Opinion ID: 169511
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: o ffense c onduct

Text: M r. Castorena first argues the district court erred in assessing the seriousness of the conduct underlying his guilty plea to conspiracy to launder monetary instruments because it “mistakenly conflated” that conduct with the uncontested facts set forth in the “Background Information” section of the PSR. Aplt’s Br. at 23. As evidence of this alleged error, M r. Castorena points out, among other things, that even though his offense conduct only involved -9- approximately $19,000 from the sale of one hundred or more counterfeit documents, the district court stated at sentencing that “[t]he breadth and scope of the criminal conduct in your case for which you are an organizer is simply breathtaking” because it involved “[m]illions of counterfeit identity documents [and] millions of dollars in benefit from these illicit gains.” Rec. vol. II, at 7 (emphasis added). W hile the language employed by the district court during sentencing was perhaps imprecise, we find M r. Castorena’s allegation of error far-fetched. First, the record indicates the court was w ell-aw are of the facts underlying M r. Castorena’s guilty plea. Indeed, the court read them aloud at the plea hearing, which occurred less than three months before the sentencing hearing. M oreover, just prior to making the allegedly erroneous statements, the district court explicitly referenced the paragraphs comprising the PSR’s “Background Information” section. See Rec. vol. II, at 7. Because this section is clearly setoff from the PSR’s recitation of the offense conduct, it is evident to us the court referred to the uncontested facts therein as uncharged, relevant conduct justifying M r. Castorena’s high-end Guidelines sentence. This is undisputedly proper. See United States v. Rodriguez-Felix, 450 F.3d 1117, 1131 (10th Cir. 2006) (“In the aftermath of Booker, we have routinely permitted a district court to enhance a defendant’s sentence using uncharged conduct proven to the court by a preponderance of the evidence.”). -10- Accordingly, we conclude there was no error and need not address the remaining disjunctive plain error elements.