Court Opinion

ID: 9486388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:46:54.167123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:42.109595
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.
Everett D. Seacott pled guilty to one count of willfully misapplying bank funds in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 657. Pursuant to the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.” or “Guidelines”), the district court ruled that the sentencing range applicable to Seacott was 15-21 months of imprisonment. The district court then departed downward from the Guidelines range and sentenced the defendant to four months in a work release center and four months of home detention. The Government appeals the sentence, arguing that the district court erred in departing from the Guidelines range. 18 U.S.C. § 3742(b). We vacate Seacott’s sentence and remand for resentencing.
I.
A. Criminal Conduct
Seacott was the Lampeo branch manager/loan officer in Gas City, Indiana, from January 6,1988 to February 1,1989. One of the Lampeo loans under Seacott’s supervision was made to Newton Nichols, the owner of the Glass Bar tavern in Gas City, Indiana. The loan was for roughly $170,000. Since 1986, the Glass Bar had been battered by an economic decline in the Gas City area. Sea-cott advised Nichols to sell the tavern. Nichols listed the Glass Bar for sale, but needed operating capital while he searched for a buyer. Seacott could not authorize loans directly to Nichols sufficient to keep the Glass Bar operating. The defendant got around this problem by (1) loaning Nichols between $4,000-$5,000 of his own money and (2) by approving Lampeo loans to persons he knew would funnel the money to Nichols and the Glass Bar. The first method was charity; the second was a violation of federal law. Seacott approved nine illegal loans totalling $78,572.62 to five individuals connected to Nichols and the Glass Bar. The documentation for those transactions falsely stated that the loan amount was to be used to purchase real estate, pay for home improvements, and purchase automobiles. The loan documents also claimed that the loans were secured by the assets they were being used to purchase. The loaned money was not used for the purposes stated in the loan documentation. Instead, the money was used as operating capital for the Glass Bar, to pay off loans the named borrowers had initially obtained to provide funds for the Glass Bar, and to reimburse to Seacott roughly $1,400 of the amount he had personally lent to Nichols and the Glass Bar.
*1383B. District Court Proceedings
Seaeott pled guilty to one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 657 in connection with the misapplication of the Lampeo funds. The Probation Department, using the 1990 version of the Guidelines, arrived at Seacott’s adjusted offense level by starting with a base offense level of four, U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(a); adding eight levels because the loss to the victim (Lampeo) was between $70,000 and $120,000, U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 (b)(l)(I); adding two levels because the offense involved more than minimal planning, U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(5); adding two levels because the defendant abused a position of public trust, U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3; and subtracting two levels because the defendant accepted responsibility for his crime, U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. The defendant’s adjusted offense level was thus 14, and with a criminal history category of I, the Guidelines dictated imprisonment for 15-21 months. The Probation Department advised the district court that a departure from the Guidelines range was not warranted.
At the sentencing hearing, the district court accepted the Probation Department’s calculation of the defendant’s adjusted base offense level and agreed that the applicable Guidelines range was 15-21 months imprisonment. The district court, however, ruled that a downward departure from the Guidelines range was appropriate in Seacott’s case for two reasons. First, Seaeott was not motivated by “self gain” in misapplying Lampco’s money, but rather by a desire that one of Lampco’s business debtors, the Glass Bar, not default on its loan. In support of this ruling, the court found that Seacptt “did not benefit personally by any of these transactions ... and that everything he did with respect to these loans were done to preserve his customer/employer status and to keep the loan afloat so that if economic conditions recovered ... that his employer, in fact, would make good on these loans.” The court’s second reason for departing downward was its view that “the primary objective in the sentencing in this case .... is to try to provide for the restitution to the victim ...” so that the sentence will be the “most beneficial to the victim, the defendant and the taxpayers.” The court then announced that Seaeott would serve four months in the custody of the Bureaus of Prisons in a work release center and “be allowed to leave the facility for work purposes only. Four months shall be spent under home detention as a condition of supervised release.” The court also ordered the defendant to pay restitution for the net loss suffered by Lampeo. After the court sentenced Seaeott, the Government prosecutor asked the court whether it had “announee[d] what the [Guidelines] offense level was subsequent to your downward departure.” The court responded, “if the Probation Department can tell me what quantum of departure I need to show to reflect this sentence, I’ll do it. The sentence is the sentence.” After a colloquy among the prosecutor, defense .attorney, and probation officer, the court determined that it would depart downward four levels to level 10 in order to reach the sentence it had previously imposed.
