[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-12805

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cr-00056-WSD-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

versus

TORI K. COLLINS, 

 Defendant - Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

________________________

(April 26, 2017)

Before MARTIN and JORDAN, Circuit Judges, and COOGLER,* District Judge.

JORDAN, Circuit Judge: 

 * Honorable L. Scott Coogler, United States District Judge for the Northern District of 

Alabama, sitting by designation. 

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Tori Collins pled guilty to conspiracy to accept gratuities with the intent to 

be influenced or rewarded in connection with a bank transaction, in violation of 18 

U.S.C. §§ 215 & 371. The district court sentenced Ms. Collins to a two-year term 

of probation. It also ordered her to pay $251,860.31 to her former employer, Wells 

Fargo, pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, 

finding that her conviction qualified as an “offense against property.” Ms. Collins 

appeals the restitution order, arguing that the MVRA does not apply to her. 

Ms. Collins also contends that, even if her crime is an “offense against property,” 

restitution should not have been awarded because her conduct did not proximately 

cause any losses to Wells Fargo.

We affirm the district court’s order of restitution. Ms. Collins facilitated 

bank transactions that proximately caused Wells Fargo’s losses, and she intended 

to derive an unlawful benefit from the property that was the subject of these 

transactions. She therefore committed an “offense against property” as that phrase 

is understood in its ordinary and contemporary sense.

I

Ms. Collins worked as a personal banker at a Wells Fargo branch in Atlanta, 

Georgia. At some point in early 2013, a man named Gerald Mack visited the 

branch where Ms. Collins worked. Mr. Mack, who introduced himself as G. 

Shakir, told Ms. Collins that he had friends and clients who wished to open new 

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bank accounts, so Ms. Collins gave him her business card for referrals. Mr. 

Mack’s story was a lie. In reality, Mr. Mack was in possession of stolen U.S. 

Treasury checks. His plan was to cash the checks by depositing them in bank 

accounts and then withdraw the stolen funds, all with the help of bank employees.

Soon after they met, Mr. Mack and Ms. Collins developed a friendship, and

he began to ask her to carry out various bank transactions. Although she knew that 

the transactions violated bank rules, Ms. Collins did as Mr. Mack requested. She 

opened accounts under the names of either fictitious persons or the intended 

recipients of the stolen U.S. Treasury checks. Sometimes she added the payees of 

the checks to preexisting accounts. She also deposited some of the stolen checks 

for Mr. Mack and, on the day of the deposits or sometime after, withdrew the 

stolen funds and took them to him. And she deposited and withdrew funds from 

accounts that had been opened by Brandon Kelly, another bank employee recruited 

by Mr. Mack. Once, Ms. Collins handed Mr. Mack the proceeds in the parking lot 

of the bank. In exchange for her help, Mr. Mack paid Ms. Collins $6,000 and gave 

her a pair of sneakers.

Because Mr. Mack was depositing stolen U.S. Treasury checks, Wells Fargo 

had to reimburse a number of the intended payees for their losses. All told, Wells 

Fargo lost $276,714.71 from the accounts that Ms. Collins opened or from which 

she facilitated withdrawals. 

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Ms. Collins pled guilty to a single charge of conspiracy in violation of § 371. 

The object of the conspiracy was the payment and acceptance of gratuities in 

violation of § 215. The elements of a § 371 conspiracy are an agreement among 

two or more persons to achieve an unlawful objective; knowing and voluntary 

participation in the agreement; and the commission of an overt act by a conspirator 

in furtherance of the agreement. See United States v. Hasson, 333 F.3d 1264, 1270 

(11th Cir. 2003). As relevant here, the gratuities provision, § 215(a)(2), prohibits 

an employee of a financial institution from “corruptly accept[ing] or agree[ing] to 

accept, anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded 

in connection with any business or transaction of such institution.”

