Opinion ID: 765087
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Obstruction of Justice with Respect to the Instant Offense

Text: 14 The instant offense in this case is the offense to which McKay pleaded guilty -- money laundering. For purpose of analysis, it may be helpful to note that conceptually a defendant's lie regarding criminal conduct other than the instant offense can be viewed in different ways when the lie is made to a probation officer preparing a PSR on the instant offense. Depending on its content and the context in which it is made, such a lie can be regarded as an attempt by the defendant to affect (1) the sentence on the instant offense, or (2) the prosecution and investigation of the criminal activity that is described in the lie or, (3) possibly both. In this case, it is clear that the district judge viewed McKay's lies as falling within category (1). The court reasoned that McKay's false statements to Probation Officer Ball minimizing his role in the marijuana distribution were materially false because, pursuant to Application Note 5, they would tend to . . . affect the issue under determination (McKay's sentence for the instant offense of money laundering) if believed. The court further reasoned that because the statements were willful and made during the sentencing investigation of the instant offense, § 3C1.1 applied. 15 The court's determination that McKay willfully provided false information to a probation officer was clearly justified. It is equally clear that McKay's lies were material. McKay claimed that his role in the organization was limited when in fact he ran it. Whether McKay was laundering drug money as a peripheral participant in a narcotics ring or as the leader of that ring was a highly relevant sentencing inquiry for the district court. Whether McKay benefitted principally or only in small part from the money laundering was equally relevant. Indeed, the original PSR recommended a two-level reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2 for McKay's claimed minor role in the money laundering. That recommendation was dropped in the revised PSR prepared after McKay's lies came to light, and the district court agreed. 16 The court's § 3C1.1 enhancement is supported by our decision in United States v. Rodriguez, 943 F.2d 215 (2d Cir. 1991). In that case, we held that a defendant's false statement to his probation officer that he had no prior record, when in fact he had been arrested and convicted six times previously, id. at 217, constituted obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1. The statement was made willfully during the sentencing phase of the instant offense in that case, and was material because [t]he presence or lack of a criminal history would affect the [defendant's] sentence. Id. Accordingly, the enhancement was proper. See id. Here, McKay's statements were made willfully during the sentencing phase of the instant offense of money laundering and were material because, as the district court noted, the extent of McKay's role in the distribution organization would have affected his sentence for laundering the proceeds of that organization. Thus, an enhancement was warranted in this case as well. 17 Also relevant is our recent opinion in Cassiliano. There, defendant Cassiliano agreed in December 1992 to cooperate with the government's investigation of a fuel tax evasion scheme; as part of the agreement, Cassiliano was to plead guilty to wire fraud. See Cassiliano, 137 F.3d at 744. While the broad investigation was ongoing, she alerted one of the government's principal targets (Hercules) that he too was under investigation. See id. at 744, 746. Hercules knew of Cassiliano's wire fraud and was a possible source of evidence against her. See id. at 746. After Cassiliano pleaded guilty to wire fraud several years later, the district court held that her warning to Hercules constituted obstruction of justice and enhanced Cassiliano's sentence under § 3C1.1. We affirmed, holding that because her conduct was willful, occurred during the government's further investigation of her own wire fraud offense as well as that of Hercules, and could have impeded the investigation of her offense, the enhancement was warranted. 18 McKay's principal argument on appeal appears to be that willfully false statements made by a defendant to a probation officer during the sentencing phase of the defendant's instant offense, which would have affected the sentence for that offense if believed, cannot as a matter of law trigger a § 3C1.1 enhancement if the lies concern conduct other than the instant offense. 