Opinion ID: 1248604
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Defendant's Objections to Sentence Enhancements

Text: Appellant raises two final objections to his sentence, neither of which have merit. First, Kilkenny maintains the district court erred in imposing a two-level enhancement for his supervision of a criminally responsible participant. Under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c), a two-level enhancement may be applied if the defendant was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in any criminal activity. We review the district court's finding that Kilkenny acted as the supervisor of a criminally responsible participant under the clearly erroneous standard. See United States v. Brinkworth, 68 F.3d 633, 641 (2d Cir.1995). Defendant declares there was no evidence his bookkeeper, Melanie Ramsey, was a criminally responsible participant. To the contrary, the uncontested evidence is that Ramsey, under Kilkenny's supervision and at his direction, prepared fraudulent tax forms and other documents that were used in the bank fraud scheme. Ramsey also assisted Kilkenny's bank fraud plan by writing a letter to a bank misrepresenting herself as the regional manager of a financial group and falsely stating that Kilkenny earned a monthly average of $115,000 in commissions. The deliberate deception entailed in drafting such a letter to a financial institution supports the trial court's finding that Ramsey was not an unwitting participant in Kilkenny's fraudulent activities. See Brinkworth, 68 F.3d at 641-42 (finding that an accountant who knowingly prepared fraudulent tax returns was a criminally responsible participant). Thus, the finding that appellant was the supervisor of a criminally responsible participant is not clearly erroneous. Kilkenny's final point is that the two-level enhancement he received for having derived more than $1 million dollars from a financial institution, U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(12)(A) (2002) (now codified at U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(13)(A)), constituted impermissible double-counting because the amount of loss had already been taken into account in determining the offense level under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(K). We have previously ruled that the cumulation of the dollar amount enhancement and the financial institution enhancement do not constitute impermissible double-counting because the two enhancements serve different purposes. See United States v. Lauersen, 348 F.3d 329, 343 (2d Cir.2003), vacated on other grounds by 543 U.S. 1097, 125 S.Ct. 1109, 160 L.Ed.2d 988 (2005); see also United States v. Campbell, 967 F.2d 20, 25 (2d Cir.1992) ([D]ouble counting is legitimate where a single act is relevant to two dimensions of the Guidelines analysis.). Although we noted in Lauersen that there is a substantial overlap between the two enhancements that might justify a downward departure in some circumstances, Lauersen, 348 F.3d at 344, any such departure would be discretionary. The district court was well within its discretion in finding that no downward departure was warranted here.