Court Opinion

ID: 9926302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-24 16:02:29.128749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:22.312597
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-1756    Document: 85     Page: 1   Filed: 01/24/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                      DENNIS ERB,
                        Petitioner

                             v.

         DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                        2021-1756
                  ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-0752-20-0468-I-1.
                 ______________________

                Decided: January 24, 2024
                 ______________________

     JENNIE CATHRYNE BLAINE WATSON, Alan Lescht and
 Associates, PC, Washington, DC, argued for petitioner.
 Also represented by CONOR DANIEL AHERN.

     KRISTIN ELAINE OLSON, Commercial Litigation Branch,
 Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
 ington, DC, argued for respondent. Also represented by
 BRIAN M. BOYNTON, TARA K. HOGAN, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY.
                   ______________________
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 2                                           ERB v. TREASURY

      Before DYK, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
 CHEN, Circuit Judge.
     Dennis Erb was removed from his position in the De-
 partment of the Treasury (Treasury) for repeatedly falsify-
 ing information on his timecard and for failing to comply
 with instructions from his supervisor. Mr. Erb appealed to
 the Merit Systems Protection Board (Board), and an ad-
 ministrative judge affirmed Treasury’s removal decision.
 Erb v. Dep’t of Treasury, No. DC-0752-20-0468-I-1, 2021
 WL 76034 (M.S.P.B. Jan. 6, 2021), J.A. 1–37. This initial
 decision of the administrative judge became the final deci-
 sion of the Board. Because substantial evidence supports
 the Board’s determination that Mr. Erb repeatedly falsi-
 fied information on his timecard and because we sustain
 the Board’s affirmance of both the overall falsification and
 failure-to-follow-instructions charges, we affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
     Prior to his removal, Mr. Erb held the position of Intel-
 ligence Research Specialist with Treasury’s Financial
 Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Intelligence Divi-
 sion. J.A. 2. On March 4, 2020, Treasury notified Mr. Erb
 that he would be removed from his position, charging him
 with (1) falsifying government records for allegedly report-
 ing false information on his timecard over several days in
 2018 and (2) failing to follow supervisory instructions in
 2018 in which Mr. Erb did not comply with a directive from
 his supervisor to serve as acting director.
     Issues with Mr. Erb’s conduct arose well before these
 2018 incidents. Ryan Crosby, Mr. Erb’s supervisor of sev-
 eral years, offered testimony directed to these issues at a
 hearing before the administrative judge. Id. at 6. In
 Mr. Crosby’s recounting, he had concerns with Mr. Erb’s
 timecard submissions “[a]lmost from the first day that
 [Mr. Crosby] came to know that [Mr. Erb] would be on [his]
 team.” J.A. 75. Before Mr. Erb joined Mr. Crosby’s team,
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 ERB v. TREASURY                                           3

 Mr. Erb’s prior supervisor had warned Mr. Crosby “that
 there [were] indications that [Mr. Erb] may be involved in
 time card fraud.” Id.; see J.A. 8.
     Mr. Crosby testified that, while supervising Mr. Erb,
 he (1) frequently noticed errors and omissions in Mr. Erb’s
 submitted timecards, (2) repeatedly admonished Mr. Erb
 to resolve these inaccuracies, and (3) conducted multiple
 timecard audits because Mr. Erb had exhausted his leave.
 J.A. 7; J.A. 75. Despite having been provided policies and
 procedures for timecard submissions, Mr. Erb routinely
 miscoded his timecards, for example, using sick leave when
 he should have used annual leave or recording more hours
 worked than he was entitled to record. J.A. 7; J.A. 71–72.
 In one instance, Mr. Crosby confronted Mr. Erb about a
 day in which Mr. Erb claimed sick leave but was seen in a
 social media post to be on vacation. J.A. 7; J.A. 72. On
 other occasions, Mr. Erb booked vacations even though he
 had no annual leave available and had to request advances
 on his annual leave. J.A. 7–8; J.A. 72. Mr. Crosby recalled
 that in Mr. Erb’s evaluation for fiscal year 2017,
 Mr. Crosby initially included a comment that Mr. Erb
 needed to pay closer attention to his timecard submissions.
 J.A. 8; J.A. 74. Mr. Erb entreated Mr. Crosby to strike this
 comment, and Mr. Crosby agreed to remove it to help
 Mr. Erb improve his image at the agency. J.A. 8; J.A. 74.
     In response to concerns about Mr. Erb’s time and at-
 tendance, the Treasury Inspector General (TIG) began in-
 vestigating Mr. Erb’s time and attendance records and
 facility access records from October 15, 2017 to October 13,
 2018. J.A. 211. The resulting report documented numer-
 ous instances where (1) Mr. Erb submitted and validated
 in-office work time but never accessed a FinCEN facility
 and (2) telework login records indicated that Mr. Erb en-
 gaged in little or no telework activity. Id.
     Based in part on the investigation and the TIG’s report,
 on October 17, 2019, Treasury proposed removing Mr. Erb
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 4                                           ERB v. TREASURY

