Opinion ID: 4531772
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lacerda’s Sentence Was Procedurally Sound

Text: and Substantively Reasonable The District Court sentenced Lacerda to 324 months’ imprisonment for his leading role in VOG’s fraudulent enterprise. On appeal, Lacerda challenges his sentence as procedurally unsound and substantively unreasonable. Our standard of review on sentencing challenges is bifurcated. We “must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error …. Assuming that the district court’s sentencing decision is procedurally sound, the appellate court should then consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse-of-discretion standard.” 4 Though the Rule was broadly expanded in 2014 to allow for the use of prior consistent statements to rehabilitate the witness against other forms of impeachment, see Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(B)(ii) (2014), the former rule, with its limitation, applied in Lacerda’s case. 18 Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Applying these standards, we will affirm the District Court’s sentence. 1. The District Court’s sentence was procedurally sound Lacerda argues that the District Court imposed a procedurally unreasonable sentence because, he alleges, it was based on a miscalculation of the number of victims of the VOG scheme and the total financial loss suffered by those victims. The government bears the initial burden of proving loss by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Ali, 508 F.3d 136, 145 (3d Cir. 2007). The district court must then calculate the amount of loss associated with the crime of conviction and any relevant conduct that was “part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan.” United States v. Siddons, 660 F.3d 699, 704 (3d Cir. 2011) (quotation omitted). While this does not have to be an exact figure, it must be a reasonable estimate. Ali, 508 F.3d at 145. Lacerda first asserts that only those victims who testified during trial or whose victimization underlay a specific count of the indictment should have been counted as victims, claiming that including any other victims in the presentence investigative report (“PSR”) was based on “rank hearsay.” Appellant Lacerda’s Br. 62–64. Of course, a district court may rely on hearsay statements during sentencing, if “they bear some minimal indicium of reliability beyond mere allegation.” United States v. Smith, 751 F.3d 107, 116 (3d Cir. 2014) (internal quotations and citation omitted). Victim statements are reliable when they “involve[ ] matters within the knowledge of each declarant and were made in the course of interviews by one or more law enforcement officials.” Id. In this case, for each victim identified in the PSR, the government submitted the following: (1) a declaration of victim losses, completed by the victims, executed under penalty of perjury, and submitted to the Probation Office; (2) an FD-302 summarizing an officer’s interview with the victim; and 19 (3) a canceled check verifying the amount the victim paid to VOG. That is more than mere allegation and enough under Smith to show reliability. The District Court’s calculation of victims was therefore reasonable. Lacerda next argues that the District Court’s calculation of loss was erroneous because it failed to offset the victims’ losses with credits for new timeshares and cancellation of prior debts. This argument is unavailing. The supposed cancellation of debt was one of the bases for the fraud charges. Cancellation was not achieved through VOG’s efforts, but through the victims’ credit-destroying defaults with the timeshare companies after those victims stopped paying their bills— relying on VOG’s misrepresentations that their timeshare debts had been paid off. And the VOG victims were trying to get rid of their timeshares, not acquire new timeshares. Neither of these were “services” rendered by VOG; they were part of the fraudulent scheme. Perpetrators of fraudulent schemes are not entitled to credits against loss for payments made to perpetuate their schemes. See United States v. Hartstein, 500 F.3d 790, 800 (8th Cir. 2007) (“[W]hen a defendant’s only subjective intent regarding repayments relates to this illegal purpose of perpetuating the scheme, a sentencing court may refuse to credit repayments against sums received from the victims.”); United States v. Whatley, 133 F.3d 601, 606 (8th Cir. 1998) (“[W]e are not inclined to allow the defendants a profit for defrauding people or a credit for money spent perpetuating a fraud.”); United States v. Blitz, 151 F.3d 1002, 1012 (9th Cir. 1998) (same). 2. The District Court’s sentence was substantively reasonable We will not reverse a sentence as substantively unreasonable “unless no reasonable sentencing court would have imposed the same sentence on that particular defendant for the reasons the district court provided.” United States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 568 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc). Lacerda’s Guidelines range was calculated between 324 and 405 months. As demonstrated above, Lacerda has shown no error in that calculation. The District Court’s sentence of 324 months rests 20 at the very bottom of the range. When “the sentence is within the Guidelines range, the appellate court may, but is not required to, apply a presumption of reasonableness.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. We will apply the presumption here. Lacerda presents a table of cases showing a range of sentences for other fraud cases and argues that his sentence, though at the bottom of his Guidelines range, is still “23 times greater than the median sentence for his type of offense.” Appellant Lacerda’s Br. 67–71. When a defendant seeks to argue disparate sentencing, he bears the “burden of demonstrating similarity by showing that other defendants’ circumstances exactly paralleled his, and a court should not consider sentences imposed on defendants in other cases in the absence of such a showing by a party.” United States v. Iglesias, 535 F.3d 150, 161 n.7 (3d Cir. 2008) (citing United States v. Vargas, 477 F.3d 94, 100 (3d Cir. 2007)) (internal brackets and quotations omitted). Lacerda has failed to demonstrate that any of the other defendants’ circumstances exactly paralleled his. So, “[a]ccording great deference” to the District Court—as the law requires, United States v. Lessner, 498 F.3d 185, 204 (3d Cir. 2007)—we hold that Lacerda has failed to overcome the presumption that his sentence was reasonable.