Opinion ID: 195454
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Questions of Fact.

Text: 35 Appellant's fallback position is that, even if the district court applied the proper legal rules in determining relevant conduct, its findings of fact were clearly erroneous. The facts of the case, taken without embellishment, expose the fallacy in appellant's position. 36 To be sure, LaCroix was neither the progenitor nor the moving spirit of the conspiracy, but he helped to found it, retained a proprietary interest in it, and played an integral part in its operation. Moreover, he served as the titular head of the firm that oversaw the construction, marketing, financing, and sale of every home. The record supports--indeed, virtually compels--an inference that appellant understood from the inception that the object of the conspiracy was to sell homes by hook or by crook. Taking the district court's explicit findings, and fleshing them out with details derived from the record, we understand the court to have concluded that appellant knew all along the sums involved in each transaction and the conspiracy's method of operation--selling houses to unqualified buyers by providing, and then fraudulently concealing, secondary financing. Because any reasonable person in appellant's position, at the time of his agreement, would have recognized that ninety or more homes might be sold in this corrupt fashion, the court below did not err in concluding that all the losses resulting from the sales were fairly attributable to LaCroix. 8 37 Appellant cannot deny this analysis in any of its particulars, and, in fairness, does not really try to do so. Instead, he seeks to escape the force of the district court's reasoning by introducing three extraneous considerations. At bottom, this endeavor reflects a basic misunderstanding of sentencing principles. 38 First, appellant insists that a finding of foreseeability is undermined by the jury verdict. We do not agree. The jury did not exonerate appellant in connection with the substantive offense counts; rather, it simply deadlocked on these counts. Its verdict, therefore, did not resolve the contested issues either way, but left them up in the air. 39 Moreover, the method of the guidelines is to leave to the sentencing judge, not the jury, the determination of what conduct is relevant to the fashioning of a defendant's sentence. See United States v. Limberopoulos, 26 F.3d 245, 251-52 (1st Cir.1994); see also U.S.S.G. Sec. 6A1.3. Thus, even a trial jury's refusal to find that a certain fact has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt will not bar the district court from making precisely that same finding at sentencing, under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. On this basis, we have held squarely that a defendant's acquittal on a particular count does not limit the sentencing court's flexibility in considering the same underlying facts in respect to the count of conviction. See United States v. Mocciola, 891 F.2d 13, 16 (1st Cir.1989). A fortiori, the case for permitting judges free rein to make whatever findings the record can support is airtight where, as here, trial on the disputed counts ends with a hung jury rather than an acquittal. 40 Second, appellant presents himself as a babe in the woods, an uneducated carpenter in the company of sophisticated entrepreneurs. For what this jeremiad may be worth insofar as it bears upon accomplice attribution, it was tendered to, and rejected by, the district judge. 9 We discern no clear error. See, e.g., United States v. Ruiz, 905 F.2d 499, 508 (1st Cir.1990) (acknowledging that where there is more than one plausible view of the circumstances, the sentencing court's choice among supportable alternatives cannot be clearly erroneous). 41 Third, and relatedly, appellant harps on the fact that Zsofka and Horn called the tune, to which he merely danced. But the concepts of relevant conduct and role are distinct in the world of the sentencing guidelines. See United States v. Lilly, 13 F.3d 15, 18-19 (1st Cir.1994). Whereas the former helps to gauge the gravity of an offense, the latter helps to measure the offender's culpability. See id. Hence, the district court's attribution of the entire loss to appellant is not in any way inconsistent with the fact that he may have played only a supporting role. 10 42 We need go no further. The short of it is that none of the factors upon which appellant dwells cast doubt upon the district court's ascertainment of the amount of loss attributable to appellant in connection with the jointly undertaken criminal activity. Consequently, we cannot say that the lower court erred in constructing the sentencing calculus. 43 Affirmed.