At Ms. Collins’ sentencing hearing, the district court addressed the 

applicability of the MVRA, which among other things requires restitution for an 

“offense against property.” See § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii). The district court explained 

that it had “thought hard about whether” it should look to the elements of the 

offense or, instead, to the specific facts of the case to determine whether Ms. 

Collins had committed an “offense against property.” See D.E. 26 at 5. 

Ultimately, the district court decided on a “case-by-case evaluation” of the facts 

and ruled that the crime fell within the scope of the MVRA because Ms. Collins 

“was charged with a conspiracy, and that conspiracy was in fact intended to 

deprive people of property that they owned.” Id. At the conclusion of the 

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sentencing hearing, the district court imposed a two-year term of probation and 

ordered Ms. Collins to pay $251,860.31 in restitution to Wells Fargo.1

 

II

The legality of the district court’s restitution order is subject to plenary 

review. See United States v. Valladares, 544 F.3d 1257, 1269 (11th Cir. 2008). 

The district court’s underlying factual findings, on the other hand, are reviewed for 

clear error. See id. A federal district court has no inherent authority to order 

restitution, and may do so only as explicitly empowered by statute. See id.

III

The “primary and overarching purpose” of the MVRA, enacted in 1996, is to 

“make victims of crime whole, to fully compensate these victims for their losses 

and to restore these victims to their original state of well-being.” United States v. 

Boccagna, 450 F.3d 107, 115 (2d Cir. 2006). When the MVRA applies, restitution 

is mandatory. See United States v. Martin, 803 F.3d 581, 593 (11th Cir. 2015). A 

defendant must pay restitution under the MVRA if she is convicted of a certain 

covered offense “in which an identifiable victim or victims has suffered a physical 

injury or pecuniary loss.” § 3663A(c)(1)(B). The restitution award must be the 

 1 Although Wells Fargo suffered $276,714.71 in losses, the district court reduced the restitution 

figure by $24,854.40. Ms. Collins argued that when she began helping Mr. Mack open accounts 

and make withdrawals, she did not immediately know that he was depositing stolen U.S. 

Treasury checks. See D.E. 26 at 5–15. The government supported her position, see id., and the 

district court agreed to subtract the losses Wells Fargo sustained due to the earliest transactions 

of the conspiracy.

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full amount of the victim’s loss that was actually and proximately caused by the 

defendant’s conduct, regardless of the defendant’s current or anticipated ability to 

pay. See United States v. Huff, 609 F.3d 1240, 1247 (11th Cir. 2010). The 

MVRA, by its own terms, specifies four types of crimes that trigger mandatory 

restitution: (1) crimes of violence, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 16; (2) “offense[s] 

against property,” including those “committed by fraud or deceit”; (3) offenses 

related to tampering with consumer products; and (4) offenses relating to theft of 

medical products. See § 3663A(c)(1)(A).

Ms. Collins argues that her conviction for conspiring to accept bank 

gratuities does not constitute an “offense against property” under the MVRA. 

First, she contends that the district court erred by examining the facts of her case, 

and urges us to adopt a “categorical approach” which considers only the elements 

of the offense of conviction. Under that approach, Ms. Collins says, mandatory 

restitution does not apply because none of the elements of her offense are “against 

property.” Second, Ms. Collins maintains that, even if we consider her underlying 

conduct, her receipt of cash gratuities was not an “offense against property” and 

was not committed through fraud or deceit. Third, Ms. Collins argues that, in any 

event, she did not proximately cause Wells Fargo’s losses.

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A

What, exactly, is an “offense against property” under the MVRA, 

§ 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii)? That is the question of first impression that confronts us in 

this appeal.

Although the Supreme Court has addressed some provisions of the MVRA, 

see, e.g., Robers v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1854, 1856 (2014) (analyzing 

§ 3663A(b)(1)(B)), it has yet to explain what constitutes an “offense against 

property” under the Act. Cases from our sister circuits, however, reflect a broad 

spectrum of opinion.

