Opinion ID: 170931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Amount of Loss & Amount of Restitution

Text: Section 2Bl.1 provides a schedule of offense level enhancements for certain crimes, including bank fraud, that inflict pecuniary loss on victims. Under § 2B1.1, loss is the greater of actual loss or intended loss. U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n. 3(A). Whereas actual loss refers to the reasonable foreseeable pecuniary harm that resulted from the offense, intended loss (I) means the pecuniary harm that was intended to result from the offense; and (II) includes intended pecuniary harm that would have been impossible or unlikely to occur. Id. cmt. n. 3(A)(i)-(ii). Relying on the presentence reports and evidence offered by the government at sentencing, the district court found the amount of intended loss resulting from Ms. Jones and Mr. Wright's scheme to be $201,656.41. Accordingly, per § 2B1.1(b)(1)(G), the court enhanced each defendant's offense level by twelve because the amount of loss was between $200,000 and $400,000. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, the court ordered joint and several restitution among Ms. Jones, Mr. Wright, and several co-defendants in the amount of $115,282.40. On appeal, Ms. Jones and Mr. Wright's sole argument is that the district court erred in including government trial exhibits 15-17, 19, 20, 60, 61, 63, 64, 74, and 79 (referred to as such at sentencing), in its calculations of loss and restitution. They maintain that these checks did not have a sufficient nexus to their bank fraud conspiracy to be added to the amount of loss at sentencing. In their view, by considering these checks, the district court overcalculated the amount of loss (and restitution) by $17,614.34 and wrongly applied a 12-level enhancement instead of a 10-level one. See § 2B1.1(b)(1)(F) (establishing 10-level enhancement where amount of loss is between $120,000 and $200,000). Because both arguments challenge factual findings underlying the district court's calculations, we review the court's decisions for clear error. See United States v. Flanders, 491 F.3d 1197, 1217 (10th Cir. 2007) ([W]e review the . . . factual findings [underlying restitution orders] for clear error. . . .); Martinez, 418 F.3d at 1133. In undertaking our review, we recognize that the government has the burden of proving the amount of loss by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Ary, 518 F.3d 775, 787, 790 (10th Cir.2008). However, [t]he district court's factual findings constitute clear error when our review of the entire record leaves us with the definite and firm conclusion that a mistake has been made. Id. at 787 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, the record does not leave us with the definite and firm conclusion that a mistake has been made. Agent Horn testified at sentencing that the correct amount of loss was over $200,000. He stated that he and other agents interviewed sixteen individuals who were part of the check cashing ring, and he described Ms. Jones and Mr. Wright's criminal organization, illustrating its structure with a detailed chart. He testified that he communicated frequently with Ms. Tennyson and others at Wells Fargo to identify passers of bad checks and accounts that had been compromised. Once Agent Horn identified a fraudulent check from an account known to have been improperly accessed by Ms. Jones or Ms. Frank, he sought to confirm a link between the check and the charged conspiracy. Id. at 18-19. None of the parties questioned Agent Horn with explicit reference to Exhibits 15-17, 19, 20, 60, 61, 63, 64, 74, or 79. In fact, during Agent Horn's direct examination, counsel for the government noted that she intended to direct most of his testimony to checks not discussed at trial because the defense is not really disputing Government's Trial Exhibits 1 through 44, 48 through 79. Thus, while the checks at issue were listed in the government's chart detailing its proposed calculation for amount of loss, they were not the subject of a particularized discussion at sentencing. Nevertheless, Agent Horn noted that each of the checks determined to be from Ms. Jones and Mr. Wright's scheme, implicitly including those at issue, were manufactured using the same computer program and the same generic check stock. Agent Horn further observed that the check numbers were typically part of a consecutive series on the same compromised account and that each was passed within the same time frame in the Denver metropolitan area. The trial record provides further support for the conclusion that the district court did not commit clear error. All of the challenged exhibits were admitted into evidence during the testimony of Ms. Tennyson. Like Agent Horn, Ms. Tennyson testified that each of the checks was produced using the same generic check stock and the same computer program. She further testified that Exhibits 15-17, 19, 20, 60, 61, and 74 were: (1) counterfeit and (2) drawn from accounts that either Ms. Jones or Ms. Frank had improperly accessed. Ms. Jones and Mr. Wright observe that there was no specific testimony at trial or at sentencing regarding the identity of the individual who accessed the checking accounts from which Exhibits 63, 64, and 79 were drawn. Additionally, they note that no evidence specifically links Jamaal K. Watkins, the payee of those checks, to the conspiracy. Nevertheless, we do not believe the district court committed clear error with respect to Exhibits 63, 64, and 79. To begin, given that members of the conspiracy often used false identities to cash checks, the failure of the government to connect the checks to an actual person named Jamaal K. Watkins is considerably less damaging to the district court's finding than Mr. Wright and Ms. Jones have suggested. It was undisputed that payee Jamaal K. Watkins, who shared a first name with co-conspirator Jamaal Burton, attempted to cash these checks in the Denver metropolitan area on September 22, 2004, while Ms. Jones and Ms. Frank were still working at Wells Fargo and while Ms. Jones's and Mr. Wright's conspiracy was producing fraudulent checks. In fact, not including Exhibits 63, 64, and 79, members of the conspiracy cashed, or attempted to cash, eleven fraudulent checks in September 2004 in the Denver metropolitan area, and they attempted to cash two of those on September 22. More importantly, both Agent Horn's and Ms. Tennyson's testimony supported the conclusion that Exhibits 63, 64, and 79 were counterfeited checks, each designed to fraudulently withdraw money from one of two Wells Fargo accounts. The checks were made from the same generic stock that produced other checks in the conspiracy, and they were virtually identical in appearance to the other fraudulent checks. In light of this evidence, we do not have a definite and firm belief that the district court made a mistake  that it clearly erred in determining that the checks were attributable to the conspiracy. See Ary, 518 F.3d at 787. Therefore, we find that the district court did not err in its calculation of the amount of loss or restitution.