Opinion ID: 1042115
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pattern of Abuse Enhancement

Text: Guideline § 2G2.2, which applies to defendants convicted of child pornography crimes pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2252, provides for a five-level enhancement in offense level “[i]f the defendant engaged in a pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(5). This Guideline attempts to assess both a defendant’s risk of recidivism and the potential harm to others that such recidivism could present. See United States v. Laraneta, 700 F.3d 983, 987 (7th Cir. 2012) (observing that, with respect to § 2G2.2(b)(5), defendant’s “[o]ther acts of sexual predation . . . have predictive significance with regard to the likelihood of recidivism, . . .[a] relevant consideration in deciding how long a defendant should be incapacitated (by being imprisoned) from committing further crimes”). The Probation Department initially recommended, and the government urged, that this five-level enhancement be applied to Reingold based on his admitted three sexual contacts with his half-sister. The district court disagreed, finding § 2G2.2(b)(5) inapplicable because Reingold was a minor when the first two contacts with his sister occurred. Further, it observed that the acts were attributable largely to a lack of “proper parental supervision,” and were so lacking in temporal proximity as to appear “aberrant.” May 16, 2011 Sentencing Tr. 15:24–16:1. These circumstances do not, in fact, make § 2G2.2(b)(5) inapplicable here. The “pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor” required to warrant a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement is specifically defined in the Guideline’s application notes to mean “any combination of two or more separate instances of the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor by the defendant, whether or not the abuse or exploitation (A) occurred during the course of the offense; (B) involved the same minor; or (C) resulted 35 in a conviction for such conduct.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 cmt. n.1. The same application note defines “sexual abuse or exploitation” to mean (A) conduct described in 18 U.S.C. § 2241, § 2242, § 2243, § 2251(a)–(c), § 2251(d)(1)(B), § 2251A, § 2260(b), § 2421, § 2422, or § 2423; (B) an offense under state law, that would have been an offense under any such section if the offense had occurred within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States; or (C) an attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the offenses under subdivisions (A) or (B). Id. The note also specifically excludes from the definition of “sexual abuse or exploitation” the “possession, accessing with intent to view, receipt, or trafficking in material relating to the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor.” Id. Read together, these definitions signal that § 2G2.2(b)(5) is narrow in one respect and expansive in another. The specifically referenced federal statutes cabin the conduct that qualifies as “sexual abuse or exploitation” for purposes of a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. At the same time, the expansive word “any” in the phrase “any combination of two or more separate instances of the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor by the defendant” signals that any conduct described within one of the specified statutes is properly considered in making a § 2G2.2(b)(5) assessment and that nothing more than two separate instances of such conduct is required to demonstrate the requisite pattern. Thus, the lack of temporal proximity in Reingold’s sexual contacts with his sister was not a permissible ground for refusing to apply a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. See generally United States v. Salim, 549 F.3d 67, 79 (2d Cir. 2008) (holding it legal error to impose additional requirement beyond plain language of Guideline). In so holding, we join our sister circuits, which have uniformly concluded that no temporal proximity among acts of sexual 36 abuse or exploitation is required to satisfy the pattern requirement of § 2G2.2(b)(5). See, e.g., United States v. Woodard, 694 F.3d 950, 953–54 (8th Cir. 2012); United States v. Clark, 685 F.3d 72, 79 (1st Cir. 2012); United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218, 1260 (11th Cir. 2012); United States v. Bacon, 646 F.3d 218, 221 (5th Cir. 2011); United States v. Olfano, 503 F.3d 240, 243 (3d Cir. 2007); United States v. Garner, 490 F.3d 739, 743 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v. Gawthrop, 310 F.3d 405, 414 (6th Cir. 2002); United States v. Lovaas, 241 F.3d 900, 904 (7th Cir. 2001). Nor can § 2G2.2(b)(5) and its application notes be construed to exclude conduct satisfying its definition of sexual abuse and exploitation from pattern consideration based on mitigating circumstances.17 As noted, the Guideline strictly limits the activities qualifying as sexual abuse and exploitation, but where conduct falls within that narrowly defined sphere, “any combination of two or more instances” of such abuse or exploitation—not any combination unexplained by mitigating circumstances—qualifies as a “pattern” warranting an enhancement. That mitigating circumstances are not relevant to a particular Guideline’s applicability does not, however, mean that a district court may not properly rely on such circumstances either in deciding where within the applicable Guidelines range to sentence a defendant or in deciding to sentence a defendant to a non-Guidelines sentence. 17 Even if inadequate parental supervision might somehow have contributed to Reingold’s first sexual contact with his sister, when the 15-year-old boy and his eight-yearold sister shared a bed on a family vacation, it is not apparent how it mitigates the second and third contacts absent a conclusion that no responsible parent would leave a teenage boy alone with his pre-pubescent sister, which hardly seems warranted. We need not pursue this essentially factual question further, however, in light of our legal conclusion that the language of § 2G2.2(b)(5) provides for any conduct satisfying its limited definition of sexual abuse and exploitation to be considered, with any two separate instances of such conduct satisfying the pattern requirement for an enhancement. 