On the narrower end, some circuits have held that, at the very least, an 

“offense against property” includes criminal activity with the objective of 

knowingly and intentionally damaging property. An example is United States v. 

Quarrell, 310 F.3d 664, 678 (10th Cir. 2002) (holding that the defendants’ 

conviction for conspiring to violate the Archaeological Resources Protection Act 

qualified because, though “not every conspiracy will involve an offense against 

property,” the unlawful objective of the conspiracy at issue was to “illegally 

excavate public land,” in furtherance of which the defendants “knowingly and 

voluntarily . . . damaged the land”).

Other circuits dispense with the intent requirement, approving mandatory 

restitution whenever an offense results in physical harm to property. See, e.g., 

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United States v. Sawyer, 825 F.3d 287, 292 (6th Cir. 2016) (holding that the 

defendant’s conviction for conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act, a scheme 

involving the improper demolition of buildings with asbestos-containing material, 

was an “offense against property” because it “resulted in the asbestos 

contamination of nearly 300 acres of land”); United States v. Brock-Davis, 504 

F.3d 991, 993, 996–98 (9th Cir. 2007) (concluding that the MVRA provided 

statutory authority, in a case involving a conspiracy to manufacture 

methamphetamine, to order payment of restitution to “a motel owner for clean-up 

costs he incurred remediating a motel room in which the defendant had cooked 

methamphetamine”).

Some circuits, however, have ordered mandatory restitution in cases where 

there is no physical damage to property. The offenses in those cases have involved 

the intentional deprivation, or attempted deprivation, of another’s property. See, 

e.g., United States v. Turner, 718 F.3d 226, 236 (3d Cir. 2013) (holding that a 

conspiracy to defraud the IRS was an “offense against property” because the 

defendant had deprived the government of its property, i.e., tax dollars). Cf.

Robers, 134 S. Ct. at 1856 (though not directly addressing § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii), 

affirming restitution order under the MVRA for conspiracy to commit wire fraud). 

Indeed, the Ninth Circuit has specifically rejected the argument that the phrase 

“‘against property’ requires physical damage to property.” See United States v. 

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Luis, 765 F.3d 1061, 1066 (9th Cir. 2014). It has held that the phrase encompasses 

all criminal conduct that “infring[es] on a victim’s property interest,” id. at 1065, 

as was the case in United States v. Stephens, 374 F.3d 867, 868, 870–72 (9th Cir. 

2004), where it ruled that failing to pay child support qualified because the offense

infringed on the other parent’s property interest in the omitted payments.

For our part, we have held, albeit without much explanation, that various 

types of fraud, and their attendant false or misleading representations, are 

“offense[s] against property.” See, e.g., United States v. Singletary, 649 F.3d 1212, 

1220 (11th Cir. 2011) (wire fraud); Huff, 609 F.3d at 1247 (same); United States v. 

Dickerson, 370 F.3d 1330, 1335 (11th Cir. 2004) (same).

As the wide range of opinions in these cases illustrates, we lack a conclusive 

definition. Without a binding directive, we now turn to the statute and apply 

ordinary rules of statutory construction.

B

Our construction of § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) begins “with the language of the 

[provision] itself.” United States v. Steele, 147 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir. 1998) 

(en banc). Where, as here, a statute does not define a term or phrase, those words 

generally take “their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning . . . at the time 

Congress enacted the statute.” Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979) 

(citation omitted).

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We start with the rather unremarkable observation that “against” is not the 

same as “relating to” or “concerning.” See Webster’s New World College 

Dictionary 26, 288, 1132 (3d ed. 1996). The latter two (and their synonyms) 

sweep much more broadly, and would encompass offenses with little more than 

some connection to property.

This distinction matters because, in the process of reading a statute, it is our 

“duty . . . to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word[,] . . . avoiding . . . 

any construction which implies that the legislature was ignorant of the meaning of 

the language it employed.” Inhabitants of Montclair Twp. v. Ramsdell, 107 U.S. 