 from his position based on two charges: (1) falsification of
 a government record and (2) failure to follow supervisory
 instruction. Id. at 209–12. The evidence that Treasury
 considered included, in addition to the TIG’s report, seven
 exhibits cited in that report, six memoranda encompassing
 interviews with witnesses and Mr. Erb, Mr. Erb’s timecard
 and facility access records, and a spreadsheet documenting
 the times that Mr. Erb remotely logged into the telework
 system. Id. at 211.
      The notice of proposed removal lodged eleven specifica-
 tions 1 for the falsification charge. Id. at 209–11. For each
 specification, Mr. Erb submitted a timecard indicating that
 he worked in the office or, in one specification, engaged in
 a full day of telework. Id. But for each of these specifica-
 tions, Treasury found that he did not physically report to
 the FinCEN facility and engaged in little or no telework.
 Id. As for the second charge, the notice of proposed removal
 put forth a single specification in which Mr. Erb’s immedi-
 ate supervisor had assigned him the role of acting director
 for two days and Mr. Erb immediately reassigned the role
 to another colleague without his supervisor’s approval and
 departed the office on an unexcused absence. Id. at 211.
     On March 4, 2020, after Mr. Erb provided written and
 oral responses to the proposed removal, Treasury issued a
 decision removing Mr. Erb from his position. J.A. 2. The
 decision determined that a preponderance of the evidence
 supported ten of the eleven specifications (Specifications 2
 through 11) of the falsification charge and the sole specifi-
 cation of the failure-to-follow-instruction charge articu-
 lated in the notice of proposed removal. J.A. 215.

     1   “Each independent ‘specification’ constitutes a sep-
 arate act or event that supports a charge.” Tartaglia v.
 Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 858 F.3d 1405, 1407 n.2 (Fed. Cir.
 2017).
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      In determining the appropriate penalty, Treasury’s de-
 cision considered the nature and seriousness of the of-
 fenses, concluding that both charges were “inimical to
 [Mr. Erb’s] position and the FinCEN mission” and that
 “[his] behavior towards [his] supervisor undermined man-
 agement’s capacity to maintain employee efficiency and
 discipline.” Id. Emphasizing the gravity of Mr. Erb’s of-
 fenses, the decision explained that “[his] misconduct went
 to the very core of [his] responsibilities as an Intelligence
 Research Specialist and called into question [his] reliabil-
 ity, veracity, trustworthiness, and willingness to perform
 [his] duties.” Id. Mr. Erb, as Treasury noted, was “on no-
 tice about the conduct in question” and “on notice about
 how to properly code and validate [his] time card.” Id. at
 215–16. According to Treasury, a lesser sanction would not
 be appropriate because “the seriousness of the conduct un-
 derlying the charges and the repetitive nature of [his] con-
 duct (including multiple specifications for one charge
 alone) support a penalty of removal.” Id. at 216. Treasury
 further highlighted “that the penalty of removal under the
 circumstances outlined in this decision [wa]s consistent
 with the FinCEN Table of Penalties” and that “a sanction
 less than removal would have no effect in changing
 [Mr. Erb’s] behavior and would not promote the efficiency
 of the federal service.” Id.
     Mr. Erb appealed Treasury’s removal action to the
 Board, and the administrative judge issued an initial deci-
 sion that became the Board’s final decision on February 10,
 2021. J.A. 29. This final decision sustained each of the
 charges and declined to mitigate Treasury’s selected pen-
 alty of removal. Id. at 21, 25, 29. Mr. Erb, Mr. Crosby, and
 several other former colleagues offered testimony in a hear-
 ing. Id. at 1, 6–13, 22, 26. The Board’s decision made ad-
 verse credibility determinations against Mr. Erb, crediting
 the other witnesses’ testimonies over his testimony. Id. at
 12–13. According to the decision, Mr. Erb’s testimony was
 not      “direct    or      straightforward,”     “contained
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 6                                           ERB v. TREASURY

