Opinion ID: 202631
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Propriety of Pesaturo's Sentence

Text: 42 Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Pesaturo's sentence was linked to the amount of tax loss attributable to his crimes. See USSG § 2T1.1. At his sentencing, the judge calculated the tax loss based on the taxes due on 358,740 gallons of kerosene bought by Covenant but not sold to MDT for use in its off-road applications, 20 and the tax loss resulting from the false inflation of Covenant's cost of goods sold on its 1995 tax return, 21 resulting in a total tax loss of $108,878. 22 43 Pesaturo was sentenced in February 2004, before the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Although Pesaturo's challenge to his sentence is difficult to decipher, we understand that it reduces to two points: (1) that the jury had to find the amount of tax loss beyond a reasonable doubt and (2) that, even if a court could make the tax loss finding, the court's calculation of the tax loss was erroneous. 44 Pesaturo bases his first argument on Booker. However, Booker does not help him. The sentencing flaw at issue in Booker was not judicial factfinding per se, but the application of the sentencing guidelines as mandatory rather than advisory. United States v. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d 68, 79-80 (1st Cir.2005). To the extent we construe Pesaturo's argument as a challenge also based on the mandatory nature of the sentencing regime, we review for plain error because, despite his arguments to the contrary, Pesaturo failed to argue below that his sentence violated either Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), or Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). 45 Under the plain error standard, a defendant ordinarily must point to circumstances creating a reasonable probability that the district court would impose a different sentence more favorable to [him] under the new `advisory Guidelines' Booker regime. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 75. We further stated there that the use of judicial fact finding . . . ordinarily cannot alone meet [this] standard, id. at 80. Pesaturo's only other possible plain error argument is his claim that the court erred in calculating the tax loss. 46 On this point, Pesaturo argues that the judge erred because there was evidence at trial that at least some of the fuel sold to Korson, JAG and M & M Transport was used in off-road applications. The government points out, however, that because the amount of a tax loss is often uncertain, the Sentencing Guidelines contemplate that the court will simply make a reasonable estimate based on the available facts. See USSG § 2T1.1 cmt. n. 1 (2006); accord United States v. Hart, 324 F.3d 575, 578 (8th Cir.2003) (finding no clear error where the trial court accepted the government's calculation of defendant's personal income where defendant failed to keep financial records); United States v. Bishop, 291 F.3d 1100, 1114-15 (9th Cir.2002) (finding no error where the court based its sentence on the government's calculation of tax loss, which assumed married filing jointly rather than married filing separately tax status, used standard deductions rather than itemized deductions, and failed to deduct certain sums from defendant's income). Here, it was defendant's own lack of accurate record-keeping — he recorded no sales of kerosene although his records indicated that he purchased 662,105 gallons — that made the court's estimation necessary. 47 Even if we allowed that some of the kerosene was sold for purely off-road use, Pesaturo's sentence is unlikely to change. As the government points out, such non-taxable sales of pure kerosene would have had to account for upwards of 44% of Covenant's kerosene sales before his sentencing range would be affected. Since several witnesses testified that Covenant made no sales of pure kerosene and no witness testified to a single instance of such a sale, the judge's determination that Pesaturo should be sentenced based on the full amount of the tax owing on all of its unaccounted-for kerosene sales is not plainly erroneous.