II. Analysis
A. The Applicable Guidelines
The first question we address is which version of the Guidelines is applicable to the defendant. This issue was not raised by either party, but given its potential importance to the defendant we requested supplemental briefing from both parties.1 When an issue is not raised by a party, our review is limited to plain error. “Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b); United States v. Kopshever, 6 F.3d 1218, 1222 (7th Cir.1993) (although ex post facto problem not raised at sentencing, “the gravity of the constitutional concerns” warranted addressing the issue for the first time on *1384appeal); United States v. Belanger, 936 F.2d 916, 920 (7th Cir.1991) (remand compelled after court discovered sua sponte a sentencing error); cf. United States v. Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, 627-28 (7th Cir.1992) (vacating defendant’s sentence on the basis of ex post facto violation raised for the first time in a reply brief).
Contrary to the contention of the concurrence that we have taken a “detour” by “roving” through the record in search of error, we are merely exercising judicial discretion to rectify a constitutional harm that all other circuits have previously recognized and acted upon to correct. In the instant case the harm is not only to the defendant, Seacott, but to the criminal justice system as a whole, i.e., by preventing the prospect of future defendants serving extra prison time (reducing overcrowding in our prison system) as well as by curbing needless future litigation on this issue. The concurrence further maintains that because the statute (18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)) “is not screechingly unconstitutional” we should refrain from passing judgment on it. While we have been unable to discover any legal precedent for the newly created “screechingly unconstitutional” doctrine, we do know that after receiving supplemental briefing on the subject from both parties (in response to the concurring judge’s request that we not address the ex post facto problem without further briefing from the parties), we can confidently say that retroactive application of a harsher sentencing guideline contravenes the' very purpose of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Finally, the concurrence expresses concern that the ex post facto issue does not “matter[] to the judgment.” We fail to understand this argument for we are unaware of anyone who would maintain that even one additional hour of confinement, much less a day or week of confinement, “does not matter.”
As a general rule, a district court must sentence a defendant based on the Guidelines in effect on the date of sentencing. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4). However, as we recently noted, “every circuit except our own has held that the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution prohibits application of a guidelines provision not in effect on the date of the offense if the new provision operates to the detriment of the defendant.” United States v. Harris, 994 F.2d 412, 416 n. 9 (7th Cir.1993). United States v. Schnell, 982 F.2d 216, 218 (7th Cir.1992), lists representative eases so holding from each of the other eleven circuits. Many of our cases have stated this proposition in dicta. See, e.g., United States v. Willey, 985 F.2d 1342, 1350 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Foutris, 966 F.2d 1158, 1160 (7th Cir.1992); United States v. Golden, 954 F.2d 1413, 1417 (7th Cir.1992). Compare United States v, Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, 627-28 (7th Cir.1992) (invalidating on ex post facto grounds the retroactive application of a criminal statute amended to the detriment of the defendant after the commission of the offense).
This court addressed the ex post facto question most recently in United States v. Kopshever, in which we stated “[ejxcept for a suggestion by way of dictum in one of our opinions [United States v. Bader, 956 F.2d 708, 709 (7th Cir.1992) ], it has been universally held that when the Sentencing Commission amends the Guidelines to increase the severity of a punishment, the Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits application of the amended Guidelines to crimes performed before the amendment’s effective date....” Kopshever, 6 F.3d at 1222. Rather than resolving the ex post facto problem, Kopshever, remanded the issue to the district court because the record was undeveloped, the government had conceded there was a violation and the issue may have been moot. Id. at 1222-23 & n. 6.
As mentioned in Kopshever, one of our cases has suggested in dicta that retroactive application of guidelines amendments which disadvantage the defendant does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. United States v. Bader, 956 F.2d 708, 709 (7th Cir.1992). The Bader dicta conceded that Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987) “shows that sentencing guidelines may be ‘laws’ for purposes of the ex post facto clause” but argued that “it remains to determine how the laws have changed, and whether the particular change exceeds the constitutional constraint.” Bader, 956 F.2d at 709. Bader then argued that
*1385“[a]lthough the guidelines influence the exercise of discretion within the statutory range, judges may depart at appropriate times. On this understanding, a change in the sentencing guidelines is no different from, say, the institution of a get-tough policy under which the prosecutor no longer accepts guilty pleas to lesser offenses, or the appointment of a new judge who favors longer sentences, or a change in the guidelines for parole, see Prater v. U.S. Parole Commission, 802 F.2d 948 (7th Cir.1986) (in bane), or a decision by the President to cease commuting the sentences of a class of felons. All of these may increase the time a criminal spends in prison without transgressing the ban on ex post facto laws.”
