Source: http://pa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19980421_0075.C03.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2016-10-24 20:28:21
Document Index: 364124505

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 371', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 3663', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3583', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3583', '§ 3563', '§ 2', '§ 3663', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3563', '§ 3583', '§ 2255', '§ 3563', '§ 3563']

| U.S. v. Cottman
U.S. v. Cottman
UNITED STATES OF AMERICAv.STANLEY COTTMAN, APPELLANT. On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey D.C. Criminal Action No. 95-cr-00661 Argued July 23, 1997
Before: Sloviter, Chief Judge and Roth, Circuit Judges, LUDWIG,*fn1 District Judge
Amended Opinion Filed 4/21/98
Stanley Cottman pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess, sell, and dispose of stolen property in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison, a three year term of supervised release, and restitution in the amount of $32,420, payable to the FBI. He has appealed two aspects of the sentence imposed by the district court. First, he claims that the district court incorrectly applied a four point upward adjustment under Sentencing Guideline § 2B1.1(b)(4)(B) on the basis that he was "in the business of" receiving and selling stolen cable equipment. Second, he contends that the district court had no authority to order him to pay restitution to the FBI for funds it spent as part of an undercover sting operation to acquire the stolen cable equipment from him. Wefind no error in the sentence enhancement under § 2B1.1(b)(4)(B) and we will affirm that portion of the sentence. However, because we conclude that the FBI was not a victim of Cottman's offense, we will vacate that portion of the judgment of sentence, imposing restitution, and we will remand this case for resentencing.
Pursuant to an ongoing investigation of cable television piracy, the FBI established an undercover warehouse operation in Kenilworth, New Jersey. Agents equipped the premises with video and audio recording devices. An undercover FBI agent (the UCA) was the principal operator of the warehouse. Transcripts and videotapes of conversations, as well as other evidence developed as part of the sting, revealed the following events:*fn2
On February 10, Kanter and "his guy" Stanley Cottman delivered about 70 boxes containing 65 GI baseband units, many of which appeared to be in brand new unopened shipping cartons. The UCA paid $8,650 in cash to Cottman and $650 to Kanter. During the meeting, Cottman removed all of the serial numbers from the cartons and instructed the UCA to remove all the stickers from the original boxes. Cottman also took the opportunity to elaborate on his involvement in the illegal cable box trade. Cottman boasted that "[A]t one point I get 3 hundred . . . . See, I deal with the same ole people over and over and over, the same ole people, no problems. . . . It's slow now since the people we deal with is so good, they get stuff even if it's slow . . . ."
The UCA engaged Cottman in further Discussion about his involvement in illegal cable box trafficking. At one point Cottman said to Kanter: "It started out with one and two to where me and him was moving thousands . . . a week. So I had met a lucky connection up here." Cottman also repeated his assertion that, although he usually got 100 or 200 units per week, at one time he was pulling in about 300 cable boxes a week from his sources. With further inquiries from the UCA, Cottman explained that the people he worked with at the cable companies would pilfer the cable boxes by simply erasing them from the inventory lists on the companies' computers.
In these three transactions, Cottman sold a total of 231 cable boxes for $34,730.*fn3 Cottman was indicted on one count of conspiring to possess and sell stolen cable equipment, valued in excess of $5,000, that had crossed state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and three substantive counts charging him with the receipt and sale of stolen cable equipment, valued in excess of $5,000, that had crossed state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 2315. Federal authorities arrested Cottman on March 7, 1995, at his residence in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
On July 22, 1996, Cottman was sentenced by the district court to a 10-month prison term to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. As a special condition of supervised release, the court ordered Cottman to pay as restitution the $32,420 expended by the FBI to acquire the stolen cable boxes from him. The district court denied Cottman's request for bail pending appeal.*fn4
Cottman immediately filed his notice of appeal. The notice was dated July 22, 1996, but was not filed by the clerk until July 25, 1996. One day later the district court entered its final judgment and order of commitment.*fn5
As a preliminary matter, we must consider the fact that Cottman has completed his ten month term of incarceration, leaving only his three years of supervised release to be served.*fn6 We must determine whether the completion of his term of imprisonment has mooted Cottman's challenge to the district court's application of the "in the business" enhancement.
Although the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits have determined that challenges of the length of defendants' sentences are no longer viable after the defendant has been released from custody, see, e.g., United States v. Ross, 77 F.3d 1525, 1549 n.6 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. Farmer, 923 F.2d 1557, 1568 (11th Cir. 1991), we do not agree. We conclude that a finding of mootness is forestalled here because Cottman may still suffer " `collateral legal consequences' from a sentence already served." Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 108 n.3 (1977) (per curiam).