37 We further conclude that the district court erred in excluding from § 2G2.2(b)(5) consideration of Reingold’s first two sexual contacts with his half-sister on the ground that defendant was then himself a minor. This court has not previously had occasion to consider whether acts of sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor by a minor can support a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. We have however, considered that question in similar circumstances and held that they can. See United States v. Phillips, 431 F.3d 86, 90–93 (2d Cir. 2005). In Phillips, a defendant convicted of sexually exploiting a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and (b) argued that the “§ 4B1.5(b) enhancement for a pattern of prohibited sexual behavior does not apply to unadjudicated conduct perpetrated by an adolescent because neither the Guidelines nor the Application Notes explicitly say that it does.” Id. at 90. In rejecting this argument, we noted that one of the statutes defining conduct supporting the enhancement, 18 U.S.C. § 2243,18 does not “limit[] its coverage to violators over the age of eighteen,” thus making “sexual abuse of a minor by a minor . . . prohibited conduct constituting an offense under federal law.” Id. at 91. We further observed that, by contrast to other Guidelines, which condition enhancements on whether relevant offenses were adult 18 18 U.S.C. § 2243 makes it a felony for any person: in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison, . . . knowingly [to] engage[] in a sexual act with another person who– (1) has attained the age of 12 years but has not attained the age of 16 years; and (2) is at least four years younger than the person so engaging; or attempts to do so. . . . Id. § 2243(a). 38 convictions, § 4B1.5(b) contained no comparable language “placing constraints on the use of a conviction based on the defendant’s age.” Id. at 93; see U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.1, 4B1.1. Accordingly, we concluded that, under § 4B1.5(b), “the district court [was] permitted to take into account sexually exploitive conduct that occurred when the defendant was himself a juvenile.” United States v. Phillips, 431 F.3d at 93. The same reasoning applies to § 2G2.2(b)(5). Among the statutes whose conduct describes the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor relevant to this Guideline is 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c), which makes it a crime knowingly to engage “in a sexual act with another person who has not attained the age of 12” within the jurisdiction of the United States. Like § 2243, § 2241(c) does not limit its coverage to offenders over the age of 18. Nor does any language in § 2G2.2(b)(5) or its application notes require consideration of a defendant’s age at the time of past instances of sexual abuse or exploitation. In the absence of such language, and consistent with our decision in Phillips, we here conclude that sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor undertaken by a defendant who was a juvenile at the time of the incident is properly considered in applying the § 2G2.2(b)(5) pattern enhancement. The two of our sister circuits to have considered this question have reached the same conclusion. See United States v. Woodard, 694 F.3d at 953 [8th Cir.]; United States v. Olfano, 503 F.3d at 243 [3d Cir.]. We therefore conclude that the district court erred in relying on Reingold’s minority, lack of temporal proximity, and inadequate supervision as grounds not to consider his contacts with his sister as a basis for a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement in this case. In rejecting these grounds for decision, we do not, however, conclude that Reingold warrants a 39 § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. That depends on whether his sexual contacts with his sister qualify as “sexual abuse or exploitation,” a factual finding that the district court never made. As we have already observed, “sexual abuse or exploitation,” as used in § 2G2.2(b)(5), means only such conduct as is described in certain criminal statutes. The definition of a “sexual act” for purposes of § 2241(c), which appears to be the relevant statute here, derives from 18 U.S.C. § 2246(2)(D), which defines the phrase to mean, inter alia, “the intentional touching, not through the clothing, of the genitalia of another person who has not attained the age of 16 years with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” Of Reingold’s three sexual contacts with his sister, the last—when he was 18 and she was 11—appears plainly to qualify. Reingold admitted that on that occasion, he had his sister “manually stimulate his penis, while he rubbed her breasts and manually stimulated her vagina, both over and under her panties,” PSR ¶ 11, and “coached her on how to perform oral sex on him” and performed oral sex on her, id. ¶ 13. The siblings’ first encounter might also qualify in that Reingold admitted that on that first occasion, when he was 15 and his sister eight, he had her sister manually stimulate his penis while he touched the girl’s “privates, under her clothing.” Id. Less clear is whether the second encounter qualifies as a sexual act. On that occasion, when Reingold was 16 and his sister nine, he again had his sister manually stimulate his penis, but Reingold admitted rubbing her vagina only over her underpants. We leave it to the district court to resolve these open factual questions as to which of Reingold’s contacts involved “a sexual act.” 40 If, however, the facts show that on two or more occasions Reingold engaged his sister, a girl then younger than twelve, in sexual acts as defined by federal law, those two separate instances of sexual abuse or exploitation would warrant a five-level enhancement to his Guidelines offense level calculation pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(5).