Id. at 709. As pointed out in the Bader dicta, in Prater we held that parole guidelines are not laws subject to the ex post facto clause, but that holding rested on a conclusion that the parole guidelines served an “interpretive rather than legislative” function. Prater, 802 F.2d at 954. The parole guidelines, we explained, “are not the exercise of delegated authority (e.g., to make rules of procedure); they are statements of enforcement policy. They are ... ‘merely guides, and not laws: guides may be discarded where circumstances require; laws may not.’ ” Id. (citation omitted). Under the parole guidelines, “the granting of parole” remained in the exclusive “discretion of the [Parole Commission].” Id. (citation omitted). Bader’s analogy between the parole guidelines (and the other examples it gives of changes which can effect a defendant’s sentence) and the sentencing guidelines is unpersuasive because the sentencing guidelines tightly control the discretion of sentencing courts. As the Eighth Circuit recently explained in United States v. Bell, 991 F.2d 1445 (8th Cir.1993):
“Sentencing courts must impose sentences consistent with the [United States Sentencing] Guidelines; they are not merely a factor to be considered by the sentencing court.... In this sense, the Guidelines represent (in a typical case) additional mínimums and máximums that are superimposed over the mínimums and máxi-mums statutorily enacted by Congress; a court is required to impose a sentence that is both between the applicable statutory minimum/maximum and within the Guideline-generated minimum/maximum.
“In a truly atypical case, a district court is permitted to depart from the guidelines .... Although a court has discretion to grant or deny a departure once a sufficiently unusual circumstance is present, ... appellate courts scrutinize such decisions to insure that the factors relied on are truly of a kind or degree not already considered or rejected by the [Sentencing] Commission.... Thus the district court has no ability to exercise discretion because its power is firmly controlled by the Commission. We conclude that [18 U.S.C. § 3358(b) (authorizing departures)] does not give district courts the degree of discretion to ignore the guidelines sufficient to prevent the obvious conclusion that the guidelines dictate defendants’ sentences.”
Bell, 991 F.2d at 1450.
Applying the ex post facto clause to Sentencing Guideline amendments is consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion in Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987), in which it considered the ex post facto clause in connection with Florida’s sentencing guidelines. At the time the petitioner in Miller committed the crime for which he was convicted, Florida’s sentencing guidelines would have resulted in a presumptive sentence of 3]/¿ to 4$ years’ imprisonment, but at the time he was sentenced the revised guidelines called for a presumptive sentence of to 7 years in prison. Id. at 424, 107 S.Ct. at 2448. The Florida trial court applied the guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing and imposed a 7-year sentence. Id. The Supreme Court held that the petitioner’s sentence was in violation of the ex post facto clause. Id. at 435-36, 107 S.Ct. at 2453-54. The Court explained that “to fall within the ex post facto prohibition, two critical elements must be present: first, the law ‘must be retrospective, that is, it must apply to events occurring before its enactment’; and second, ‘it must disadvantage the offender affected by it.’” Id. at 430, 107 S.Ct. at 2451 (citation omitted). The Court held that the amended *1386guidelines increasing the petitioner’s sentence contained both critical elements since ex post facto concerns are implicated by “[ejvery law that changes the punishment, inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.” Miller, 482 U.S. at 429, 107 S.Ct. at 2450 (quoting Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798)). The reasoning of Miller is directly applicable to the federal sentencing guidelines, which are substantially similar to Florida’s. We thus join all of our sister circuits in holding that a guideline amendment which occurs after the commission of the defendant’s crime which works to the defendant’s detriment is inapplicable because it is a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause.
The only remaining question is whether the trial court’s application of the 1990 Guidelines was plain error. In light of Miller, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446; Kopshever, 6 F.3d 1218; Willey, 985 F.2d 1342 and Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, as well as the fact that each of the other circuits has determined that retroactive application of amended guidelines resulting in stiffer sentences violates the Ex Post Facto Clause, we are of the opinion that it was plain error for the sentencing court to apply the 1990 Guidelines rather than the 1988 version. The prejudice to the defendant is clear as the 1990 Guidelines resulted in a sentence that was potentially three months longer than under the 1988 Guidelines. See United States v. Olano, — U.S. -,-, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777-78, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (“plain error” must be “clear” and “prejudicial”).
