Opinion ID: 152880
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kumar's Acceptance Of Responsibility

Text: At sentencing, the district court denied Kumar's request for an acceptance of responsibility reduction under § 3E1.1, concluding that Kumar had not sufficiently accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct because he had obstructed justice, and because he had waited until the eve of trial to plead guilty. In addition, the district court noted that (1) Kumar's plea allocation was phrased to mute[] the gravity of his complicity in the securities fraud offenses, Sentencing Tr. 61:12-13, Nov. 2, 2006, and (2) Kumar's meritless objections to the evidence-tampering and fraudulent transaction allegations in the PSR revealed a lack of acceptance of responsibility, Kumar Sentencing Tr. at 60:18-61:21. On appeal, Kumar claims that the district court's rejection of his acceptance of responsibility request was erroneous. First, Kumar claims that, although an acceptance of responsibility departure is generally unavailable when a defendant engages in obstructive behavior, that exception does not apply to him because his obstructive behavior occurred pre-indictment and the exception only applies to post-indictment obstructive behavior. See, e.g., United States v. Gregory, 315 F.3d 637, 641 (6th Cir.2003) (granting acceptance points where [a]ll of [the defendant's] obstructive conduct predated [the] indictment); see also United States v. Teyer, 322 F.Supp.2d 359, 368 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) (Were courts to hold that any obstructive conduct, however early in the investigation ... of a case ... forever disentitled a defendant to credit for later acceptance of responsibility, this incentive would be ill served.). Second, Kumar argues that the district court placed too much reliance on the lateness of his plea in rejecting his request for an acceptance of responsibility reduction, which he argues is only a basis for denying him a third acceptance point, ... but [not] ... for denying the first two. Kumar Br. 44; see United States v. Sloley, 464 F.3d 355, 359 (2d Cir.2006) ([A] government motion is a necessary prerequisite to the additional one-level decrease [for a timely plea] under Guidelines § 3E1.1(b).); see also Kumar Br. 49 (noting that this Court has not directly addressed the relationship between the timeliness of a defendant's guilty plea and his receipt of acceptance credit). We need not resolve either of these alleged flaws in the district court's reasoning with respect to Kumar, however, because an examination of the record shows that he engaged in sufficient objectionable post-indictment conduct to justify a rejection of his request for acceptance of responsibility credit. Specifically, Kumar, individually and separately from Richards, acted in ways that the district court reasonably found to be inconsistent with a full acceptance of responsibility. For example, the district court found that Kumar's carefully worded plea allocution ... muted the gravity of his complicity in the securities fraud offenses.... When asked if he thought that [his fraudulent conduct] ... would have affected a prudent investor's decision to buy or sell his company's stock, his response was: `I could see the possibility where it could.' Kumar Sentencing Tr. 61:11-13, 17-21. Moreover, the district court found it particularly telling that Kumar objected to the PSR on various grounds related to evidence tampering and fraudulent transactions during his tenure at CA, but then withdrew those objections during the course of the Fatico hearing, implicitly acknowledging that his objections lacked merit. Indeed, notwithstanding Kumar's withdrawal of his objection, the district court expressly found at sentencing that there was clear[] and convincing[] evidence that at least one of Kumar's objections was meritless. Kumar Sentencing Tr. 61:9. See U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.1(a) ([A] defendant who falsely denies, or frivolously contests, relevant conduct that the court determines to be true has acted in a manner inconsistent with acceptance of responsibility.). Thus, Kumar's post-indictment conduct provided a reasonable basis for rejecting his request for an acceptance of responsibility reduction.