147, 152 (1883). Indeed, we “must presume that a legislature says in a statute 

what it means.” Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253–54 (1992). 

Had Congress intended § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) to apply to all criminal acts involving 

property, even if only tangentially, we think it would have said so. But Congress 

did not, and the more restrictive language employed counsels against an expansive 

construction of § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii).

We believe that a more faithful reading respects the connotation of 

directedness engendered by “against.” See Webster’s New World College 

Dictionary 26 (3d ed. 1996). Property, therefore, must serve as the object of the 

offense, not simply a collateral component. See Black’s Law Dictionary 371 (6th 

ed. 1990) (defining “crime against property” as “a crime, the object of which is 

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property as contrasted with person; e.g., larceny”). At its simplest, this 

understanding includes offenses in which the defendant intends to damage 

another’s property, as was the case in Quarrell, 310 F.3d at 678. See Webster’s 

New World College Dictionary 26 (3d ed. 1996) (defining “against,” in part, as 

“toward so as to press on or strike”). It also includes situations where the 

defendant seeks to derive an unlawful benefit from another’s property or otherwise 

deprive a person of his property, therefore acting “in opposition to” or “contrary 

to” the classic property rights of ownership and possession. See id. (also defining 

“against” as “in opposition to; contrary to”). Under any of these readings, 

however, criminal conduct does not necessarily qualify as an “offense against 

property” solely because it results in property damage or because someone suffers 

a loss at some point during its execution. 2

In our view, the framework of § 3663A supports this interpretation. See 

Davis v. Michigan Dep’t of Treasury, 489 U.S. 803, 809 (1989) (“[T]he words of a 

statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall 

statutory scheme.”). Generally speaking, § 3663A(b) prescribes what an order of 

restitution must require of a defendant, with subsection (b)(1) specifying that, “in 

 2 For purposes of the MVRA, the words “offense” and “crime” are essentially interchangeable. 

The MVRA itself cross-references the two words. Compare § 3663A(a)(1) (requiring courts to 

order restitution when “a defendant [is] convicted of an offense described in subsection (c)”), 

with § 3663A(c) (explaining that mandatory restitution applies to “any offense” that is “a crime 

of violence, as defined in [§] 16,” which, in turn, defines “crime of violence” as “an offense” 

with certain characteristics).

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the case of an offense resulting in damage to or loss or destruction of property of a 

victim,” the defendant must either return the property or pay the victim some 

amount to compensate for the loss. Equating “offense[s] against property” in 

subsection (c)(1) to “offense[s] resulting in damage to or loss or destruction of 

property of a victim” in subsection (b)(1) collapses the two subsections. We do not 

think that is what Congress intended, for it could have easily used the language in 

subsection (b)(1) to define the covered offenses.

This construction further harmonizes § 3663A with its discretionary 

restitution counterpart, 18 U.S.C. § 3663. See Food & Drug Admin. v. Brown & 

Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 133 (2000) (directing courts to interpret 

statutes as part of “a symmetrical and coherent regulatory scheme” and to “fit, if 

possible, all parts into an harmonious whole”) (citations and internal quotation 

marks omitted). Under § 3663, courts can impose, on a discretionary basis, 

restitution for any offense under Title 18 (and other miscellaneous statutes), except 

that for “an offense described in [§] 3663A(c),” the court has no discretion and 

restitution must be imposed. See § 3663(a)(1)(A).

Significantly, § 3663(b)(1) mirrors § 3663A(b)(1), providing that “in the 

case of an offense resulting in damage to or loss or destruction of property of a 

victim,” the defendant “may” be ordered to return the property or pay the victim 

some amount for the loss. If “offense against property” under § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) 

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means any “offense resulting in damage to or loss or destruction of property,” 

§ 3663(b)(1) would largely be meaningless, because offenses resulting in damage 

to or loss of property would always be “against property” and never eligible for 

discretionary restitution. Rather than reading § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) to nullify much 

of § 3663, our construction allows “the two . . . to stand together.” Thomas M. 