Two considerations, both of which are products of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, lead us to this determination. First, the § 2B1.1(b)(4)(B) "in the business" sentencing enhancement increases Cottman's Criminal History Category from I to II for any future convictions. See, e.g., United States v. Kassar, 47 F.3d 562, 565 (2d Cir. 1995); United States v. Chaves-Palacios, 30 F.3d 1290, 1292-93 (10th Cir. 1994); United States v. Dickey, 924 F.2d 836, 838 (9th Cir. 1991). The district court's application of the enhancement increased Cottman's total offense level from ten to twelve, pushing him from Zone B to Zone C on the Sentencing Table which determines his guideline range. See U.S.S.G. § 5A (1995). Because his sentence placed him in Zone C, Cottman no longer qualified for a sentence of probation in lieu of imprisonment. See U.S.S.G. §§ 5B1.1 & 5C1.1 (1995). Cottman, as a result, acquired two, rather than one, criminal history points. The net outcome is that a sentence for any future conviction which may be imposed upon Cottman under the Guidelines will be significantly increased.
Second, if we were to find an error in the application of the "in the business" enhancement, the appropriate sentencing range would be reduced from 10-16 months to 6-12 months. See U.S.S.G. § 5A. This reduction would likely merit a credit against Cottman's period of supervised release for the excess period of imprisonment to which Cottman was subjected. See United States v. Fadayini, 28 F.3d 1236, 1241 (D.C. Cir. 1994).
The first of Cottman's challenges to his sentence is to the district court's application of the four level sentencing enhancement for persons in the business of receiving and selling stolen property. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(4).*fn7 This enhancement is seen as a more severe punishment for "people who buy and sell stolen goods, thereby encouraging others to steal, as opposed to thieves who merely sell the goods which they have stolen." United States v. Sutton, 77 F.3d 91, 93 (5th Cir. 1996).
At sentencing, the district court in its bench ruling extensively discussed United States v. King, 21 F.3d 1302 (3d Cir. 1994), the lone decision of this Circuit interpreting the "in the business" enhancement of U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1. In addition, the court thoroughly reviewed the evidence adduced by the parties. The district court found that "Cottman had a steady source of stolen cable boxes that was generated from more than one robbery or theft" and concluded that the operation in which Cottman participated was a sophisticated one given that "his source of cable boxes appear [sic] to have been persons employed by cable companies who obtained the boxes in part by deleting the boxes from the companies' inventories to conceal their theft." Based on these findings the court found that Cottman was "clearly an integral part of this operation" and deserved the sentencing enhancement even if he was not the "criminal mastermind" behind it.
In King, we briefly reviewed the approaches taken by other circuits that have considered a defendant's eligibility for the four point "in the business" enhancement. King, 21 F.3d at 1306. We turned to the First Circuit's decision in United States v. St. Cyr, 977 F.2d 698 (1st Cir. 1992), which set out the "totality of the circumstances" test. King, 21 F.3d at 1306. The St. Cyr court's approach placed "particular emphasis on the regularity and sophistication of a defendant's operation." St. Cyr, 977 F.2d at 703. We explained that "regularity of conduct is one universal thread in virtually all legal definitions of business." King, 21 F.3d at 1307 (quoting St. Cyr, 977 F.2d at 703-04). We further elaborated that where the government offers proof only of a defendant's irregular and occasional sales, it must also provide "evidence upon which to base a Conclusion that . . . irregular and occasional sales underrepresented the scope of his criminality or the extent to which he encouraged or facilitated other crimes." Id. at 1308.
Cottman, however, argues that the enhancement was improperly applied to him. Indeed, the Probation Office did not include the "in the business" enhancement in computing Cottman's Guidelines offense level.*fn8 Cottman first maintains that he was nothing more than a "low level delivery boy." Cottman claims that he merely obtained the cable boxes for resale from an Englishman named "Roger" and that the sentencing enhancement is inapplicable because Cottman was merely a middleman to Roger, the true fence. To support this contention, Cottman asks rhetorically why, if he was the "mastermind" of the scheme, did he only remove the serial numbers from the outside of the cartons, leaving the serial numbers actually attached to the cable boxes for later removal.
