessing a firearm as a 

felon. 

But our decision in Bedolla-Zavala forecloses this argument. There, we rejected a 

defendant’s contention that his lies about his name, birthdate, and immigration status to 

a pretrial services officer did not affect his guilt or innocence, and thus were immaterial 

and did not support the obstruction enhancement. Bedolla-Zavala, 611 F.3d at 396. The 
No. 20-3147 Page 4 

Sentencing Guidelines define “material” as “information that, if believed, would tend to 

influence or affect the issue under determination.” Id. (quoting § 3C1.1 cmt. n.6). A lie 

therefore that “could have” affected a ruling on pretrial custody is material. Id. As the 

government points out and the judge observed, Rosas’s lies about ongoing cancer 

treatment were material to the issue under determination when he lied—whether the 

court should detain him before trial. The judge thus rightly applied the enhancement 

based on those lies. 

Rosas tries to distinguish Bedolla-Zavalla. He contends that there, and in other 

cases discussing the obstruction enhancement, the lies related to identity or criminal 

history and therefore could have affected the prosecution or culpability of the 

defendant. This distinction does not make Bedolla-Zavalla inapplicable. 

First, like the lies in Bedolla-Zavalla, Rosas’s lies could have subverted the 

prosecution. A defendant’s physical condition is a factor that courts must consider in 

determining pretrial release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3142(g)(3)(A). If Rosas had procured his 

pretrial release based on his lies about his health, he could have fled and impeded the 

prosecution. That is why “[p]ersonal information”—not just identity and criminal 

history—“is a highly relevant factor in determining whether a defendant should remain 

in custody or be granted bond, and thus is material” at sentencing and arraignment. 

United States v. Sandoval, 747 F.3d 464, 468 (7th Cir. 2014) (quoting Bedolla-Zavala, 

611 F.3d at 396). Other cases that Rosas cites merely clarify that for the enhancement to 

apply, obstructive conduct must affect the current prosecution (as occurred here), not 

uncharged offenses. See, e.g., United States v. Ramunno, 133 F.3d 476, 481 (7th Cir. 1998) 

(enhancement did not apply to defendant’s role in concealing proceeds of uncharged 

offenses); United States v. Partee, 31 F.3d 529, 531–33 (7th Cir. 1994) (enhancement did 

not apply to defendant’s refusal to testify at codefendant’s trial). 

Rosas’s lies affected the prosecution in another way—by wasting resources. He 

remained silent while his counsel unwittingly used Rosas’s lies to invite the magistrate 

judge to delay the case for three weeks to obtain (nonexistent) records about Rosas’s

current cancer treatment. Lies that waste governmental resources—here, by needlessly 

delaying a case—justify applying the enhancement. See Owolabi, 69 F.3d at 164; see also

United States v. Selvie, 684 F.3d 679, 684 (7th Cir. 2012) (“Material misinformation that 

exerts any impact on the government’s resources may elicit an obstruction 

enhancement.”).

We end with a final observation. Even if the judge should not have applied the 

enhancement, a remand would be pointless because any error under the Sentencing 
No. 20-3147 Page 5 

Guidelines was harmless. The judge signaled that after weighing the factors under 

§ 3553(a), the two-level enhancement did not affect the final sentence. See United States 

v. Carter, 961 F.3d 953, 959–60 (7th Cir. 2020). She reasoned that the enhancement 

overstated Rosas’s offense because his lies were not the “traditional” type of 

obstruction. Based in part on this assessment, the judge then imposed a sentence of 

78 months in prison, well below the advisory range of even 100 to 125 months that 

would have applied without the enhancement. The judge thus said enough to show that 

even if the enhancement did not apply, the sentence would not change.

AFFIRMED