 improbabilities,” and was inconsistent with his deposition
 testimony. Id. at 13. By comparison, the other witnesses’
 testimonies were clear, direct, straightforward, and con-
 sistent with documentary evidence. Id. at 12–13. For these
 reasons, the decision accorded “very little weight” to
 Mr. Erb’s testimony and “significant weight” to the other
 witnesses’ testimonies. Id.
     Sustaining the falsification charge, the Board found
 that Treasury had demonstrated that Mr. Erb (1) had in-
 correctly entered information into his timecards for Speci-
 fications 2 through 11 of the falsification charge, and
 (2) had done so with the intent to deceive or mislead Treas-
 ury for his own material gain. Id. at 15–21. The Board
 likewise sustained the failure-to-follow-instructions
 charge, finding that Mr. Erb’s explanation as to why he
 could not comply with his supervisor’s instructions lacked
 credibility. Id. at 24–25.
     Turning to nexus and penalty, the Board determined
 that Treasury established a nexus between Mr. Erb’s mis-
 conduct and the efficiency of the service and found no error
 in Treasury’s considerations in selecting removal as the
 penalty. Id. at 25, 28–29. As the Board observed, “[t]he
 Board has long recognized that removal for falsification
 and dishonest activity promotes the efficiency of the service
 since such behavior raises serious doubts regarding the ap-
 pellant’s reliability, trustworthiness, and continued fitness
 for employment[,]” and “the Board has also held that re-
 moval for failure to follow instructions is not an unreason-
 able penalty despite an appellant’s superior performance.”
 Id. at 28–29 (citations omitted). The Board accordingly af-
 firmed Treasury’s removal action. Id. at 29.
    Mr. Erb timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9) and 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A).
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 ERB v. TREASURY                                             7

                    STANDARD OF REVIEW
     We may set aside a Board decision if it is “(1) arbitrary,
 capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in ac-
 cordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures re-
 quired by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or
 (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.”           5 U.S.C.
 § 7703(c). “The petitioner bears the burden of establishing
 error in the Board’s decision.” Harris v. Dep’t of Veterans
 Affs., 142 F.3d 1463, 1467 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
                         DISCUSSION
      On appeal, Mr. Erb alleges that (1) the Board acted ar-
 bitrarily in determining that his testimony lacked credibil-
 ity, (2) substantial evidence does not support the Board’s
 decision to sustain the falsification charge, (3) substantial
 evidence does not support the Board’s decision to sustain
 the failure-to-follow-instructions charge, and (4) the pen-
 alty of removal was unreasonable. As discussed below, we
 disagree on each count.
                I. Credibility Determinations
     Mr. Erb alleges that the Board misapplied the factors
 for determining credibility outlined in the Board’s prece-
 dential decision in Hillen v. Department of the Army, 35
 M.S.P.R. 453, 458 (M.S.P.B. 1987). Appellant’s Br. 34–38.
 The Hillen factors are “general internal procedural re-
 quirements that the [Board] has established for its adjudi-
 cative processes, and our review of the [Board]’s fulfillment
 of these procedural processes is in that light.” Haebe v.
 Dep’t of Just., 288 F.3d 1288, 1302 n.32 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
 However, we reiterate that credibility “determinations are
 virtually unreviewable.” Hambsch v. Dep’t of Treasury,
 796 F.2d 430, 436 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Here, the Board pro-
 vided sufficient reasoning for generally giving little weight
 to Mr. Erb’s testimony by referring to his demeanor during
 the hearing, citing discrepancies in his testimony, and ex-
 plaining why his testimony “contained improbabilities.”
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 8                                            ERB v. TREASURY

