Opinion ID: 3023355
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Automobiles

Text: With regard to the three vehicles Russo converted, the District Court concluded that the total restitution to be paid was $18,025.12 Russo argues that the District Court erred in awarding the Marshal’s Service the price he received from the sale of the Corvette and Mercedes Benz 190E and estimating the value of the Mercedes Benz 300E he gave to Abate. Instead, Russo asserts that the District Court should have used only the fair market value for the vehicles in question at the time he acquired them to determine the amount of restitution.13 As was the case with the Waretown property, he argues sub silentio that he is entitled to any profit made on the sale of the cars. As we did with regard to the Waretown property, we will dispense with this argument by referring to the plain language of the statute. If the return of property is “impossible, impracticable, or inadequate,” a court shall order payment in the amount of the value of the property on the date of sentencing if that value is greater than the value of 12 This amount is the total resultant gain Russo received from selling the Corvette and the Mercedes Benz 190E, plus the estimated fair market value of the Mercedes Benz 300E given to Russo’s girlfriend. 13 Again, Russo argues that, because he allegedly added value to the vehicles by repairing them, he is entitled to the value of his investment. 14 the property on the date of the loss. See 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(b)(1)(B). This provision obviously envisions preventing the criminal from retaining any gains resulting from his criminal activity by forcing the disgorgement of any profits he may have retained from the sale of an ill-gotten asset. Because Russo sold the two vehicle to bona fide purchasers, it is not possible for him to return them to the Marshal’s Service. Thus, he is liable for the value of these vehicles at the time he acquired them, or the time of his sentence, whatever is greater. Russo sold the two cars for a total profit of $12,550, which is an acceptable measure of their value. See, e.g., United States v. Napier, 273 F.3d 276, 279-80 (3d Cir. 2001) (holding that it was not clearly erroneous for a district court to assign value to an asset based upon its actual sale price rather than an appraisal).14 With regard to the car given as a gift to Abate, the probation office estimated the value of the vehicle to be $7,575. Russo disputed this amount in his response to the Presentence Report, yet he took issue with that value only to the extent that “[c]ars at [Marshal’s Service] auctions were typically purchased below [their estimated value.]” This does not attack the reliability of the Marshal’s Service estimate, but rather the amount of loss incurred by the Service. There is no evidence countering the Marshal’s estimate of the fair market value of the vehicle, and consequently, it was not clear error for the District Court to rely upon that estimate when crafting the restitution order. 14 Thus, we cannot say it was erroneous for the District Court to discount testimony suggesting that the Marshal’s Service tries to obtain only a percentage (between 65%- 75%) of a vehicle’s appraised value at auction. See id. 15