Opinion ID: 71480
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Williams's Intended Loss

Text: Williams also argues that the district court erred in calculating his intended loss for three reasons. First, he contends that the district court could not properly calculate his loss as being equal to the aggregate limit of the cards without finding that he subjectively intended to inflict a loss of that amount. Second, he argues that potential risk alone cannot support sentencing enhancements under the Guidelines. Finally, he argues that the trial court improperly sentenced him based on his co-conspirators' subjective intent. We have already addressed Williams's first argument above. We do not interpret the language from our previous opinions that required actual, not constructive, intent as preventing a sentencing court from inferring intent from recklessness or willful blindness. See Tedder, 81 F.3d at 551. Thus, where a defendant's crime recklessly jeopardized property, the defendant may properly be held to have intended a loss of the amount jeopardized. Wimbish, 980 F.2d at 315-16. A defendant may recklessly jeopardize property by transferring it to a third party whom he does not control. Morrow, 177 F.3d at 300-01. In this case, Williams's PSR indicated that he had given the information from over 500 credit cards to an individual whom he knew only as D in exchange for $2,000.00. If this did not recklessly jeopardize the credit limits of these cards, it is hard to imagine what would. Therefore, we do not think that the district court erred in adopting the PSR's determination that Williams had intended to inflict a loss equal to the aggregate credit limit of the cards he had compromised. Williams's second argument, that potential victim risk alone cannot support sentence enhancements, is also without merit. We have held numerous times in the past that a defendant's sentence may be enhanced where his crime recklessly jeopardizes property, even if that property survives the crime intact. E.g., Wimbish, 980 F.2d at 315-16. In these cases, the sentencing court may infer the intent to inflict loss from the defendant's reckless disregard for the value of the property that was jeopardized. Id. Williams's third argument is a variation on his first. He argues that the court transferred his co-conspirators' subjective intent to steal money from the cards onto him. He asserts that his intent was only to record the information off of the cards and give it to Davis. Therefore, he concludes, it was error for the district court to find that he intended to steal any amount of money. This argument lacks merit, because a sentencing court may reasonably infer intent from recklessness or willful blindness. Id. We refuse to find that Williams must be treated as having intended no loss simply because he happened to be a criminal middleman. He illegally obtained information that allowed him to steal an amount of money equal to the aggregate limit of the cards he skimmed. He then gave this information to Davis, in effect transferring to Davis an option to take the aggregate limit of the cards that had been skimmed. Whether or not Davis intended to exercise this option is irrelevant to Williams's intended loss, because Williams had no control over Davis's actions. The district court could reasonably find that Williams knew that Davis planned to steal money (indeed, it is hard to conceive of any other reasonable finding), and that he enabled Davis to steal the full amount that could be obtained with the cards. By holding Williams responsible for an intended loss of the aggregate limit of the cards, the district court held him responsible for his own intent, not that of his co-conspirators. Therefore, we find that the record in Williams's case supports a finding that he intended to inflict a loss equal to the credit limits of the cards he compromised. The district court did not err in holding him responsible for this amount.