Opinion ID: 1238399
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Extent of planning

Text: The district court again employed § 5K2.0the general departure provision for acts of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commissionto further enhance Arhebamen's sentence under U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1(b)(2)(A). According to the district court, Arhebamen's false statements to the Probation Department involved more than minimal planning within the meaning of § 1B1.1 cmt. n. 1(f), and a 2 level enhancement of [the false-statement convictions] is appropriate pursuant to § 2F1.1(b)(2)(A). This 2 level enhancement, however, does not adequately take into account the extensiveness and history of the planning that has gone into the Defendant's false claim to the identity of McMaine Allen O'Georgia, and an upwards departure is warranted. The § 2F1.1(b)(2)(A) enhancement applies in cases where the extent of planning is more ... than is typical for commission of the offense in its typical form, and is deemed present in any case involving repeated acts over a period of time. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1 cmt. 1(f) (defining more than minimal planning). According to the district court, the specific enhancement was insufficient to capture the full extent of Arhebamen's use of the O'Georgia alias, which lasted more than twenty years. The court thus added an additional one-level departure pursuant to § 5K2.0 because the degree of planning extended over such a long period of time. Arhebamen argues that the district court abused its discretion in invoking this one-level departure because [t]he fact that a defendant in a fraud type offense used an alias for a lengthy period of time is not extraordinary, and the district court failed to provide any evidence that this case should be so considered. We disagree. Because the district court is in the best position to compare a wide variety of cases over time, it has wide discretion to decide how much planning is extraordinary, such that the more than minimal planning enhancement is insufficient on its own. Arhebamen's multi-decade, elaborate attempt to take on his invented identity certainly involved an extraordinary number of repeated acts over a period of time. We therefore conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by invoking this one-level departure pursuant to § 5K2.0. See, e.g., United States v. Kay, 83 F.3d 98, 102 (5th Cir.1996) ([T]he repetitiveness, intricacy, and sophistication of Kay's scheme were substantially in excess of that which ordinarily is involved in the crime of bank fraud, and ... this level of malfeasance was not accounted for by the `more than minimal planning' adjustment.).