 J.A. 12–13. The Board also repeatedly compared Mr. Erb’s
 specific version of events with contrary evidence of record
 and found his version of events to not be credible. See, e.g.,
 Id. at 15–18, 25–26. Mr. Erb has failed to show how the
 Board’s credibility determinations were arbitrary.
     II. Charge of Falsification of Government Records
     Mr. Erb challenges the Board’s sustainment of Treas-
 ury’s falsification charge. Appellant’s Br. 14–31. To estab-
 lish a charge of falsification, an agency must prove by a
 preponderance of the evidence that the employee know-
 ingly supplied wrong information with the intent of de-
 frauding the agency. Leatherbury v. Dep’t of Army, 524
 F.3d 1293, 1300 (Fed. Cir. 2008). We find substantial evi-
 dence supports at least four of the ten specifications for the
 falsification charge and therefore supports the overall
 charge.
      To start, the Board did not err in determining that
 Mr. Erb supplied wrong information for Specifications 2, 9,
 10, and 11. With respect to Specifications 2 and 11, the
 Board found that Mr. Erb submitted timecards for two
 days reflecting a full tour of duty in the office and that
 Mr. Erb admitted these submissions were false. J.A. 15–
 16, 18. With respect to Specifications 9 and 10, the Board
 found that Mr. Erb submitted timecards for two days re-
 flecting five hours of in-office work and four hours of sick
 leave. Id. at 18. The Board found that, on both days,
 Mr. Erb (1) did not work in a FinCEN facility and
 (2) “claimed sick hours when he was not ill, seeking medi-
 cal assistance, or attending a routine medical appoint-
 ment.” Id. at 18–19. While Mr. Erb testified that he
 teleworked both days, the Board did not find this testimony
 credible and gave it little weight. Id. at 11–13. Instead,
 the Board found that Mr. Erb had not remotely logged into
 the FinCEN network on these days and credited testimony
 from Mr. Erb’s former colleagues that “to justify a full day
 of work, an employee must be logged into the network” and
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 ERB v. TREASURY                                             9

 that “substantive work require[d] system access.” Id. at 19.
 These findings, we conclude, amount to substantial evi-
 dence in support of the Board’s determination that Treas-
 ury proved Mr. Erb supplied wrong information on his
 timecard for the days corresponding to Specifications 2, 9,
 10, and 11.
     Next, we do not find merit to Mr. Erb’s challenges to
 the Board’s findings of intent for these specifications. The
 intent element of falsification requires the agency to show
 that the employee (a) “intended to deceive or mislead the
 agency” and (b) “intended to defraud the agency for his own
 private material gain.” Leatherbury, 524 F.3d at 1300.
     As to the first prong of intent, the Board found that
 Mr. Erb intended to deceive or mislead Treasury because
 he (1) was repeatedly told not to submit inaccurate time
 and attendance records, (2) had coded his time properly nu-
 merous times and thus knew how to properly code his time,
 and (3) could not offer any plausible explanation for his er-
 rors with respect to Specifications 2, 9, 10, and 11. J.A. 19.
 For Specifications 2 and 11, the Board did not find credible
 Mr. Erb’s claims that internal system errors or another
 person changed his submission or that he unintentionally
 miscoded his time. 2 Id. at 15–16, 19. For Specifications 9
 and 10, Mr. Erb offered no explanation for the timecard er-
 rors. Id. at 18. Substantial evidence accordingly supports
 the Board’s determination that Mr. Erb intended to mis-
 lead or deceive Treasury.