In this case, the district court applied the Guidelines in effect when the defendant was sentenced in October, 1991. As we stated above, under that version of the Guidelines the defendant’s base offense level was increased eight levels because the loss involved was $78,572. U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(l)(I) (1990). However, the Guidelines in effect when Seacott committed his crime in 1988 and early 1989 provided that an offense involving a loss of between $50,001 and $100,-000 triggered a seven level increase in the base offense level. U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(l)(H) (1988). The amendment increasing to eight the offense level adjustment applicable to a crime involving a loss of $78,572 became effective on November 1, 1989, after Seacott committed his crime but before his sentence was imposed. U.S.S.G., App. C at C.51-52 (1989). Under the 1990 Guidelines Seacott’s adjusted offense level is one level higher than under the 1988 Guidelines (fourteen rather than thirteen). Therefore, the 1988 Guidelines, those in effect when Seacott committed his crime, are applicable to him. With an offense level of thirteen and a criminal history category of I, the Guidelines sentencing range applicable to Seacott is 12-18 months, not 15-21 months.
B. The Downward Departure
[5] District courts must impose sentences within the applicable Guidelines range unless the court “finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by ... the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b); see also U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, p.s.; United States v. Frazier, 979 F.2d 1227, 1229 (7th Cir.1992). This court applies a three-step approach in reviewing a sentencing court’s departure from the applicable Guidelines range: (1) we review de novo whether a district court’s stated grounds for departure may be relied upon to justify the departure; (2) we review for clear error whether the facts that support the grounds for departure actually exist in the case; and (3) we review deferentially whether the degree of departure is appropriate. Willey, 985 F.2d at 1349; United States v. Boula, 932 F.2d 651, 655 (7th Cir.1991).
1. The Motive Behind the Crime
We begin by reviewing de novo the district court’s grounds for departing downward four levels from the applicable Guidelines range. The court cited, as a basis for its departure, its view that Seacott was not motivated by “self-gain” in misapplying Lampco’s money, but rather by a desire to see one of Lampco’s borrowers, the Glass Bar, remain financially viable. The district court reasoned that the framers of the Guidelines had not taken into account the possibility that a defendant would misapply funds in *1387violation of 18 U.S.C. § 657 for other than his own pecuniary interests, and that therefore the Guidelines overstated the punishment appropriate to Seacott. This is a legally insufficient reason to depart downward from the applicable Guidelines range.2 The drafters of the Guidelines demonstrated numerous times that when they thought it appropriate to adjust a sentence based on whether the defendant acted with a profit motive, they explicitly directed courts to consider that factor. See, e.g., U.S.S.G. § 2G1.1 (Transportation for the Purpose of Prostitution or Prohibited Sexual Conduct), comment, (n. 1) (“The base offense level assumes that the offense was committed for profit. In the infrequent case where the defendant did not commit the offense for profit and the offense did not involve physical force or coercion, the Commission recommends a downward departure of 8 levels.”); U.S.S.G. § 2H3.1(b)(l) (Interception of Communications or Eavesdropping) (“If the purpose of the conduct was to obtain direct or indirect commercial advantage or economic gain not covered by U.S.S.G. § 2H3.1(a)(2) above, increase by 3 levels.”); U.S.S.G. § 2H3.2(b)(l) (Manufacturing, Distributing, Advertising, or Possessing an Eavesdropping Device) (“If the offense was committed for pecuniary gain, increase by 3 levels”); see also U.S.S.G. § 2Ll.l(b)(l); U.S.S.G. § 2L2.1(b)(l); U.S.S.G. § 2L2.3(b)(l). Given the frequency with which the drafters of the Guidelines specifically adjusted offense levels based on whether the defendant was motivated by profit, we must assume that had they been interested in providing for such an adjustment for § 2B1.1 crimes, they would have done so.
Seacott claims to find support in the commentary to § 2B1.1 for the district court’s reliance on his lack of a profit motive as a grounds for departure. Specifically, he points to language in the commentary to § 2B1.1 which provides that the “value of property taken plays an important role in determining sentences for theft offenses, because it is an indicator of both the harm to the victim and the gain to the defendant,” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, comment, (backg’d).3 Seacott claims that this is evidence that the framers of the Guidelines assumed that in every § 2B1.1 crime there would be harm to the victim as well as gain to the defendant. Because the latter is lacking here, Seacott argues, the district court properly departed downward from the applicable sentencing range. We disagree. The language Seacott cites from the commentary demonstrates that in crafting § 2B1.1 the framers of the Guidelines considered, among other factors, harm to the victim and gain to the defendant. The formulation they believed best reflected these and other considerations was one based explicitly on “loss” (“value of the property taken, damaged or destroyed”): under § 2B1.1, the greater the loss, the longer the prison term. The district court’s focus on the defendant’s lack of a profit motive in this case was thus in direct contravention to the Guidelines’ command to sentence based on loss.
