Opinion ID: 800685
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Accompaniment

Text: The abduction enhancement requires that the robbery victims accompany the offender to a new location. § 1B1.1, comment. (n.1(a)). Reynos argues that no evidence exists in the record to suggest that the pizza shop employees accompanied him to the cash register. At oral argument, the Government conceded that the record merely points to evidence that the pizza shop employees walked with Reynos from the bathroom to the cash register area. But, the Government argues, when looking at the facts in their totality, it was not erroneous for the District Court to find that the victims accompanied Reynos to the cash register, a factual determination that we review for clear error. See United States v. Givan, 320 F.3d 452, 459 (3d Cir.2003). Here, the facts reveal that, after kicking-in the bathroom door, Reynos demanded that the victims open the cash register for him or he would start shooting. At this point, all three employees and Reynos were together at the bathroom. The next event in the timeline finds pizza shop employee Gutierrez with Reynos at the cash register. We know they are there because, as Reynos is taking the money from the cash drawer, he asks Gutierrez if there is any other cash in the shop. Reynos also physically searches Gutierrez at this point, an action Reynos could not have undertaken had Gutierrez not accompanied him to the cash drawer. When Reynos eventually retreated to the back of the shop, the employees fled out the front of the store. From these uncontested facts, we can easily surmise that the employees and Reynos were together at the cash register whereas before they were together at the bathroom. It defies common sense to argue that the employees did not accompany Reynos from the bathroom to the cash register. We therefore have little trouble concluding from this record that the victims accompanied Reynos from the bathroom to the cash register. Furthermore, the record conclusively establishes that Reynos forced the victims to accompany him to facilitate the robbery of the cash register. See, e.g., United States v. Hawkins, 87 F.3d 722, 728 (5th Cir. 1996) (accompaniment made in connection with a getaway). The record clearly indicates that Reynos ordered the victims to accompany him to the cash register and that at least one victim, Gutierrez, opened the register for Reynos. Reynos had no reason to come into contact with the victims, other than to force them to join him. Presumably, he could have committed his robbery offense alone, leaving the pizza shop employees locked in the bathroom. Because Reynos used force to move the victims from the bathroom to the cash register and because the victims accompanied him there, the abduction enhancement was properly applied, unless the relocation from the bathroom area to the cash register site was not a change in location.