Opinion ID: 714125
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Calculation of the Victims' Loss

Text: 104 Ross argues that the district court's calculation of the total loss for purposes of § 2F1.1 was improper. He offers no competing calculations, but instead reasserts arguments discussed above that the government's methodology for calculating loss was incorrect and that the information was improperly obtained through a criminal investigation rather than from a federal civil audit.As discussed earlier, Ross's argument concerning the federal audit has no merit. And it is not the role of this court to make a de novo determination of the proper calculation of loss. We review the district court's factual findings of loss only for clear error. United States v. Dillard, 43 F.3d 299, 309 (7th Cir.1994). Furthermore, Application Note 8 to § 2F1.1 instructs as follows: 105 [T]he loss need not be determined with precision. The court need only make a reasonable estimate of the loss, given the available information. This estimate, for example, may be based on the approximated number of victims and an estimate of the average loss to each victim, or on more general factors, such as the nature and duration of the fraud and the revenues generated by similar operations. The offender's gain from committing the fraud is an alternative estimate that ordinarily will underestimate the loss. 106 This language gives the district court great latitude in constructing the amount of loss from all available information, as does our deferential standard of review. Here, Special Agent Livengood offered testimony that the GSL refunds owed withdrawn ISC students totaled between $885,597 and $938,178, depending on the methodology of calculation. As to Pell Grant overdrafts, the DOE's final bill to ISC came to a figure of $552,049.52. Utilizing the DOE figure and the conservative end of Special Agent Livengood's calculation range, the district court estimated the total loss for sentencing purposes at approximately $1.4 million. On the basis of the evidence, we cannot find that the court committed clear error, or any error, in calculating the amount of loss.