Opinion ID: 666583
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Business of Receiving and Selling Stolen Property

Text: 54 The final sentencing challenge is whether the Warshawskys were in the business of receiving and selling stolen property, which earned them a four level enhancement under section 2B1.2(b)(4)(A). The interpretation of section 2B1.2(b)(4)(A) is a question of first impression in this circuit, and it is a question that has rarely been addressed by the United States Courts of Appeals. 55 We look first to the text of the guideline itself, which authorizes a sentence enhancement [i]f the offense was committed by a person in the business of receiving and selling stolen property. U.S.S.G. Sec. 2B1.2(b)(4)(A). A person in the business of receiving and selling stolen property is a person once referred to less flatteringly as a fence. United States v. Esquivel, 919 F.2d 957, 959 (5th Cir.1990) (section 2B1.2(b)(4)(A) refers to a person engaged in what are generally known as fencing operations); United States v. Braslawsky, 913 F.2d 466, 468 (7th Cir.1990) (The common understanding of a person in the business of receiving and selling stolen property is a professional fence....). The Sentencing Commission has decided that fences deserve longer sentences than mere thieves because a sentence based solely on the amount of (stolen) property recovered by the police is likely to underrepresent the scope of their criminality and the extent to which [the defendant] encourage[s] or facilitate[s] other crimes. U.S.S.G. Sec. 2B1.2, comment. (backg'd). 56 The court in Braslawsky interpreted the fencing enhancement as a question of first impression in its own circuit. The defendant in Braslawsky had stolen a substantial amount of property and sold it on the black market. Interpreting the fencing enhancement according to the policy expressed in the guideline commentary, the court reversed the enhancement because the defendant had not encourage[d] the commission of other thefts as fences are generally presumed to do. Id. at 468. While the defendant in Braslawsky was guilty of theft and of selling stolen property, there was no evidence whatsoever that he had created a market for property stolen by others. The court concluded that the defendant was not a fence because he only sold property he had stolen himself. Id. 57 It is hard to conceive of a case farther from the facts of Braslawsky than the one at bar. In Braslawsky, the defendant never purchased stolen property, and therefore he never encouraged others to steal. In this case, the Warshawskys purchased tens of thousands of dollars of stolen property and bestowed bountiful rewards on individuals willing to steal the property of others. In the words of the Esquivel court, [r]eceiving and reselling stolen property accurately describes what the Warshawskys were  'in the business of' doing. 919 F.2d at 960. 58 The Warshawskys dispute the fencing enhancement because, they claim, there was no proof that they fenced stolen property with regularity. They characterize the evidence at trial as seven isolated stolen property transactions. 5 In the absence of any reference in the guidelines to regularity of fencing activity, they rely exclusively on United States v. St. Cyr, 977 F.2d 698 (1st Cir.1992). In St. Cyr, the First Circuit concluded that the fencing enhancement was not appropriate for a defendant who had only engaged in two successful fencing transactions. Id. at 700. In reversing the enhancement, the St. Cyr court embraced an unwieldy case-by-case multi-factored balancing test: 59 [I]n mulling whether to impose the [fencing] enhancement, the sentencing judge must undertake a case-by-case approach, weighing the totality of the circumstances, with particular emphasis on the regularity and sophistication of a defendant's operation, in order to determine whether a defendant is in the business of receiving and selling stolen property. 60 Id. at 703. 61 We are confident that the seven fencing transactions evidenced at trial would satisfy the St. Cyr test, if that were the test in this circuit. We prefer instead the test of Esquivel, supra, and Braslawsky, supra, where the sentencing courts merely examined the defendant's operation to determine: (1) if stolen property was bought and sold, and (2) if the stolen property transactions encouraged others to commit property crimes. In this case, the Warshawskys' operation provided a powerful conduit for the distribution of stolen auto parts. Given the scope of the operation, the fencing enhancement was proper. 62 For the foregoing reasons, the convictions of the defendants are AFFIRMED, but their sentences are REVERSED and REMANDED for resentencing in accordance with this opinion.