     2   On appeal, Mr. Erb requests that we take judicial
 notice of the fact that the federal government was shut
 down on the day corresponding to Specification 2. ECF
 No. 83. We do not see this fact as a basis for disturbing the
 Board’s finding that Mr. Erb submitted a false time report
 with intent.
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 10                                          ERB v. TREASURY

      As to the second prong of intent, the Board did not err
 in finding that Treasury proved Mr. Erb engaged in time-
 card falsification for his own material gain. We are unper-
 suaded by Mr. Erb’s argument that salaried employees
 with good performance reviews cannot gain any material
 benefit from falsifying their timecards. Appellant’s Reply
 Br. 15–18. As the Board explained, as a result of Mr. Erb’s
 misconduct, he “received pay for hours he performed mini-
 mal, if any work” and “was being paid for working in the
 office while he was not working, which allowed him to re-
 ceive pay instead of tap[p]ing into or depleting his scarce
 annual leave hours.” J.A. 20. We conclude that substantial
 evidence supports the Board’s determination that Mr. Erb
 engaged in this misconduct for his own material gain.
     In sum, we sustain Specifications 2, 9, 10, and 11 and
 thus sustain the overall falsification charge. We do not
 reach Mr. Erb’s challenges to Specifications 3 through 8 be-
 cause, as discussed below, we may uphold the penalty of
 removal on the basis of the overall sustained falsification
 charge supported by the four sustained specifications.
  III. Charge of Failure to Follow Supervisory Instructions
     Under the Board’s standard for proving a charge of fail-
 ure to follow instructions—which Mr. Erb does not chal-
 lenge—“an      agency     must      establish   that     the
 employee: (1) was given proper instructions, and (2) failed
 to follow the instructions, without regard to whether the
 failure was intentional or unintentional.” Powell v. U.S.
 Postal Serv., 122 M.S.P.R. 60, ¶ 5 (M.S.P.B. 2014). Mr. Erb
 alleges the Board erred in sustaining this charge because
 Mr. Erb acted reasonably when he, in response to being as-
 signed to serve as acting director by his immediate super-
 visor, reassigned a colleague to that role without notifying
 his immediate supervisor. Appellant’s Br. 31–34. The
 Board found that Mr. Erb: (1) improperly delegated his
 acting supervisory responsibility, (2) provided an unrea-
 sonable justification for this delegation (that he was
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 ERB v. TREASURY                                           11

 teleworking), and (3) failed to communicate with his direct
 supervisor despite being expressly told to do so. J.A. 24–
 25. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s determina-
 tion that Mr. Erb failed to comply with his supervisor’s in-
 structions, and we thus sustain the Board’s ruling as to this
 charge.
                   IV. Penalty Determination
     Finally, the Board did not err in sustaining Treasury’s
 selected penalty of removal. “It is well-established that se-
 lecting the penalty for employee misconduct is left to the
 agency’s discretion.” Webster v. Dep’t of Army, 911 F.2d
 679, 685 (Fed. Cir. 1990). “This court will not disturb the
 agency’s choice unless the severity of its action appears to-
 tally unwarranted in light of the relevant factors.” DeWitt
 v. Dep’t of Navy, 747 F.2d 1442, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1984), cert.
 denied, 470 U.S. 1054 (1985). On appeal, Mr. Erb critiques
 Treasury’s application of the Douglas v. Veterans Admin-
 istration factors, twelve non-exhaustive factors an agency
 may use to determine the appropriateness of a penalty. 5
 M.S.P.R. 280, 305–06 (M.S.P.B. 1981); see Appellant’s
 Br. 38–46. In Mr. Erb’s view, Treasury “failed to provide
 adequate evidence to support the severe penalty of removal
 and communicate why it is the appropriate penalty in this
 circumstance.” Appellant’s Br. 45. Mr. Erb does not allege
 that Treasury or the Board failed to consider any specific
 factor and, instead, seeks to have us reweigh the facts and
 make our own determination as to the penalty that should
 have been imposed. We decline to do so. See Tartaglia, 858
 F.3d at 1408–09 (explaining that “we may not” reweigh ev-
 idence in determining the appropriate penalty for a case).
     We likewise find no abuse of discretion in the Board’s
 decision to affirm Treasury’s penalty. In its removal deci-
 sion, Treasury expressly referred to the twelve Douglas fac-
 tors, noted that certain Douglas factors were inapplicable
 or neutral, and analyzed each relevant and aggravating
 factor to determine that removal was the appropriate
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 12                                            ERB v. TREASURY