It is not surprising that the Guidelines direct district courts to sentence defendants convicted of crimes like Seacott’s based on the value of the property they take, rather than on their motive for taking it. Persons in positions of authority at financial institutions are entrusted with vast sums of other people’s money. It makes little difference to their victims if these financial managers illegally transfer funds to themselves, to third parties, or if they pile up the money in the parking lot and burn it. The same amount of money has been taken from the victim no matter what the fate of the funds. The aim of the criminal law in this area is to deter misapplication of funds for any reason. The language of Section 2B1.1 recognizes this reality by making the length of the defendant’s prison term a variable based on the amount of property he takes.
*13881 Moreover, as we stated in footnote two, even if we agreed with the district court that the defendant’s motive in misapplying the funds merits a downward departure, we would still reverse the defendant’s sentence because the district court committed clear error in finding that Seacott acted entirely without any motive of self-gain. In order to offset some of the losses he incurred when he loaned his own money to Nichols and the Glass Bar, Seacott diverted to himself roughly $1,400 of the Lampeo funds he fraudulently approved as loans. At least in this transaction, Seacott was misapplying Lampco’s money not just to aid the Glass Bar, but to limit his own losses from the personal loans he had improvidently made. Moreover, Seacott may have been attempting to keep the Glass Bar afloat in order to avoid the delinquency of one of the loans he was supervising, thus protecting his reputation at Lampeo. Seaeott’s own pecuniary interest thus did in fact play a part in his commission of his crime.
2. Restitution to the Victim
The second reason the district court gave for departing downward from the Guidelines sentencing range was to implement what the court termed its “primary [sentencing] objective” of ensuring that Sea-cott could make restitution to Lampeo. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(7), sentencing courts are directed to consider “the need to provide restitution to any victims of the offense.” We have held that this provision is a factor that the district court may consider in sentencing the defendant within the Guidelines range. United States v. Franz, 886 F.2d 973, 979 n. 7 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Barber, 881 F.2d 345, 351 n. 3 (7th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 922, 110 S.Ct. 1956, 109 L.Ed.2d 318 (1990); see also United States v. Bolden, 889 F.2d 1336, 1341 (4th Cir.1989). The question here is whether restitution is a proper ground to be considered to justify departing downward from the Guidelines range. We review this ground for departure de novo. Willey, 985 F.2d at 1349. In United States v. Carey, 895 F.2d 318, 323 (7th Cir.1990), we held that a sentencing court could not base a downward departure on the fact that a defendant made restitution to his victim prior to the adjudication of his guilt. We based our conclusion on the fact that restitution was explicitly considered by the Guidelines as a factor in determining whether a defendant was entitled to a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 comment, (n. 1(b)). Id. The Commentary to § 3E1.1 “demonstrates that the Commission adequately considered restitution as a mitigating circumstance when formulating the Guidelines,” id. at 323, and therefore it is not an appropriate ground for departure. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b) (departures are permissible only when “there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by ... the guidelines”).
In the instant case, unlike Carey, the district court did not reward Seacott for making restitution to Lampeo prior to his adjudication of guilt. Instead, the court reduced Seacott’s sentence in order to give him “the opportunity to make full restitution” to Lampeo and minimize “the cost to the taxpayers.” But if, under Carey, a district court cannot depart downward as a reward for restitution made to the victim, it would make little sense to hold that district courts may depart downward based on the promise of future restitution. Moreover, as the Sixth Circuit has reasoned, “it seems that the Sentencing Commission considered including the ability to make restitution as a possible mitigating circumstance, yet rejected it as a basis for departure from the guidelines” by explicitly stating that socio-economic status is not relevant in the determination of a sentence. See U.S.S.G. § 5H1.10, p.s. United States v. Harpst, 949 F.2d 860, 863 (6th Cir.1991). “[A] rule permitting greater leniency in sentencing in those cases in which restitution is at issue and is a meaningful possibility ... would, we believe, nurture the unfortunate practice of disparate sentencing based on socio-economic status, which the Guidelines were intended to supplant.” Id. at 863. The framers of the Guidelines stated that
“[u]nder [pre-Guidelines] sentencing practice, courts sentence[d] to probation an inappropriately high percentage of offenders guilty of certain economic crimes, such as theft, tax evasion, antitrust offenses, *1389insider trading, fraud, and embezzlement, that in the Commission’s view are ‘serious’. If the guidelines were to permit courts to impose probation instead of prison in many or all such cases, the ... sentences would continue to be ineffective. The Commission’s solution to this problem has been to write guidelines that classify as ‘serious’ (and therefore subject to mandatory prison sentences) many offenses for which probation is now frequently given.”
