Opinion ID: 1461844
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: What is the Proper Net Benefit Calculation?

Text: We have made our preliminary determination: Eola Road and Grand Pointe Homes are to be included in the benefit calculus; Misty Creek is out. We must now calculate the benefit Anderson derived from these two properties. Because more than 90% of the district court's net benefit figure reflects benefits derived from relevant conduct, we will scrutinize the numbers more closely. See Schaefer, 291 F.3d at 939. The intended benefit from the Eola Road bribe is clear: It is the market value of the land Anderson saved from the set-aside. Anderson argued that, because the property was eventually developed with a 9.45% set-aside, the intended benefit was 9.45% of the value of his share of the property. Anderson placed this value at $41,181 and the district court agreed. Anderson, however, made a simple mathematical mistake. Even if we accept Anderson's methodology, the net benefit figure is at least $82,362, or twice the amount he claims. Anderson owned an undivided half-interest in Eola Road and his share of the property sold for $871,564. This figure should have been multiplied by 0.0945 but, instead, Anderson suggested that it be multiplied by 0.04725 to reflect his half-interest in the property. Sentencing H'rg Tr.167. Dividing the set-aside percentage in half was the equivalent of discounting Anderson's ownership interest twice. The net benefit from Eola Road should have been at least $82,362. In the end, however, Eola Road accounted for only a small fraction of the total benefit calculation. The vast majority of the calculated benefit figure was composed of profits that Anderson made from Grand Pointe Homes. The Government estimated that Anderson had earned nearly $1.1 million from Aurora LLC, the company created by Anderson and Pelock to develop Grand Pointe Homes and Misty Creek. [2] We have concluded, however, that Misty Creek should be excluded from the calculus. This creates a serious dilemma because neither the Government nor Anderson submitted any evidence establishing the amount of profit that Misty Creek generated in contrast to Grand Pointe Homes. Apparently, in a crude effort to separate the profit on one project from the profit on the other, the district court said that it would discount[] some aspects of Misty Creek. Sentencing H'rg Tr. 164-165. But there has been no reasonable basis presented for calculating the value of Misty Creek on the basis of a discount. One might assume that the profits contributed by Grand Pointe Homes and Misty Creek were roughly equal but Misty Creek may have been more profitable than Grand Pointe Homes. Grand Pointe Homes may even have lost money. On this record, we do not know. See Sapoznik, 161 F.3d at 1119 ([T]here is nothing in the record to fill the void in our knowledge.). This is a rare occasion in which the district court's calculation is outside the realm of permissible calculations. Peterson-Knox, 471 F.3d at 822; accord Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 597-98; United States v. Rodriguez-Alvarez, 425 F.3d 1041, 1045-46 (7th Cir.2005); United States v. Skoczen, 405 F.3d 537, 549 (7th Cir.2005). So we cannot determine a benefit attributable to Grand Pointe Homes and the total determinable benefit is limited to Eola Road.