Opinion ID: 780297
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Affecting a Financial Institution

Text: 15 U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1(b)(7)(B) provided for a 4-point enhancement if the offense affected a financial institution and the defendant derived more than $1,000,000 in gross receipts from the offense. 2 Wiant disputes that any financial institution was affected by his offense. The district court found that Fifth Third Bank paid unquantified legal fees in Austria in order to recover the funds improperly transferred by Wiant. 3 Based on this fact, the court applied the enhancement. 16 Wiant does not dispute that exposing a financial institution to substantial, quantifiable liability costs affects that financial institution. See United States v. Hartz, 296 F.3d 595, 600 (7th Cir.2002) (finding bank affected where defendant used the bank to commit the fraud and as a result, the bank was forced to pay $150,000 to ... extract itself from civil liability for its actions in inadvertently assisting [defendant's] scheme.); United States v. Bennett, 161 F.3d 171 (3d Cir.1998) (financial institution affected where it paid $18 million to settle a resulting lawsuit), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 819, 120 S.Ct. 61, 145 L.Ed.2d 53 (1999); United States v. Schinnell, 80 F.3d 1064 (5th Cir.1996) (financial institution affected where it is realistically exposed to substantial potential liability as a result of the defendant's conduct). 17 Wiant's argument is that, as a matter of law, there should be some threshold requirement for what it means to affect a financial institution for the purposes of § 2F1.1(b)(7)(B), and that in this case, Fifth Third Bank was so minimally affected that the application of a 4-point enhancement is inconsistent with the purpose of the guideline. This argument is without merit. To affect means to act upon; influence; change; enlarge or abridge; often used in the sense of acting injuriously upon persons or things. Black's Law Dictionary 57 (6th ed.1990). Nowhere does the term imply any de minimis limitation; on the contrary, the breadth of the definition indicates that the guideline is intended to encompass even minimal impacts. The seriousness of the 4-point enhancement, of course, reflects the other key limitation of this provision — that the defendant derive more than $1,000,000 in gross receipts from the offense. See United States v. Johnson, 130 F.3d 1352 (9th Cir.1997) (noting that the potential for broad applicability, however, exists only within a very narrow subset of circumstances: the defendant must have been convicted of an offense involving fraud or deceit and must have received more than $ 1,000,000 from that offense.). 4 18 The district court accepted that there was no clear evidence in the record indicating how much money Fifth Third Bank paid in attorney fees, apparently deciding that whatever the amount, the expenditure demonstrated that Wiant's offense affected a financial institution. In reviewing the district court's application of the guideline to the facts of this case, we apply a deferential standard of review. Buford v. United States, 532 U.S. 59, 121 S.Ct. 1276, 149 L.Ed.2d 197 (2001); United States v. Ennenga, 263 F.3d 499, 502 (6th Cir.2001). Giving due deference to the district court, there is no basis for reversing its determination that Wiant's offense affected Fifth Third Bank. We therefore affirm the application of this enhancement to Wiant's sentence.