Opinion ID: 185165
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Eddie Mathis

Text: 19 Eddie Mathis also challenges the district court's application of section 2D1.1(b)(1) of the Guidelines providing a two-level increase [i]f a dangerous weapon (including a firearm) was possessed during a drug offense. The weapon need not be used, but merely present, unless it is clearly improbable that the weapon was connected with the offense. U.S.S.G. 2D1.1, Application Note 3; see United States v. Burke, 888 F.2d 862, 869 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (section 2D1.1(b)(1) does not require that defendant used or would have used the firearm). Within one hour of arresting Eddie and Walter Mathis during the November 5 reverse sting, DEA agents arrested Smith carrying ammunition and discovered his loaded handgun in the glove compartment of the Geo he had driven from the crime scene. Furthermore, it was foreseeable to Eddie Mathis that his coconspirator Smith would be carrying a firearm in view of the fact that Eddie and Walter Mathis were purchasing five kilograms of cocaine for $75,000 from a stranger. See Childress, 58 F.3d at 725 (coconspirator's possession of handgun reasonably foreseeable when conspirators handled a substantial quantity of drugs and money). Because the district court's finding that Smith possessed the firearm at the shopping mall where the reverse sting took place, see Sentencing Tr. 1/6/99 at 37-38, is supported by a preponderance of the evidence and because Smith's possession was reasonably foreseeable, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err in applying section 2D1.1(b)(2)'s two-level increase to Eddie Mathis's sentence calculation.