Cooley, A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest upon the 

Legislative Power of the States of the American Union 58 (1868).

Excluding offenses with only incidental property loss is also more consistent 

with the common-law roots of the phrase “offense against property.” See, e.g., 

California v. Minjares, 443 U.S. 916, 927 (1979) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) 

(describing “crimes against person and property” as “the traditional common-law 

crimes”). When Congress “uses a common-law term of established meaning 

without otherwise defining it, the general practice is to give that term its 

common-law meaning.” United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 411 (1957). See 

generally Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47

Colum. L. Rev. 527, 535 (1947) (“[I]f a word is obviously transplanted from 

another legal source, whether the common law or other legislation, it brings the old 

soil with it.”).

At common law, offenses or crimes against property referred to a specific set

of criminal conduct: “larceny, embezzlement, cheating, cheating by false pretenses, 

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robbery, receiving stolen goods, malicious mischief, forgery, and uttering forged 

instruments.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1251 (10th ed. 2014) (defining “offense 

against property”). Merely damaging or destroying property would not have met 

the definition for any of these offenses. For example, malicious mischief, the 

closest common-law offense for damaging another’s property, required intentional 

destruction or damage. See id. at 1101. By borrowing from the annals of common 

law, Congress “presumably . . . adopt[ed] the cluster of ideas that were attached,” 

Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263 (1952), including the common-law 

understanding that an “offense against property” is not committed simply because 

criminal conduct occasions property loss.

The clause “including those committed by fraud or deceit” does not broaden 

the meaning of “offense against property.” Introduced by the illustrative 

“including,” the phrase refers to conduct that is a subset of “offense against 

property,” and not an independent covered offense under the MVRA. See Fed. 

Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U.S. 95, 100 (1941) (“[T]he 

term ‘including’ is not one of all-embracing definition, but connotes simply an 

illustrative application of the general principle.”). So, “those [offenses against 

property] committed by fraud or deceit” must still have property as their object to 

qualify. See § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) (emphasis added).

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C

We next consider the analytical framework district courts should apply to 

determine whether an offense is against property for purposes of the MVRA. The 

parties advocate two different approaches. The one advocated by the government 

and applied by the district court considers the factual circumstances underlying the 

offense of conviction. The other, urged by Ms. Collins, is the categorical 

approach, in which courts limit their analysis to the elements of the offense of 

conviction.

Ms. Collins argues that in United States v. Keelan, 786 F.3d 865 (11th Cir. 

2015), we held that the categorical approach governs the determination of whether 

a crime falls within one of the MVRA’s enumerated categories. In our view, she 

overstates our holding in Keelan. The defendant in Keelan, who had been 

convicted of knowingly using means of interstate commerce to persuade a minor to 

engage in sexual activity, challenged the district court’s order of restitution 

pursuant to § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(i), which provides for mandatory restitution for any 

offense that is a “crime of violence, as defined in [§] 16.” See Keelan, 786 F.3d at 

869–70. We had previously applied the categorical approach to determine whether 

a conviction qualifies as a crime of violence under § 16. See Dixon v. U.S. Att’y 

Gen., 768 F.3d 1338, 1342–43 (11th Cir. 2014). And because § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(i) 

defines “crime of violence” by explicit reference to § 16, we applied the 

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categorical approach to determine whether the Keelan defendant’s offense was a 

“crime of violence” for purposes of § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(i). See Keelan, 786 F.3d at 

869–72.

Here, however, the MVRA does not define “offense against property” by 

referring to another statute, and we have never considered whether to apply the

categorical approach to determine whether an offense qualifies as an “offense 

against property” in any context. As a result, Keelan does not resolve whether 

sentencing courts must apply the categorical approach to determine whether an

offense was an “offense against property” for purposes of § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii). 

We must decide that issue for the first time here. 

