Court Opinion

ID: 9411907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-28 15:01:53.389861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:17.391815
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 22-2008
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                  Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                v.

LUIS ARROYO,
                                              Defendant-Appellant.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
          Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 19-cr-805-1 — Steven C. Seeger, Judge.
                    ____________________

      ARGUED APRIL 19, 2023 — DECIDED JULY 28, 2023
                ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
   KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. Former State Representative Luis
Arroyo accepted thousands of dollars in bribes to promote
sweepstakes-gaming interests in the Illinois legislature and
executive branch. When the government uncovered the brib-
ery scheme, Arroyo was indicted and pleaded guilty to wire
fraud. The district court sentenced him to 57 months’ impris-
onment and ordered that he forfeit $32,500 in bribe money.
2                                                 No. 22-2008

    On appeal, Arroyo argues that the district judge commit-
ted several errors at sentencing. First and foremost, Arroyo
contends that the judge erred by finding his 57-month sen-
tence necessary to deter public corruption when the record
lacked empirical evidence supporting that conclusion. We’ve
rejected this argument before and do so again today. District
judges need not marshal empirical data on deterrent effects
before considering whether a sentence adequately deters
criminal conduct. The judge presumed that public officials are
rational actors who pay attention when one of their own is
sentenced. That presumption was reasonable, and the judge
did not err when he justified Arroyo’s sentence with the logic
of general deterrence—that sentences influence behavior at
the margins. Arroyo also contends that the judge erred by
deeming several of his allocution statements aggravating and
ordering him to forfeit too much money. These arguments
lack merit, too, so we affirm.
                              I
    Luis Arroyo served in the Illinois House of Representa-
tives from 2006 to 2019. While in oﬃce, Arroyo also managed
a lobbying ﬁrm. From November 2018 until October 2019, Ar-
royo’s ﬁrm received $32,500 in checks from James Weiss’s
sweepstakes-gaming company. Arroyo admitted that he re-
ceived payments from Weiss’s company in exchange for his
oﬃcial support for the sweepstakes industry in the General
Assembly. Despite never expressing a view on sweepstakes
gaming before November 2018, Arroyo began pushing for
sweepstakes-friendly legislation and encouraging other legis-
lators and executive-branch oﬃcials to support the same. All
the while, Arroyo concealed his ﬁnancial arrangement with
Weiss.
No. 22-2008                                                   3

    In August 2019, after failing to pass sweepstakes legisla-
tion, Arroyo and Weiss sought to enlist a state senator in their
scheme. In a meeting with the senator, Arroyo admitted to re-
ceiving payments from Weiss for advancing sweepstakes-
gaming interests in the General Assembly, asked the senator
to sponsor a gaming bill in the Senate, and promised that the
senator would be paid for doing so. Unbeknownst to Arroyo
or Weiss, the senator was working with the government and
wearing a wire. Three weeks later, Arroyo gave the senator a
$2,500 check from Weiss’s company and promised “we’re go-
ing to write you a check per month” for a year.
    In October 2019, the government charged Arroyo by com-
plaint with bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2). A year later, a
grand jury indicted Arroyo on one count of bribery, three
counts of wire fraud, and one count of mail fraud. See id.
§§ 666(a)(2), 1341, 1343, 1346. In November 2021, Arroyo
pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
    The case proceeded to sentencing, where the district judge
emphasized the seriousness of Arroyo’s oﬀense and the need
to deter other public oﬃcials who “might be tempted to sell
out the public” like Arroyo. Noting that public oﬃcials were
watching and listening, the judge wanted “to make sure that
they hear a message loud and clear” that “[p]ublic corruption
isn’t worth it.” The judge then put the issue in economic
terms:
       From a supply-and-demand perspective, the
       length of the sentence matters. The lower the
       cost—in other words, the lower the sentence—
       the more public corruption you’re going to get.
       Public oﬃcials are rational actors. They think
       about the costs and beneﬁts of public
4                                                    No. 22-2008

