Opinion ID: 1388566
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Marquez-Ramos's Sentencing Issue

Text: Marquez-Ramos next disputes a sentencing enhancement. The district court found Marquez-Ramos to be an organizer or a leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants. See U.S.S.G § 3B1.1(a). This increased his Guidelines range by four levels. Marquez-Ramos argues that he had no decision-making authority and recruited no accomplices. He also alleges that the government did not have evidence of the size of his share of the Organization. There was evidence, though, that Marquez-Ramos had major responsibilities on the financial side of the Organization, overseeing the disposition of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash at a time. There was testimony that he largely ran the Organization while Mario Marquez was in prison during much of the 1990s. Marquez-Ramos was in charge of the group arrested after leaving the El Paso stash house during the incident that led to the possession with intent to distribute conviction. Finally, there was testimony pointing to his role as an enforcer for the Organization. Given this testimony, and the emphasis in the Guideline application note on the exercise of decision making authority, nature of participation, degree of participation in planning or organizing the offense, nature and scope of the illegal activity, and degree of authority exercised over others, it was not clear error for the district court to have found that Marquez-Ramos met the criteria for the leadership enhancement. We affirm Marquez-Ramos's sentence.