Opinion ID: 764448
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fiore's Obstruction of Justice Enhancement

Text: 22 Fiore next contends that the government erroneously imposed a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. Under § 3C1.1, a court will increase a defendant's offense level by two if the court finds that the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice during the investigation, prosecution or sentencing of the instant offense. The commentary to § 3C1.1 provides a non-exhaustive list of examples of the types of conduct to which the obstruction enhancement applies. Among these examples of conduct is committing, suborning, or attempting to suborn perjury. U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, Application Note 4. 23 Here, the district court applied the two-level enhancement based on findings that Fiore perjured himself at trial by minimizing the role that he played in the Crew: 24 I believe that the testimony of Mr. Fiore in which he tried ... to weave a tale that he was victimized and joined this band of juice loan operators because ... another participant on one occasion showed Mr. Fiore a firearm and that that caused Mr. Fiore to feel coerced and intimidated to the point that he had joined this against his will[.][T]hat line of testimony by Mr. Fiore was false ... and it was false in that the evidence established ... that he was a knowing and willing participant in this. He even took on responsibilities ordered of him to supervise these other individuals whom he claimed ... to be afraid of. 25