Opinion ID: 800874
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Love's Appeal

Text: We begin with Love's case. In order to calculate his sentencing guidelines, Love was found to be associated with the fraudulent transactions for 18 different real estate properties, and thus he was held responsible for a total loss of more than $7.1 million. The sentencing judge also found that the loss affected more than ten victimsnamely, the financial institutions swindled by the fraudulent loan transactions. As a consequence, the court imposed the two-level sentencing enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(i), for offenses with more than ten victims. Love's final total offense level was 33, which corresponded to an applicable sentencing guidelines range of 135 to 168 months. After discussing the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors, the district court ruled that there were mitigating factors in Love's case and that the suggested guidelines range was not fair. Consequently, the court imposed a sentence of 66 months. Love appeals his sentence on the ground that the district court erroneously applied the two-level enhancement for an offense with more than ten victimsLove argues that there were only seven victims associated with his offense. Love contends that this error was not harmless, even though he received a below-guidelines sentence, because there is no indication that the district court would have imposed the sentence had it calculated the guidelines correctly without the two-level enhancement. Therefore, Love argues, the error should be corrected and his case should be remanded for resentencing. Love also notes that the judgment makes his restitution of approximately $7.1 million payable to Peoples Choice Home Loan, but that this is incorrectinstead, the judgment should be corrected, with the appropriate portion of the restitution designated to each of the seven victim lenders. We review the procedures followed by the district court in sentencing de novo. United States v. Glosser, 623 F.3d 413, 418 (7th Cir.2010). In this case, the government agrees with Love's argument on appeal and concedes that there was an error in calculating the number of victimsthere were only seven victims associated with Love's offense, not more than ten. Thus, Love's final total offense level should have been 31, not 33, for a sentencing guidelines range of 108 to 135 months, instead of 135 to 168 months. Even though Love received a sentence that was significantly below the guidelines range, the range on which his sentence was based was erroneously calculated. Such an error is not harmless because it is impossible to know whether the district court would have imposed the same sentence had it not committed this procedural error. See Glosser, 623 F.3d at 419-20. We therefore vacate Love's sentence and remand for resentencing using the correct guidelines range. Additionally, the judgment should be corrected with the appropriate amount of restitution properly designated to the seven victim lending institutions.