UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-4547

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

WILLIAM ODELL DUELL, JR.,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western 

District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Frank D. Whitney, 

District Judge. (3:09-cr-00055-FDW-1)

Submitted: January 31, 2012 Decided: February 3, 2012 

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Faith Bushnaq, BUSHNAQ LAW OFFICE, PLLC, Charlotte, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. Anne M. Tompkins, United States 

Attorney, Richard Lee Edwards, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

William Odell Duell, Jr., pled guilty to ten counts of 

securities fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 513(a) (2006) (Counts 1-10), and

one count of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1343 (West Supp. 2011) 

(Count 11), and was sentenced to a term of thirty-four months’ 

imprisonment. Duell appeals his sentence, contending that the 

district court clearly erred in applying a two-level enhancement 

for use of sophisticated means. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines 

Manual § 2B1.1(b)(9)(C) (2010). We affirm.

Duell was the financial secretary of Statesville 

Avenue Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, from 

2002 through 2005. While he held this position, he 

misappropriated 214 checks totaling $239,199.95. Duell used two 

accounts the church maintained with Bank of America: a general 

reserve account and a capital expense account. The minister and 

church Finance and Session Committees mistakenly believed that 

the capital expense account had been closed. Using online 

banking, Duell transferred money from the general reserve 

account to the capital expense account, then wrote checks from 

that account to his own business and forged the signatures of 

church members with check signing rights. To conceal the fraud, 

Duell omitted these transactions and associated overdraft 

charges from the financial statements he prepared and presented 

to the Finance and Session Committees. As a result, the cash 
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account balances represented in these statements were 

overstated. Duell’s conduct was discovered in an audit after he 

left the church.

Guidelines section 2B1.1(b)(9)(C) provides for a 2-

level enhancement to a defendant’s offense level if “the 

offense . . . involved sophisticated means.” The enhancement 

applies when a defendant employs “especially complex or 

especially intricate offense conduct pertaining to the execution 

or concealment of an offense.” USSG § 2B1.1 cmt. n.8(B). 

Examples of sophisticated means include “hiding assets or 

transactions, or both, through the use of fictitious entities, 

corporate shells, or offshore financial accounts also ordinarily 

indicates sophisticated means.” Id. The district court’s 

determination that the defendant used sophisticated means is 

reviewed for clear error. United States v. Kontny, 238 F.3d

815, 821 (7th Cir. 2001) (reviewing same issue in tax fraud 

case).

The district court determined at sentencing that 

Duell’s conduct involved sophisticated means. The court noted 

that Duell hid his assets and transactions by converting an 

existing legitimate account to his own illegitimate purposes, 

rather than by creating a corporate shell or new fictitious 

entity, but with the same motive; by creating false financial 

statements; and by forging signatures. 
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A defendant’s offense of conviction may involve 

“sophisticated means” even if not every aspect of his scheme was 

complex or intricate. United States v. Edelmann, 458 F.3d 791, 

816 (8th Cir. 2006). The enhancement applies if the 

“defendant's total scheme was undoubtedly sophisticated.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Weiss, 

630 F.3d 1263, 1279 (10th Cir. 2010) (“The Guidelines do not 

require every step of the defendant's scheme to be particularly 

sophisticated; rather, as made clear by the Guidelines’ 

commentary, the enhancement applies when the execution or 

concealment of a scheme, viewed as a whole, is especially 

complex or especially intricate.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)); see also United States v. Ghertler, 605 F.3d 1256, 

1267 (11th Cir. 2010) (no requirement that defendant’s 

individual actions be sophisticated); United States v. Jackson, 

346 F.3d 22, 25 (2d Cir. 2003) (concluding a credit card fraud 

scheme linking unelaborate steps in a coordinated way to exploit 

the vulnerabilities of the banking system was “sophisticated”).

Duell contends that no aspect of his scheme was 

complex or intricate and that, taken as a whole, the scheme was 

not complicated. However, Duell took deliberate steps to make 

his offense difficult to detect over a period of years. Such 

efforts amount to use of sophisticated means. Kontny, 238 F.3d 
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at 820-21. On balance, we cannot say that the district court 

clearly erred in applying the enhancement.

We therefore affirm the sentence imposed by the 

district court. We dispense with oral argument because the 

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED