Opinion ID: 653668
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Responsibility of Fontanez for Sentencing Purposes

Text: 85 Fontanez contends that the district erroneously considered drug transactions for sentencing purposes that were not part of his conspiratorial agreement and therefore not reasonably foreseeable to him. Fontanez insists that he is responsible for only thirty-one kilograms of cocaine, not the full amount of all drug transactions identified at trial. He thus claims that his Base Offense Level under the Guidelines should be 34, not 36 as the district court found. 14 The district court disagreed, found Fontanez liable for the full amount, and sentenced him accordingly. Direct evidence linked Fontanez to the thirty-four kilogram amount. Fontanez argues that any quantity above this was the result of transactions that were not a part of his conspiratorial agreement. His claim is that his conspiratorial agreement did not encompass any transaction where he was not present. The issue, then, is: what exactly was the extent of Fontanez's conspiratorial agreement? 86 This question does not produce an obvious answer. There is no written text that we can look to in order to discern the intent of the parties to the conspiratorial agreement. Cocaine conspirators do not ordinarily commit their mental agreements to written contracts. They tend to rely on informal oral contracts that are, by their very nature, difficult for district courts to reconstruct at sentencing. 87 Fortunately, the Guidelines provide a method for solving this problem. The Guidelines require district courts to sentence a criminal conspiracy defendant on the basis of all acts committed by the defendant for which the defendant would be otherwise accountable. U.S.S.G. Sec. 1B1.3. Application Note 1 defines conduct for which a defendant would be otherwise accountable as conduct of others in furtherance of the execution of the jointly-undertaken criminal activity that was reasonably foreseeable by the defendant. 15 U.S.S.G. Sec. 1B1.3, comment. (n. 1) (emphasis added). 88 Reasonable foreseeability refers to the scope of the agreement that Fontanez entered into when he joined the conspiracy, not merely to the drugs he may have known about. United States v. Edwards, 945 F.2d 1387, 1403 (7th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1590, 118 L.Ed.2d 308 (1992). The district court noted the following evidence against Fontanez: (1) Rodriguez told Cabral the day after Fontanez was arrested that Fontanez was a long-time trusted worker; (2) the 120.4 kilogram quantity of cocaine, which the district court used, was a conservative amount, given Cabral's testimony; (3) Fontanez rented the stash apartment in February 1990; and (4) Cabral testified that Fontanez's involvement in the cocaine distribution operation began at least as early as the summer of 1990, well before the first of the eleven transactions which helped comprise the full 120.4 kilogram amount. 16 The district court applied the appropriate preponderance of the evidence standard, accepted these facts as established, and concluded that the full quantity of cocaine was reasonably foreseeable to Fontanez. See United States v. Ruffin, 997 F.2d 343 (7th Cir.1993) (articulating preponderance of the evidence standard for sentencing). We will reverse the district court's finding only if it is clearly erroneous. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3742(e); United States v. Villarreal, 977 F.2d 1077, 1080 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1350, 122 L.Ed.2d 731 (1993). It was not clearly erroneous. 89 Fontanez argues that the district court failed to conduct the kind of individualized inquiry that we described in Edwards. 945 F.2d at 1399. In Edwards, we discussed the reasonably foreseeable standard at some length and directed district judges, when applying this standard, to set forth the reasons why the particular amount of drugs was reasonably foreseeable to the criminal conspiracy defendant. Id. 90 The district court complied with Edwards when it sentenced Fontanez. At sentencing and after giving both Fontanez and Assistant United States Attorney Sean Martin an opportunity to make their case, the court concluded as follows: 91 THE COURT: I do find by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Fontanez was a knowledgeable conspirator with respect to the scope of the activities between Mr. Flores, Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Cabral, at least as early as August 1990. He rented the apartment, which was in effect a drug house for this operation, I believe it was in February or March of that year; it was considerably earlier. 92 MR. MARTIN: February 1990, your Honor. 93 THE COURT: It was an apartment filled with very little besides baggies and a scale, as I recall, some drug records. 94 And given that kind of corroboration, plus Mr. Cabral's testimony, I think the record sufficiently supports a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the full 120 kilos, which is a conservative government estimate, is relevant conduct to this offense. So therefore, I overrule the objection with respect to the base offense level of 36. 95 April 4, 1991 Sentencing Transcript at 9-10. This individualized inquiry by the district court satisfies Edwards. The district court's findings are not clearly erroneous. We affirm Fontanez's sentence.