Court Opinion

ID: 9491839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:25:10.90698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:58.248426
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority opinion as to Parts I to V. I write separately because I believe that it is unnecessary to remand the case to the district court to consider, for the third time, appellants’ financial condition. Based on the record before us on appeal, I would conclude that appellant Aramony easily has sufficient assets to pay his assessed fine of $300,000, particularly in light of the fact (not even mentioned by the majority) that a district court recently awarded him some $2.37 million in pension benefits. See Aramony v. United Way of Am., 28 F.Supp.2d 147 (S.D.N.Y.1998). Although, as Aramony correctly notes, a sentencing court cannot garnish pension benefits to satisfy a fine, see Guidry v. Sheet Metal Workers Nat’l Pension Fund, 493 U.S. 365, 371-77, 110 S.Ct. 680, 107 L.Ed.2d 782 (1990), a court can take such benefits into account in assessing a defendant’s overall income stream, and therefore his prospective ability to pay, cf. United States v. Gresham, 964 F.2d 1426, 1430 (4th Cir.1992) (holding that value of a defendant’s home could be taken into account in determining defendant’s ability to pay fine, even if government could not presently enforce judgment lien against home). I would also conclude that appellant Merlo, despite his current zero to slightly negative net worth, is likely to become able to pay his assessed fine of $30,000, especially in view of the fact that his base salary, before bonuses, in the year prior to his conviction was $165,-000. See Sealed Supplemental Appendix at 84.
In reaching these conclusions, I recognize that, upon resentencing, the probation officer did not revise those portions of her presen-tencing reports in which she considered the financial condition of the appellants, and that the district court made no additional factual findings in this regard. However, as the majority notes in its factual recitation but fails to appreciate in its substantive discussion, see ante at 3, we remanded this case to the district court only for the purpose of recalculating appellants’ base offense levels on account of our reversal of their convictions for money laundering. See United States v. Aramony, 88 F.3d 1369, 1392 (4th Cir.1996). And, moreover, at least Aramony’s ability to pay, based upon public court records filed by the parties as to which we may take judicial notice and unmentioned by the majonty, is demonstrably far greater today than it was at the time of the original sentencing. Rather than assign the district court (whose time, it bears remembering, is precious) the niggling task of resubstantiating the fine of one man whose net worth is several times the amount of fine imposed and the fine of another man whose professional background manifestly renders him able to pay the relatively insignificant fine assessed against him, I would simply conclude that the district court’s finding regarding appellants’ ability to pay is amply supported by the record before us. Accordingly, insofar as the major*667ity opinion remands this ease yet again to the district court, I respectfully dissent.