Source: https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/amendment/596
Timestamp: 2020-01-20 16:36:36
Document Index: 429911077

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2', '§2', '§2', '§ 1029', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2', '§2']

596 | United States Sentencing Commission
AMENDMENT 596
Amendment: The Commentary to §2B1.1 captioned "Application Notes" is amended by striking Note 4 in its entirety; by redesignating Notes 5 through 16 as Notes 4 through 15, respectively; and in Note 2 by striking the second paragraph in its entirety and inserting the following:
"If the offense involved making a fraudulent loan or credit card application, or other unlawful conduct involving a loan, a counterfeit access device, or an unauthorized access device, the loss is to be determined in accordance with the Commentary to §2F1.1 (Fraud and Deceit). For example, in accordance with Application Note 17 of the Commentary to §2F1.1, in a case involving an unauthorized access device (such as a stolen credit card), loss includes any unauthorized charge(s) made with the access device. In such a case, the loss shall be not less than $500 per unauthorized access device. For purposes of this application note, ‘counterfeit access device’ and ‘unauthorized access device’ have the meaning given those terms in 18 U.S.C. § 1029(e)(2) and (e)(3), respectively.".
Section 2F1.1, as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended by redesignating subsections (b)(5) through (b)(7) as subsections (b)(6) through (b)(8), respectively; and by inserting after subsection (b)(4) the following:
"(5) If the offense involved—
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Application Notes", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended in Note 12 in the first sentence by striking "fraudulent identification documents and"; by striking the second sentence in its entirety; in the third sentence, by striking "the case of an offense involving false identification documents or access devices," and inserting "such a case,"; and by adding at the end the following paragraph:
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Application Notes", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended by redesignating Notes 15 through 20 as Notes 18 through 23, respectively; and by inserting after Note 14 the following:
"15. For purposes of subsection (b)(5)—
17. In a case involving any counterfeit access device or unauthorized access device, loss includes any unauthorized charges made with the counterfeit access device or unauthorized access device. In any such case, loss shall be not less than $500 per access device. However, if the unauthorized access device is a means of telecommunications access that identifies a specific telecommunications instrument or telecommunications account (including an electronic serial number/mobile identification number (ESN/MIN) pair), and that means was only possessed, and not used, during the commission of the offense, loss shall be not less than $100 per unused means. For purposes of this application note, ‘counterfeit access device’ and ‘unauthorized access device’ have the meaning given those terms in Application Note 15.".
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Application Notes", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended in redesignated Note 18 (formerly Note 15) by striking "(b)(5)" each place it appears and inserting "(b)(6)".
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Application Notes", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended in redesignated Note 21 (formerly Note 18), by striking "(b)(7)" and inserting "(b)(8)".
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Application Notes", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended by striking redesignated Note 23 (formerly Note 20), in its entirety and inserting the following:
The Commentary to §2F1.1 captioned "Background", as amended by Amendment 595 (see supra), is further amended by striking the sixth paragraph and all that follows through the end of the "Background" and inserting the following:
" Subsections (b)(5)(A) and(B) implement the instruction to the Commission in section 4 of the Wireless Telephone Protection Act, Public Law 105–172.
Subsection (c) implements the instruction to the Commission in section 805(c) of Public Law 104–132.".
Reason for Amendment: This is a five-part amendment. First, this amendment provides a two-level increase and a minimum offense level of level 12 for offenses involving (1) the possession or use of equipment that is used to manufacture access devices; (2) the production of, or trafficking in, unauthorized and counterfeit access devices, such as stolen credit cards and cloned wireless telephones; or (3) affirmative identity theft (i.e., unlawfully producing from any means of identification any other means of identification). Affirmative identity theft, referred to in the research and analysis conducted by the Commission as the "breeding" of identification means, will result in an enhanced penalty in any case in which there is a transfer or use of another person’s means of identification unlawfully to produce or "breed" additional means of identification, or in which there is the possession of five or more means of identification that were unlawfully produced.
Fourth, this amendment provides an encouraged upward departure if the offense level does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offense conduct. Examples of cases in which a departure may be warranted include those in which (1) an identity theft caused substantial harm to the victim’s reputation or credit record; (2) an individual is arrested, or is denied a job, because of a misidentification that results from an identity theft; or (3) a defendant essentially assumed the victim’s identity.
This amendment responds to the directives to the Commission contained in section 4 of the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998, Pub. L. 105–318(b)(1) ("ITADA") and section 2 of the Wireless Telephone Protection Act, Pub. L. 105–172 ("WTPA"). For the reasons discussed below and because of the overlap in some of the statutory definitions in the ITADA and the WTPA (particularly "access device," "telecommunication identifying information," and "means of identification"), enhancements have been consolidated into a single guideline amendment.
The ITADA directed the Commission to assess certain specific factors in its consideration of appropriate penalties for identity theft, including: the number of victims; the harm to a victim’s reputation and inconvenience caused by the offense; the number of means of identification, identification documents, or false identification documents involved in the offense; the range of offense conduct; and, the adequacy of the value of loss to an individual victim as a measure for establishing penalties.
Accordingly, amended section §2F1.1(b)(5)(C) recognizes that the conduct of generating or "breeding" identification means warrants substantial additional penalties. The minimum offense level of level 12 accounts for the fact that the defendant in an identity theft case typically has exclusive control over the "bred" means of identification, making it difficult for the individual victim to detect that the victim’s identity has been stolen until substantial harms (e.g., a damaged credit rating) have occurred. The minimum offense level also accounts for the non-monetary harms associated with identity theft (e.g., harm to reputation or credit rating), which typically are difficult to quantify. However, for cases in which the nature and scope of the harm to an individual victim is so egregious that the two-level enhancement and minimum offense level provide insufficient punishment, the amendment invites an upward departure.
The WTPA directed the Commission to review "the extent to which the value of the loss caused by the offenses. . . is an adequate measure for establishing penalties. . . ." The amendment provides a minimum loss rule in §2F1.1 that extends to all access devices, not just to cloned wireless telephones. In so doing, similar fraud cases will be treated similarly regardless of the technology or type of access device used in the offense. Additionally, the Commission’s research and data supported increasing the minimum loss amount, previously provided only in §2B1.1 (Larceny, Embezzlement, and Other Forms of Theft), from $100 to $500 per access device. However, the data were insufficient to support using this increased amount in cases that involve only the possession, and not the use, of means of telecommunications access that identify a specific telecommunications instrument or account (e.g., ESN/MIN pairs of wireless telephones). (An example of such a case is a defendant who possesses a list of ESN/MIN pairs but has not used any of those pairs to clone wireless telephones.) For such cases, the Commission decided that the minimum loss amount should be $100 per unused means.