Second, Cottman asserts that the three transactions in which he participated do not establish a pattern of trafficking in stolen goods with sufficient regularity to support the enhancement. According to Cottman, the record does not support the Conclusion that he trafficked in stolen cable boxes on occasions other than those for which he was convicted. He dismisses his statement that he regularly received up to 300 cable boxes per week as mere puffery designed to impress his fellow conspirators. Cottman's position is, however, belied by the facts adduced at sentencing. Cottman's boasting about his history of trafficking in illegal cable boxes, captured as it was on video and audio tape, is a sufficient foundation from which the district court could have concluded that he had previously engaged in fencing activities. See, e.g., United States v. Rosa, 17 F.3d 1531, 1551 (2d Cir. 1994), (approving of application of enhancement where inter alia, defendant "made clear that these were not hisfirst transactions"); United States v. Russell, 913 F.2d 1288, 1294 (8th Cir. 1990) (same, where, inter alia, defendant made "statement to an informant that he could supply stolen checks, jewelry, and credit cards").
Implicit in this argument is Cottman's belief that the sentencing enhancement cannot stand without proof that he participated in transactions other than the three which underlie his conviction. However, even if we were to assume that the district court had before it proof only of the three transactions of the conspiracy conviction, we would still uphold the district court's application of the "in the business" enhancement. Contrary to Cottman's suggestion,
it is not the law in this Circuit that the enhancement cannot lie absent proof that the defendant has previously engaged in "fencing" activities.
Our decision in King is not to the contrary.*fn9 There we merely distinguished a Fifth Circuit decision which made the broad statement that an "in the business enhancement" does not require a finding that a defendant has previously engaged in the fencing of stolen property. See King, 21 F.3d at 1306-07 (citing United States v. Esquivel, 919 F.2d 957, 960 (5th Cir. 1990)). We did not, however, hold that a defendant must in all cases have been involved in previous illicit transactions to warrant the enhancement.
Other Circuits have held that the enhancement remains appropriate without proof of past sales of stolen property. See, e.g., United States v. Sutton, 77 F.3d 91,93-94 (5th Cir. 1996) (holding that "a criminal can be `in the business' of fencing even though this is his first time to fence); United States v. Salemi, 46 F.3d 207, 210-11 (2d Cir. 1995). But see United States v. Connor, 950 F.2d 1267, 1275 (7th Cir. 1991) (suggesting that a defendant must have "engaged in sufficient illegal conduct which is similar to the instant offense").
The preponderance of the evidence here clearly establishes that Cottman filled a "fencing" role, and thereby created a market for those who would steal cable boxes by force or stealth. Indeed, Cottman even admitted that he took jobs in cable companies for the express purpose of encouraging people within those companies to steal cable boxes for him. PSI ¶ 24.
St. Cyr, 977 F.2d at 704. This Conclusion is consistent with King's holding that the government can sustain application of the enhancement, where sales are only "irregular or occasional," if the sales underrepresent the true "scope of the defendant's criminality or the extent to which he encouraged or facilitated other crimes." King, 21 F.3d at 1308.
Finally, Cottman argues that the district court should have given greater weight to the fact that he has held down legitimate employment in the cable industry for many years. Asserting that he "clearly is not a millionaire," Cottman suggests that his lifestyle and employment is inconsistent with the criminal history attributed to him. However, the fact that a defendant continues to hold down a legitimate job does not foreclose an enhancement. See, e.g., St. Cyr, 977 F.2d at 703 ("In searching for evidence of regularity, we do not suggest that the selling of stolen property must be the dominant source of a defendant's income before his felonious activities become sufficiently prominent to be regarded as a business."). The district court's incredulity was warranted here since Cottman's legitimate line of business also neatly facilitated his ability to obtain illegal cable boxes. See PSI ¶ 24.
In the district court, the Government sought restitution to the FBI as a condition of Cottman's supervised release. The Government proffered alternate rationales for this order. First, the Government argued that its request could be sustained under the Victim Witness Protection Act
(VWPA), 18 U.S.C. § 3663 to 3664 (1985 & supp. 1995).*fn10 Second, the Government asserted that the supervised release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (1985 & supp. 1995), provided an independent basis for an order of restitution. See Dep't of Justice Letter of July 10, 1996, Appendix at 25-32.
The district court chose not to award restitution under the VWPA because the prevailing view is that ordinarily the Government cannot be a "victim" under the VWPA when its losses were incurred as a result of its having provided the "buy" money used in a government sting which led to the defendant's arrest.*fn11 See Appendix at 46 ("[T]he FBI, I find, is not a victim of defendant Cottman's offense and the $34,740 [sic] is not recoverable under the VWPA."); Appellee's Br. at 26 (conceding in respect to restitution orders requiring repayment of buy money as a condition of probation, "such disgorgement is arguably improper under the restitution statutes, given that they focus squarely on compensation to victims and not punishment").
