Opinion ID: 795604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The District Court's Imposition of the Vulnerable Victim Enhancement Was Error

Text: 48 Both defendants challenge the District Court's imposition of a two-level enhancement at sentencing pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b) 15 on the basis of a finding that the defrauded Roberta Project investors were vulnerable victims. As we have observed on numerous occasions, we review a district court's findings of fact for clear error, and accord deference to its application of the Guidelines to the facts. See, e.g., United States v. McCall, 174 F.3d 47, 49 (2d Cir.1998) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e) and United States v. Borst, 62 F.3d 43, 46 (2d Cir.1995)). When deciding whether a victim was vulnerable for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1 (b), a sentencing judge should focus not on the likelihood or extent of harm to the individual if the crime is successful, but on the extent of the individual's ability to protect himself from the crime. United States v. O'Neil, 118 F.3d 65, 75 (2d Cir.1997). The Guidelines application notes state that a vulnerable victim is one who is unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or mental condition, or who is otherwise particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (Guidelines Manual) § 3A1.1 cmt. 2 (2005). 49 The District Court explained its imposition of the vulnerable victim enhancement as follows: 50 There is a very strong nexus here between the scheme and the vulnerability of the victims. This scheme was imbued with religious elements. It asked participants to have faith, to accept what they were told, to not ask questions, to pray for the success of the project, and to plan on doing good works with the payout that they receive. 51 It was described as a plan in which there would be a redistribution of wealth from the wicked to God's people. The scheme as we saw at trial rejected those who asked too many questions and who wouldn't believe and wouldn't be patient. They used a variety of methods to weed out people who would challenge ultimately or who wouldn't accept the scheme as it was designed. 52 The defendants singled out their vulnerable victims from a larger class of potential victims. This was not a mass mailing or some mass marketing scheme. The defendants instead worked within communities of people with evangelical beliefs targeting a few and through an incentive program seeking more like-minded people. . . . [I]f you happen to refer another person . . ., you would in addition receive [payment] for that person's investment and therefore a chain of people grew and grew within these evangelical communities. 53 Once they got somebody to be a contributor, they kept coming back to that person with new explanations with an urgent new need for money. So they kept tapping into the same source of victims over and over again with repeated requests. The fact that some of those who chose to contribute their money can't really be described as people of faith or as evangelicals, I don't think ultimately affects this analysis. 54 The defendants are the first to admit that this was a scheme or a project imbued with religious elements. The fact that some people were tempted to join simply because of a promise of extraordinary wealth doesn't, I think, affect the analysis that I have made here. 55 Sentencing Hr'g Tr., April 22, 2005, at 9-10. 56 While we recognize that a fraud grounded in religious themes may pose an especially effective threat, see, e.g., Whitfield v. United States, 543 U.S. 209, 211, 125 S.Ct. 687, 160 L.Ed.2d 611 (2005) (bilking by Greater Ministries International Church of more than $400 million), membership in religious groups cannot, standing alone, make victims vulnerable for purposes of the enhancement, even where a fraud involves reliance on religious themes or imagery, see United States v. Crispo, 306 F.3d 71, 84 (2d Cir.2002) (Because the inquiry explores individual attributes, broad generalizations about victims based on their membership in a class are discouraged.). After reviewing the record on appeal, we are not convinced that the religious affiliation of certain victims in this case justifies a vulnerable victims enhancement. 57 We have no reason to believe that evangelical Christians as a class are unusually susceptible to fraud. 16 The application notes reiterate that the vulnerable victims enhancement is improper except in cases where defendants should have known of their victims' unusual vulnerability, such as in a fraud case in which the defendant marketed an ineffective cancer cure or in a robbery in which the defendant selected a handicapped victim. Guidelines Manual § 3A1.1 cmt. 2. In contrast, a bank teller is not an unusually vulnerable victim simply by virtue of a teller's position at a bank. Id. 58 Absent findings by the District Court that any specific victim was especially gullible because of his religion, we cannot conclude that evangelical Christian victims were susceptible to fraudulent schemes involving religious imagery in a manner analogous to how desperate cancer patients might be susceptible to con artists selling placebos. 17 59 Much of the District Court's justification for the enhancement, aside from the victims' religion, essentially concerned their gullibility. Schemes such as the Roberta Project, however, inevitably attract the gullible. In addition, the rejection by defendants of potential investors who appeared likely to cause trouble and to ask questions does not indicate that the plan focused unusually intently upon the weakest victims. It appears, instead, to have been the sort of strategic decision that is essential to keeping nearly any fraudulent scheme in operation—and accordingly is not a basis for finding defendants' victims to have been unusually vulnerable. The enhancement exists to increase the punishment imposed on those criminals victimizing those who are in need of greater societal protection, such as those who, when targeted by a defendant, render the defendant's conduct more criminally depraved. United States v. Stover, 93 F.3d 1379, 1387 (8th Cir.1996) (quoting United States v. Castellanos, 81 F.3d 108, 111 (9th Cir.1996) (emphasis omitted)). From the record before us, we cannot conclude that the victims in this case were such persons. 60 Accordingly, we vacate the sentences of both defendants and remand to the District Court for resentencing, so that it can decide whether to reimpose the vulnerable victims enhancements after making new findings or to resentence defendants after calculating the appropriate Guideline ranges without the enhancement. 18 It may be that on remand the District Court can adequately explain why the victims in this case—or some subset of them—were especially vulnerable. The evidence may indicate, for example, that the repeated targeting of certain victims is analogous to that which helped to justify the vulnerable victims enhancement in O'Neil. See 118 F.3d at 75-76 ([A]n important part of the scheme was the re-loading process, whereby individuals who already had been victimized by the scheme were contacted up to two more times and defrauded into sending more money to the companies.). We caution, however, that a criminal successfully asking a fraud victim for additional money does not itself demonstrate that the victim is especially vulnerable.