       corruption. They think about how likely it is
       they’re going to get caught. They think about
       what will happen to them if they do get caught.
       They think about the costs and beneﬁts of cor-
       ruption.
The judge emphasized the need “to make sure that the costs
of public corruption are high enough to deter other people
from engaging in public corruption.”
    After weighing the other sentencing factors under 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a), as well as aggravating and mitigating facts in
the record, the judge imposed a sentence of 57 months—the
top end of Arroyo’s Sentencing Guidelines range. The judge
also ordered Arroyo to forfeit $32,500, concluding that all of
the payments Arroyo’s lobbying ﬁrm received from Weiss’s
company were bribes. Arroyo appeals, challenging his sen-
tence on procedural grounds and the forfeiture amount.
                                II
                                A
    Arroyo argues that the district judge’s reliance on general
deterrence amounted to procedural error. We review proce-
dural challenges to sentences de novo. See United States v. Lla-
nos, 62 F.4th 312, 316 (7th Cir. 2023). A district court procedur-
ally errs when it fails to “adequately explain its sentence in
reference to the criteria set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” United
States v. Saldana-Gonzalez, 70 F.4th 981, 984 (7th Cir. 2023). We
question whether Arroyo’s challenge is, in fact, procedural
and subject to de novo review. But because there was no error
under any standard of review, we need not answer that ques-
tion.
No. 22-2008                                                    5

   Sentencing judges must consider, among other things, the
need for a sentence to “to aﬀord adequate deterrence to crim-
inal conduct.”18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(B). By including general
deterrence as a required consideration, Congress embraced
the idea that criminal sentences inﬂuence behavior in society.
See United States v. Goldberg, 491 F.3d 668, 672 (7th Cir. 2007).
The idea of general deterrence, put simply, is that the longer
the sentence, the more it will discourage similar criminal con-
duct by others.
   Arroyo argues that the judge procedurally erred because
the record lacked empirical evidence showing that public of-
ﬁcials consider sentences or engage in cost-beneﬁt analysis
when it comes to corruption. Arroyo says the judge’s analysis
was therefore purely speculative and unreliable. The judge,
Arroyo further argues, “relied almost exclusively” on general
deterrence while ignoring important mitigating facts like his
age and lack of criminal history.
    Once again, we reject outright the contention that the dis-
trict judge’s “emphasis on general deterrence was unreasona-
ble because the theory that longer sentences deter illegal ac-
tivity lacks empirical support.” United States v. Hatch, 909 F.3d
872, 876 (7th Cir. 2018). Section 3553(a)(2)(B) requires judges
to consider general deterrence when fashioning a sentence,
and nothing in the statute suggests that empirical ﬁndings are
a prerequisite. Nor did the district court err by expressing
Congress’s logic in economic terms. General deterrence is, af-
ter all, an economic theory of punishment: “Where the proﬁts
to be made from violating a law are higher, the penalty needs
to be correspondingly higher to achieve the same amount of
deterrence.” United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 196 (2d Cir.
2008) (en banc) (citing Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of
6                                                    No. 22-2008

the Law, § 7.2 (3d ed. 1986)). What’s more, public oﬃcials are
the “prime candidates for general deterrence” because they
“act rationally, calculating and comparing the risks and the
rewards before deciding whether to engage in criminal activ-
ity.” United States v. Brown, 880 F.3d 399, 405 (7th Cir. 2018)
(quoting United States v. Warner, 792 F.3d 847, 860–61 (7th Cir.
2015)). Bribery is a premeditated crime—those tempted to sell
out the public have plenty of time to weigh the risks and re-
wards before doing so. The district judge did not err by rea-
sonably presuming that public oﬃcials consider the criminal
sentences of other politicians, and that a longer sentence for
Arroyo was necessary to deter corruption at the margins.
    Zooming out, Arroyo also contends that the judge erred
by focusing nearly exclusively on general deterrence and by
ignoring certain mitigating factors. That did not happen. The
judge methodically walked through the § 3553(a) factors and
reasonably explained how he weighed each factor. The judge
detailed why he considered Arroyo’s public corruption of-
fense extremely serious, as well as the need to promote re-
spect for the law. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A). He also found
that speciﬁc deterrence was not a strong factor because Ar-
royo was unlikely to hold oﬃce again. See id. § 3553(a)(2)(C).
To be sure, the judge found general deterrence particularly
important in fashioning Arroyo’s sentence, but the judge did
not do so to the exclusion of the other § 3553(a) factors. The
judge’s assessment of the § 3553(a) factors “fell well within
the bounds of reasonableness,” United States v. Campbell, 37
F.4th 1345, 1353 (7th Cir. 2022), and it is not our job to reweigh
them on appeal.
   Nor did the judge ignore mitigating facts. The judge noted
that Arroyo’s age would make incarceration diﬃcult and
No. 22-2008                                                  7