The text of § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) persuades us to reject the categorical 

approach in this context. The provision uses language that the Supreme Court has 

previously said suggests consideration of the underlying conduct. In Taylor v. 

United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), the Court was tasked with defining “burglary” 

under the sentencing enhancement provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 

18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and setting forth the method by which sentencing courts were 

to determine whether a defendant’s prior state-law burglary conviction qualified 

for the enhancement. Relying in part on the word “element” in § 924(e), the Court 

ultimately decided that, with rare exception, sentencing courts should apply the 

categorical approach, looking “only to the statutory definitions of the prior 

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offenses, and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions.” See Taylor, 

495 U.S. at 600–01. In adopting the categorical approach, the Court also relied on 

the fact that § 924(e) refers to a person who “has three previous convictions” for

certain types of crimes, and not to a person who has “committed” those crimes. Id. 

The Court, in other words, believed that the word “committed” would have served 

as a congressional directive to sentencing courts to consider the underlying 

conduct. See id. And so, describing a covered offense in terms of how it was 

“committed” suggests consideration of the underlying conduct, without which we 

could not know how an offense was actually committed or carried out.

Unlike § 924(e), § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii) does not define an “offense against 

property” by referring to the “element[s]” of the offense. Further, it describes an 

“offense against property” by reference to how it was “committed”—specifically, 

it specifies that an “offense against property” “include[s] any offense committed by 

fraud or deceit.” 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii). We agree with the premium the 

Supreme Court placed on the word “committed” and the absence of the word 

“element,” and we therefore decline to apply the categorical approach to determine 

whether a conviction qualifies as an “offense against property” under 

§ 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii).3

 3 The presence or absence of the word “element” in a statute does not, on its own, resolve the 

issue here. Indeed, we have applied the categorical approach in cases where the federal 

sentencing statute makes no mention of “elements.” See, e.g., United States v. James, 430 F.3d 

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Our decision today to eschew the categorical approach puts us in line with a 

number of decisions by our sister courts, which, though not expressly discussing 

the issue, have focused on the conduct underlying the offense of conviction instead 

of the elements of the crime. See, e.g., Luis, 765 F.3d at 1065–66; United States v. 

Pescatore, 637 F.3d 128, 138–39 (2d Cir. 2011); Quarrell, 310 F.3d at 678. 

D

With a definition and analytical framework in hand, we now turn to the 

question of whether Ms. Collins committed an “offense against property.” In cases 

such as this one, where the conviction is for conspiracy, we focus on the offense 

that was the object of the unlawful scheme. See Singletary, 649 F.3d at 1220 

(looking to the “objects of the conspiracy” to determine the applicability of the 

MVRA). The unlawful conduct here was that Ms. Collins, as an “employee . . . of 

a financial institution,” “corruptly accept[ed] or agree[d] to accept, anything of 

value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with 

any business or transaction of such institution.” See § 215(a)(2). Ms. Collins’ 

predicate offense, in so many words, was the illegal acceptance of gratuities.

We have previously noted that there may be a question about whether 

bribery is an “offense against property” under the MVRA. See United States v. 

 

1150, 1154 (11th Cir. 2005) (applying the categorical approach to determine whether a particular 

offense is a “serious drug offense” under the ACCA). 

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McNair, 605 F.3d 1152, 1221 n.107 (11th Cir. 2010). As with bribery, it is not 

readily apparent to us that a gratuities offense will always trigger mandatory 

restitution under the MVRA. For example, there may be situations where the 

government establishes criminal liability under § 215(a)(2) without demonstrating 

that any improperly influenced transaction implicated someone else’s property.

We need not address all variants of a gratuities offense because, in this case, 

the evidence demonstrates that Ms. Collins sought to derive an unlawful benefit 

from the property at play in the bank transactions she corruptly facilitated. 