U.S.S.G. Ch. 1. Pt. A.4(d), pp. 1.8-1.9. Allowing sentencing courts to depart downward based on a defendant’s ability to make restitution would thwart the intent of the guidelines to punish financial crimes through terms of imprisonment by allowing those who could pay to escape prison. It would also create an unconstitutional system where the rich could in effect buy their way out of prison sentences. See Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 672-73, 103 S.Ct. 2064, 2072-73, 76 L.Ed.2d 221 (1983) (“To ... deprive the probationer of his conditional freedom simply because, through no fault of his own, he cannot pay the fine ... would be contrary to the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment.”); Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130 (1971) (violation of the equal protection clause to limit punishment to payment of a fine for those who are able to pay it but to convert the fine to imprisonment for those unable to pay). Thus, a defendant’s ability to make restitution is not grounds for a downward departure under the Guidelines. See also United States v. Bolden, 889 F.2d 1336, 1340-41 (4th Cir.1989) (“[W]e do not think that the economic desirability of attempting to preserve [defendant’s] job so as to enable him to make restitution warrants a downward adjustment from the guidelines”).
3. Method of Departure
Even had the district court given reasons considered to be valid for departing downward from the Guidelines range, we would still vacate the defendant’s sentence because of the manner in which the court arrived at Seacott’s sentence. “Departures, whether upward or downward, must be linked to the structure of the guidelines.” United States v. Thomas, 930 F.2d 526, 530 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 171, 116 L.Ed.2d 134 (1991). In departing from the Guidelines, district courts must
“employ the rationale and methodology of the guidelines when considering cases not adequately addressed by existing guidelines. The sentencing judge is thus required to articulate the specific factors justifying the extent of his departure and to adjust the defendant’s sentence by utilizing an incremental process that quantifies the impact of the factors considered by the court on the defendant’s sentence.”
Id. at 531. “Significant departures — those of more than two levels — must be explained with a care commensurate with their exceptional quality.” United States v. Muzika, 986 F.2d 1050, 1054 (7th Cir.1993) (quoting Thomas, 930 F.2d at 531). In this case, the sentencing transcript reveals that the district court concluded that the defendant should not serve any time in prison, and then departed downward four levels to achieve that result. Thomas makes clear such a method of departing, completely untethered to the structure, rationale or methodology of the Guidelines, is impermissible. “The guidelines must be used as a reference when departing.” United States v. Eiselt, 988 F.2d 677, 680 (7th Cir.1993).
III. Conclusion
The record in this case makes clear that the district court was of the belief that defendants like Seacott should be punished not with prison terms, but by ordering them to earn money to pay restitution to the victims of their financial crimes. This may be a sensible approach, but it is not the law. Departures must “be based on policies found in the guidelines themselves rather than in the personal penal philosophy of the sentencing judge.” United States v. Newman, 965 F.2d 206, 213 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 470, 121 L.Ed.2d 377 (1992). Because the downward departure in this case is inconsistent with the dictates of the Guidelines, we VACATE Seacott’s sentence and REMAND to the district court for resentenc-ing consistent with this opinion.

. In an order dated October 18, 1993, we directed the parties to submit supplemental briefing on whether application of the 1990 Sentencing Guidelines created an ex post facto problem and if it did, whether it was plain error. The government conceded there was an ex post facto violation but maintained it did not rise to the level of plain error because it was not significantly prejudicial. The defendant, however, argued that the ex post facto violation constituted plain error because the error was certain and readily correctable.

. As we make clear below, we believe the district court committed clear error when it found that Seacott committed his crime without any concern for his own economic self-interest. However, for purposes of determining the legal sufficiency of basing a departure on the alleged selflessness of Seacott’s motives, we will assume that he misapplied the funds purely to aid the Glass Bar.

. The commentary defines “loss” as "the value of the property taken, damaged, or destroyed.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, comment, (n. 2).