We have not yet had to determine whether the VWPA allows restitution to the government for funds expended in a sting, such as we have here.*fn12 However, the other circuits, which have considered the question, have held that investigative costs and voluntary expenditures by the government to procure evidence are not losses. See, e.g., United States v. Khawaja, 118 F.3d 1454, 1460 (11th Cir. 1997); United States v. Gibbens, 25 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. Meacham, 27 F.3d 214, 218 (6th Cir. 1994); United States v. Salcedo-Lopez, 907 F.2d 97, 98 (9th Cir. 1990). We will follow this well considered construction of the VWPA and hold that, when the government chooses to apprehend offenders through a sting operation, the government is not a "victim" under the provisions of the VWPA.
However, the district court awarded restitution, not under the VWPA, but under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d).*fn13 Section 3583(d) of the supervised release statute authorizes the imposition of certain of the discretionary conditions of probation, set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b) (1985 & supp. 1995). When Cottman was sentenced, § 3563(b)(3) permitted the district court to order a defendant as a condition of probation to "make restitution to a victim of the offense under sections 3663 and 3664 . . .." The District Court employed the term "restitution" when imposing repayment at the sentencing hearing. Appendix at 59. The amount of the repayment is also entered under "Restitution" on the Judgment form. Appendix at 16. Because this condition of supervised release was specified to be "restitution" and because it is § 3563(b) which permits the imposition of "restitution" as a condition of supervised release, we conclude from the use of this term that the order of restitution must follow the provisions of § 3563. Otherwise, the "catch-all" exception prong of § 3583(d) would swallow the rule.
For this reason, we conclude that the order incorporated by reference § 3563(b)'s terminology "restitution to the victim" (emphasis added). Thus, we again are faced with the requirement that restitution be made to a "victim." We cannot see how the FBI can be a "victim" under § 3563(b) if it is not a "victim" under the VWPA. We feel obliged to conclude that the statutory provisions are parallel in their definition of "victim." See Gall v. United States, 21 F.3d 107, 111 (6th Cir. 1994) (holding that "§ 3583(d) via its reference to . . . § 3563(b)(3) requires restitution to conform with provisions of the VWPA").*fn14
On remand, it may be that other victims of Cottman's offense can be ascertained. However, for the reasons stated above, we hold that the FBI was not a victim and, as a result, the conditions of Cottman's supervised release cannot include a requirement that he pay restitution to the FBI.*fn15
I join in the majority's decision on lack of mootness and affirmance of the application of the four level "in the business" Guidelines enhancement. U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1. I respectfully Dissent from its decision to vacate the condition of supervised release requiring repayment to the government of $32,420 in "buy money" provided to defendant by the FBI. Defendant received those monies, in various installments, from an undercover agent in exchange for 231 stolen TV boxes - the subject matter of the conspiracy charge to which defendant pleaded guilty. The crime occurred in 1995, and the defendant was sentenced on July 22, 1996.
The majority holds that restitution of "buy money" is not an authorized condition of supervised release under the Victim Witness Protection Act of 1982, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663- 3664 (1985 & supp. 1995) or the supervised release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (1985 & supp. 1995). Its reasoning is that the expenditure of "buy money" is a cost of law enforcement and does not qualify the government as a "victim" - the traditional prerequisite of restitution. I agree with that analysis as relates to the VWPA.*fn16 However, I do not believe it is necessary to decide that issue in applying the supervised release statute to this case. First, the sentencing Judge did not intend to order "restitution" in the victim-related sense of the word - which is the underlying premise of the majority's Conclusion. Second, I would hold that the repayment of "buy money" is authorized as a discretionary condition of supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(3).
The sentencing Judge stated, after discussing the victim- restitution cases:
[T]he FBI, I find, is not a victim of defendant Cottman's offense and the "buy money" is not recoverable under the VWPA. Therefore, I agree with defendant's objection to the award of restitution to the FBI. Restitution should be made to the owners of the cable boxes .... I'm ordering that the boxes be returned to their rightful owners as restitution.
Appendix at 46-47. The sentencing Judge then reviewed the "buy-money" decision in United States v. Daddato, 996 F.2d 903 (7th Cir. 1993) and concluded that authority for a repayment order was conferred by the supervised release statute provision: "any other condition [the court] considers to be appropriate." 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(3).
The sentencing Judge - as the majority stresses- referred at times to the repayment as "restitution" and the repayment is so characterized on the judgment of sentence form. Nevertheless, the Judge's sentencing statement unmistakably shows the intent to follow Daddato and to exercise "any other condition" discretion, not to order restitution to the FBI as a victim. Appendix at 47-50, 59. The significance of the distinction is more than semantic. By incorporating by reference the conditions authorized in the probation statute, the supervised release statute also empowers the sentencing Judge to order "restitution to the victim." 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(3). Under the VWPA cases, that provision, by its own terminology, could not be utilized to order a repayment of "buy money." Despite the finding of the sentencing Judge that the FBI was not a "victim" and was not entitled to victim-related "restitution," the majority conclusively infers that the condition was imposed under § 3563(b)(3) and was, accordingly, invalid.
