Court Opinion

ID: 9409569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-18 18:01:16.093236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:51.459742
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11603    Document: 29-1     Date Filed: 07/18/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11603
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       YVES DANIEL BESSON,
       a.k.a. Steve,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-20633-CMA-3
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11603

                            ____________________

       Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and BRANCH and ANDERSON,
       Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Yves Daniel Besson appeals his sentence of 120 months of
       imprisonment following his plea of guilty to conspiring to import
       five kilograms or more of cocaine into the United States. 21 U.S.C.
       §§ 952(a), 963. Besson challenges the denial of safety-valve relief.
       United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5C1.2(a) (Nov.
       2018). We affirm.
              Besson admitted in his factual proffer that he conspired with
       codefendants Joel Exume and Ricardo Fergile to import cocaine us-
       ing paid couriers who carried multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine
       on commercial flights to the United States. He admitted that, in
       March 2018, he provided 2.6 kilograms of cocaine to a confidential
       informant to import from Haiti to Ft. Lauderdale, where law en-
       forcement seized the drugs. And he admitted that the drug-traffick-
       ing organization was responsible for transporting between 5 and 15
       kilograms of cocaine during the charged conspiracy.
               Besson’s presentence investigation report provided a base
       offense level of 30. Id. § 2D1.1(a)(5), (c)(5). The report recom-
       mended granting a three-level reduction for acceptance of respon-
       sibility, id. § 3E1.1, but denying safety-valve relief, id. § 5C1.2(a),
       because Besson had not provided the government with a complete
       and truthful statement about what he knew. The report provided
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       22-11603                Opinion of the Court                           3

       extensive details of Besson’s offense conduct, including infor-
       mation provided by the government that he had worked as a cou-
       rier and recruiter for the drug-trafficking organization. Based on
       Besson’s total offense level of 27 and a criminal history category of
       I, the report provided an advisory guideline range of 70 to 87
       months of imprisonment, which was increased to 120 months of
       imprisonment because of the mandatory minimum, 21 U.S.C.
       § 960(b)(1)(B)(ii). Besson objected to the recommended denial of
       safety-valve relief and the factual accuracy of the report.
               At sentencing, the government argued that Besson was inel-
       igible for the safety valve. It explained that prosecutors met with
       him for over an hour before sentencing to give him a final oppor-
       tunity to provide a full account of what happened during the course
       of the conspiracy, but he “flatly lied” about his role in the conspir-
       acy and contradicted his factual proffer by maintaining that he was
       not involved in trafficking drugs. Based on this meeting, the gov-
       ernment also objected that Besson should not receive a reduction
       for acceptance of responsibility, U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1.
               Besson’s counsel responded that he was disappointed that he
       had not “been able to convince [Besson] to take advantage of the
       safety valve” and that he believed Besson “fully understands the
       ramifications of that.” In his allocution, Besson insisted that he told
       the government everything he knew and that it “would have been
       [his] pleasure to tell the truth in front of the [district court] if [he]
       knew what [the government was] talking about.” He stated that he
       was only a driver who transported people to the airport. He denied
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11603

       supplying a suitcase containing cocaine and explained that if “that
       person that [he] took to the airport knew of what was going on,
       then that’s that person.” He stated that he pleaded guilty only be-
       cause there was video evidence of him in the car with the other
       conspirators, but he did not know what they were doing and had
       never “been involved in any organization.”
              The district court sustained the government’s objection to
       the acceptance-of-responsibility reduction, id. § 3E1.1, and ruled
       that Besson was ineligible for safety-valve relief, id. § 5C1.2(a), be-
       cause “as [his] attorney indicated in his earlier remarks, and as the
       [g]overnment expressed,” he had not provided a truthful account
       of everything that occurred. The district court explained that much
       of what it had heard from Besson consisted of “denials and minimi-
       zation of [his] conduct.” It sentenced Besson to the mandatory min-
       imum sentence of 120 months of imprisonment.
              The district court did not clearly err by denying Besson
       safety-valve relief. See United States v. Tigua, 963 F.3d 1138, 1141
       (11th Cir. 2020). To qualify for the safety valve, a defendant must
       “truthfully provide[] to the Government all information and evi-
       dence [he] has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of
       the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan . . . .”
       U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2(a)(5). The record supports the findings of the dis-
       trict court that Besson had not provided the government with a
       truthful account of everything that occurred. At sentencing, Besson
       denied knowing anything about the drug-trafficking conspiracy or
       its members, which contradicted his admissions in his factual
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       22-11603                Opinion of the Court                           5

       proffer that he was a member of the same conspiracy and had pro-
       vided several kilograms of cocaine to a paid courier to import to
       the United States. And even though the government provided ad-
       ditional reasons to discredit Besson’s story—including testimony
       from Antoine Lubin who identified and implicated Besson in the
       conspiracy while testifying at codefendant Fergile’s trial—Besson’s
       “denials and minimization” of his previously-admitted conduct was
       sufficient to establish that he had not satisfied the “tell-all” require-
       ment to obtain safety-valve relief. See United States v. Johnson, 375
       F.3d 1300, 1302 (11th Cir. 2004).
              We AFFIRM Besson’s sentence.