 penalty. J.A. 215–16, 215 n.1. And the Board acknowl-
 edged the detailed analysis that Treasury underwent in de-
 ciding to remove Mr. Erb.         See J.A. 28.   We are
 unpersuaded that removal was an unreasonable penalty.
     This case, we note, does not present a scenario in which
 remand would be appropriate because we have “upheld
 fewer than all the charges against an employee.” Guise v.
 Dep’t of Just., 330 F.3d 1376, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Our
 decision in Guise teaches that in such a situation, the
 agency’s selected penalty may be called into question.
 Hathaway v. Dep’t of Just., 384 F.3d 1342, 1353 (Fed. Cir.
 2004). Here, having sustained all charges, we do not un-
 derstand the Guise rule to be controlling.
     To the extent the Guise rule applies in equal force to
 the present case, where we have sustained fewer than all
 specifications of the falsification charge, “when the agency
 makes . . . clear before the Board” that “the agency itself
 would have imposed the same penalty on the basis of the
 sustained charges that it chose on the basis of the combined
 charges,” the agency’s chosen penalty is entitled to defer-
 ence. Lachance v. Devall, 178 F.3d 1246, 1259 (Fed. Cir.
 1999). Treasury’s removal decision viewed as aggravating
 factors that Mr. Erb “had been specifically advised in the
 past on the need for proper timecard entry” and was “on
 notice about how to properly code and validate [his] time
 card.” J.A. 215–16. The removal decision emphasized that
 the seriousness of Mr. Erb’s misconduct, and, in particular,
 “the repetitive nature of [his] conduct (including multiple
 specifications for [the falsification] charge []) support[ed] a
 penalty of removal.” Id. at 216. Treasury additionally de-
 termined removal to be consistent with the FinCEN Table
 of Penalties, id. at 216, and Mr. Erb on appeal does not dis-
 pute that the Table of Penalties deems removal to be
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 ERB v. TREASURY                                              13

 reasonable for even a single falsification offense. 3 Con-
 sistent with the reasoning for declining to mitigate the pen-
 alty articulated in Treasury’s decision, our opinion today
 leaves undisturbed Treasury’s findings with respect to ear-
 lier concerns with Mr. Erb’s conduct, sustains both
 charges, and, in sustaining multiple specifications of the
 falsification charge, confirms the repetitive nature of
 Mr. Erb’s misconduct. Mr. Erb on appeal identifies noth-
 ing suggesting that Treasury would have reached a differ-
 ent result absent the six other specifications underlying the
 falsification charge. We thus see no basis for overturning
 Treasury’s selected penalty of removal.
                          CONCLUSION
      We have considered Mr. Erb’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 affirm the Board’s decision to affirm Treasury’s removal of
 Mr. Erb.
                         AFFIRMED

     3    Oral Arg. at 45:48–47:18 (available at
 https://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=21
 -1756_12042023.mp3) (describing that FinCEN’s Table of
 Penalties indicated removal was within the appropriate
 range of penalties for first, second, and third offenses of fal-
 sification of government records).