Moreover, the idea of restitution, which historically has involved redress to a victim, has been evolving to include victimless reparations.*fn17 The sentencing Judge's sporadic use of "restitution" in a non-victim-related sense to refer to the repayment of "buy money" has good precedent. In Daddato, now Chief Judge Posner's decision characterizes the repayment of "buy money" as "in the nature of restitution," observing that "[we] need not determine whether such an order is also classic `restitution'...." 996 F.2d at 903, 905. See United States v. Brooks, 114 F.3d 106, 108 (7th Cir. 1997) ("In Daddato, after noting that an order to repay buy money as "restitution" under the[VWPA] was not cricket, we found that such an order would nevertheless pass muster as a condition of supervised release" (bold in original)). The majority's predicate that the sentencing Judge must have intended to act under 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b) simply is not well founded. The sentencing Judge was well aware of both the traditional compensatory and the victimless, or nontraditional, meaning of "restitution" - and clearly did not believe he was invoking § 3563(b).*fn18
Pursuant to his plea of guilty, James Daddato was convicted of ... selling hallucinogenic mushrooms and sentenced to 16 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. His appeal challenges one of the conditions of supervised release: that he repay the $3,650 that he received from law enforcement officers in payment for mushrooms that they bought from him in order to obtain conclusive evidence of his guilt. The statute governing supervised release empowers the sentencing Judge to impose as a condition of such release any condition authorized as discretionary condition of probation plus "any other condition it considers to be appropriate." 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Obviously the language is broad enough to encompass the requirement that the defendant make good the government's "buy money"; nor could the imposition of such a requirement be thought an abuse of discretion - it merely asks the defendant (if he is financially able, once his release from prison enable him to obtain a paying job) to make good the expense to which he put the government by violating the laws that prohibit drug trafficking in a selected subset of mind-altering drugs.
996 F.2d at 903. The opinion then rejects the argument that repayment of "buy money" is beyond the sentencing Judge's power because "any other condition" must be comparable, by virtue of "ejusdem generis," to the 20 specific conditions that precede it. Daddato explains that the return of "buy money" is comparable to, albeit not the same as, traditional "restitution."
An order to repay the government's "buy money" is similar in requiring the defendant to convey something of value to the community, rather than to his victims (if any there be) specifically. State v. Connelly, 143 Wis. 2d 500, 421 N.W.2d 859 (App. 1988).
The year after Daddato, a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted § 2255 relief where a supervised release condition to repay "buy money" was imposed as to four drug charges, although three of the charges had been dismissed in exchange for the defendant's guilty plea to the fourth. Gall v. United States, 21 F.3d 107 (6th Cir. 1994). The decision, after confining "restitution" as a condition of supervised release to crimes "charged and convicted," described the second part of its holding: "the government is not a victim to which a district court may order a defendant to pay restitution for the purpose of recovering drug `buy money' and other costs of investigation voluntarily paid out." 21 F.3d at 108 (bold in original). In much the same way as our majority, which cites Gall for this point, it ignores Daddato and equates repayment of "buy money" with traditional "restitution"; it then summarily conflates § 3563(b)(3) with the VWPA because of the incorporation by reference of § 3563(b)(3) - "restitution to the victim."
21 F.3d at 112-113.
In the instant sentencing, the Judge quoted the above- portion of the concurrence and stated:
Given these purposes, it would seem to be beyond dispute that a person who knowingly sells stolen merchandise should not be permitted to profit from the sale. The provision of the supervised release statute that authorizes "any other condition [the court] considers to be appropriate," is in addition to - and not synonymous with or subordinate to - the condition authorizing victim-related restitution. The costs of law enforcement are paid from taxes, and criminal defendants are not required to reimburse the government for their day in court. The taxpayer, however, should not have to bear the cost of "buy money." The difference is that the money involved has gone into the defendant's pocket and to the extent practicable should be recovered. This is a self-evident corollary of "respect for the law" and "just punishment."
The petition for panel rehearing filed by the appellee in the above-entitled case having been submitted to the Judges who participated in the decision of this court and all Judges who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, the petition for rehearing is granted so that the panel opinion and the Dissent can be amended. The amended opinion and Dissent are being filed at this time.
Dated: 4/21/98