Specifically, Ms. Collins admitted that she withdrew $69,000 from a bank account 

for Mr. Mack. See D.E. 25 at 42–44. At the time of the withdrawal, that money 

belonged to Wells Fargo. See Shaw v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 462, 466 (2016) 

(explaining that a bank owns the deposited funds). By accepting Mr. Mack’s cash 

payment in connection with transactions such as this one, Ms. Collins intentionally 

derived an unlawful pecuniary gain by taking property belonging to Wells Fargo, 

thereby making her gratuities offense an “offense against property.” Cf. Black’s 

Law Dictionary 454 (10th ed. 2014) (defining “crime against property” as an 

“offense[ ] in which the perpetrator seeks to derive an unlawful benefit from . . . 

another’s property without the use or threat of force”).

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E

Almost as an afterthought, Ms. Collins contends that, to the extent she 

committed an “offense against property,” she did not proximately cause Wells 

Fargo’s losses. She devotes most of her briefing on this issue to rehashing her 

arguments on the proper analytical approach. See Br. of Appellant at 19–21. 

When she finally gets around to the causation analysis, she argues, in one 

conclusory paragraph with no explanation, that Wells Fargo’s losses stemmed from 

Ms. Mack’s fraud and “perhaps from [her] . . . witting or unwitting assistance,” but 

not from her acceptance of gratuities. See id. at 21. Though her failure to fully 

brief this issue arguably constitutes abandonment, see Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Se. 

Floating Docks, Inc., 632 F.3d 1195, 1201 n.7 (11th Cir. 2011) (explaining that 

some “arguments . . . are so conclusory that they are deemed abandoned”), we 

address it anyway.

Under the MVRA, sentencing courts must order restitution for a victim’s 

“actual loss directly and proximately caused by the defendant’s offense of 

conviction.” United States v. Sharma, 703 F.3d 318, 323 (5th Cir. 2012). The 

“[d]efendant’s conduct need not be the sole cause of the loss,” but it cannot be “too 

attenuated (either factually or temporally).” United States v. Robertson, 493 F.3d 

1322, 1334 (11th Cir. 2007) (citations omitted). Here, the government proved that 

Wells Fargo’s loss “would not have occurred but for” Ms. Collins’ conduct. Id. 

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The question, then, is whether Ms. Collins’ actions proximately caused Wells 

Fargo’s losses. The district court found that they did, see D.E. 26 at 4–15, and we 

review this factual finding for clear error. See Robertson, 493 F.3d at 1334.

We have addressed proximate causation in the MVRA context before. In 

United States v. Washington, 434 F.3d 1265, 1266 (11th Cir. 2006), the defendant 

robbed a bank and fled. Several police cars were damaged in the ensuing chase. 

The district court ordered the defendant to pay the police department restitution for 

the property damage. See id. at 1266–68. On appeal, the defendant did not dispute 

that the MVRA applied to his bank robbery conviction, but he argued that his 

offense was not the proximate cause of the police department’s property damage. 

See id. at 1268. We rejected this argument and affirmed the order of restitution 

because flight was a natural component of bank robbery and because the defendant 

could have foreseen that any ensuing high-speed chase would result in property 

damage. See id. at 1268–69.

Wells Fargo’s losses here were even more foreseeable than the police 

department’s in Washington, where at least the defendant could not have known 

with certainty that various police cars would be damaged. By contrast, Wells 

Fargo having to reimburse its customers for the fraud enabled by its own employee 

was the natural—if not inevitable—consequence of Ms. Collins’ actions. 

Moreover, Ms. Collins directly facilitated Mr. Mack’s scheme by processing the 

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withdrawals of the funds on his behalf. She even physically effectuated some of 

Wells Fargo’s losses by walking money out the bank’s doors, allaying any concern 

that those losses were “too [physically or temporally] attenuated.” See Robertson, 

493 F.3d at 1334. Given Ms. Collins’ role as a bank employee, we do not believe 

that the district court clearly erred in finding that she could have reasonably 

foreseen Wells Fargo’s losses.

IV

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s order of restitution under the 

MVRA.

AFFIRMED.

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