found his lack of criminal history mitigating. And the judge
highlighted Arroyo’s challenging upbringing, years of public
service before his corruption, devotion to his family, and the
dozens of letters submitted supporting Arroyo. In short, the
judge adequately addressed all of Arroyo’s arguments in mit-
igation, committing no procedural error. And the judge did
not abuse his discretion by concluding that mitigating factors
were outweighed by the seriousness of Arroyo’s oﬀense and
the need for general deterrence. See United States v. Miedzian-
owski, 60 F.4th 1051, 1056 (7th Cir. 2023).
    Relatedly, Arroyo argues that the district judge erred by
deeming his allocution aggravating after promising that his
statement would not be held against him. Neither of these
things happened. First, the judge never assured Arroyo that
his statements would not be held against him; the judge
simply advised Arroyo of his Fifth Amendment right and told
Arroyo that remaining silent would not be held against him.
More to the point, Arroyo’s argument fails because the judge
did not ﬁnd his allocution aggravating. Arroyo points to the
following excerpt from the sentencing transcript: “I’ve con-
sidered your statement, your allocution. You didn’t have to
address the Court. You did. I considered that. So those are the
aggravating factors that I’ve seen so far.” When read in isola-
tion, one might come away with the misleading impression
that the judge found Arroyo’s allocution aggravating. But
when placed in context, it becomes clear that the judge did no
such thing. In the preceding pages, the judge emphasized the
seriousness of Arroyo’s oﬀense, the need for deterrence, and
that Arroyo was in a leadership position while accepting
thousands in bribes. The judge then paused to note that he
had considered Arroyo’s allocution, before referring back to
these aggravating factors. Despite the abrupt transition,
8                                                   No. 22-2008

nothing in the transcript suggests that the judge concluded
that Arroyo’s statement itself was aggravating. The judge did
not say that Arroyo had attempted to avoid responsibility or
minimize his role. To the contrary, while expressing frustra-
tion with the inconsistent positions taken in Arroyo’s ﬁlings,
the judge stated that he would not hold that against Arroyo
and took Arroyo at his word that he “accept[ed] responsibility
completely” during his allocution.
                               B
    Finally, we turn to forfeiture. The government bears the
burden of establishing the forfeiture amount by a preponder-
ance of the evidence. United States v. Smith, 770 F.3d 628, 637
(7th Cir. 2014). We review the district court’s factual ﬁndings
in adjudicating the forfeiture amount for clear error, see
United States v. Balsiger, 910 F.3d 942, 956 (7th Cir. 2018), and
“we will reverse only if our review leaves us with the deﬁnite
and ﬁrm conviction that the district court made a mistake,”
United States v. Bogdanov, 863 F.3d 630, 633–34 (7th Cir. 2017).
    Arroyo has not met that high bar. He contends that the
record unequivocally establishes that some of Weiss’s pay-
ments to his ﬁrm were not bribes but payment for legitimate
work lobbying the Chicago City Council. The judge rejected
this argument for several reasons. For starters, not only did
the timing of the payments coincide with Arroyo’s entry and
participation in the corrupt scheme with Weiss, but Arroyo
also never disclosed to the City any of Weiss’s payments. The
judge found it more likely than not that Arroyo was actively
concealing the payments he received from Weiss. Further,
when discussing the scheme with the senator, Arroyo stated
that he’d been getting paid $2,500 a month for his role. Putting
it all together—the timing, the concealment, and Arroyo’s
No. 22-2008                                                  9

own statements about his take—the judge concluded that it
was more likely than not that all of the payments Weiss’s com-
pany made to Arroyo’s lobbying ﬁrm, totaling $32,500, were
bribes. Based on the evidence, the judge reasonably rejected
Arroyo’s contention that some of Weiss’s payments were for
legitimate lobbying work, while others were illegitimate
bribes. Because nothing in the record compels the conclusion
Arroyo urges, there can be no clear error.
   In sum, there was no procedural error because the judge
appropriately considered the need for general deterrence and
weighed it against the other § 3553(a) factors and Arroyo’s ar-
guments in mitigation. And the judge’s forfeiture ﬁndings are
supported by the record and not clearly erroneous. Because
Arroyo has not identiﬁed an error, we aﬃrm his sentence.
                                                    AFFIRMED