19 McKay relies heavily on our decision in United States v. Perdomo, 927 F.2d 111 (2d Cir. 1991). In that case, defendant Perdomo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a), (b) and 846 arising out of a drug transaction that occurred in July 1988 (the July conspiracy). See id. at 113. The subsequent PSR listed, among other things, five instances of obstruction of justice by Perdomo and recommended a § 3C1.1 enhancement in his sentence for the instant offense (the July conspiracy). See id. at 117 n.3. The district court followed that recommendation. On appeal, we vacated the sentence and remanded the case. See id. at 118. As to three of the five listed obstructions of justice, we held that willfulness had not been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. As to the other two instances, we held, with little discussion, that they did not justify a § 3C1.1 enhancement because they involved conduct beyond the charged offense. Id. at 117. Both instances related to a cocaine conspiracy that occurred in March 1988 (the March conspiracy), wholly separate from and four months prior to the July conspiracy that constituted the instant offense. See id. at 113. In one (instance (1)), Perdomo had attempted to dispose of the cocaine involved in the March conspiracy before law enforcement agents arrived at the scene. In the other (instance (2)), he told a probation officer that he had called the potential customer of the March conspiracy only a few times, and only to ask for his assistance in bringing Perdomo's wife to the United States or Canada, when he had in fact called the potential customer many times and for the purpose of drug trafficking. See id. at 117 n.3. McKay stresses that in Perdomo we held that these two alleged instances of obstruction of justice could not trigger a § 3C1.1 enhancement because they concerned an offense (the March conspiracy) other than the instant offense in that case (the July conspiracy). Therefore, McKay's argument apparently goes, his own lies to a probation officer about conduct beyond the charged offense of money laundering cannot justify a § 3C1.1 enhancement. We disagree. 20 First, the specific issue now before us -- materially false statements made by a defendant to a probation officer during the sentencing phase of the instant offense in an attempt to affect the sentence for that offense -- was not the focus of the court's attention in Perdomo. Instance (1) was not an attempt by Perdomo to influence his sentence on the July conspiracy. Instance (2) probably was, but when Perdomo was argued in September 1990, the plain language of § 3C1.1 applied only to obstructions of the investigation or prosecution of the instant offense, not to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense. (emphasis supplied). 2 Understandably, the government did not argue in its brief in Perdomo that even though Perdomo's materially false statements to the probation officer in instance (2) concerned conduct other than the instant offense, they were an attempt to affect Perdomo's sentence for the instant offense, would have affected the sentence if believed, and thus constituted obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1. Instead, the government argued that the March events and the July events were all part of the same ongoing conspiracy so that Perdomo's conduct and lies relating to the March events did not, as Perdomo claimed, relate only to conduct outside of the offense of conviction and therefore could justify a § 3C1.1 enhancement. This argument, however, was unpersuasive given that the indictment in Perdomo listed only the July events as Perdomo's instant offense, and the court in Perdomo rejected it. Unlike the situation here, the court in Perdomo was simply not asked to consider -- and apparently did not -- whether Perdomo's lies about conduct other than his instant offense, were an attempt to obstruct the sentencing of his instant offense. 3 In this case, however, the government did argue -- and the district court so ruled -- that McKay's lies about his role in the drug distribution scheme were obviously an attempt to obstruct justice in his sentencing for the instant offense (money laundering). Thus viewed, McKay obstructed justice under the language of § 3C1.1. 21 Second, decisions of this court after Perdomo indicate that it does not justify reversal of the district court here. Rodriguez, which was decided about six months after Perdomo, is flatly contrary to McKay's argument. In Rodriguez, defendant's lies were about conduct other than the instant offense but nevertheless justified a § 3C1.1 enhancement. See 943 F.2d at 217. Cassiliano, also decided after Perdomo, is instructive as well, although the obstruction of justice there was not a lie about prior criminal conduct that could have affected a sentence, but a warning to a co-conspirator that could have impeded an investigation. Cassiliano's argument on appeal was that alerting Hercules that he was a target is not within the scope of § 3C1.1 because Hercules's wire fraud offense could not be deemed the `instant offense', i.e., Cassiliano's wire fraud. Cassiliano, 137 F.3d at 745-46. We held in Cassiliano that even though her obstructive conduct involved an offense other than the instant offense (her own wire fraud), it nevertheless had, under the facts of her case, the potential for impeding the investigation not only of Hercules's offense but of her own as well. Id. at 746. 4 Similarly, even though McKay's lies to the probation officer about the marijuana distribution scheme were about an offense other than the instant offense (money laundering), the lies had the potential to impede -- and indeed, would have, if believed, impeded -- the imposition of an appropriate sentence on McKay for the instant offense. 22 In sum, based upon our own precedents and the language of § 3C1.1, the district court here justifiably imposed the § 3C1.1 enhancement on McKay because his lies were an attempt to obstruct the sentencing phase of his instant offense.