Court Opinion

ID: 9555498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-13 02:01:47.137422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:35:59.140030
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023    Pg: 1 of 15

                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-4093

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        CONTESSA DEE WILLIAMS,

                            Defendant – Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern of Virginia, at Newport News.
        Roderick Charles Young, District Judge. (4:19−cr−00019−RCY−LRL−9)

        Submitted: March 27, 2023                                         Decided: August 11, 2023

        Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Chief Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge
        Richardson and Senior Judge Traxler joined.

        ON BRIEF: Andrew M. Sacks, SACKS & SACKS, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellant.
        Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, Aidan Grano-Mickelsen, Assistant United States
        Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, D. Mack Coleman, Assistant United States Attorney, Eric
        M. Hurt, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
        ATTORNEY, Newport News, Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093         Doc: 38        Filed: 08/11/2023    Pg: 2 of 15

        DIAZ, Chief Judge:

                  A jury convicted Contessa Williams of conspiring to distribute heroin and launder

        money. The district court applied a mitigating-role reduction based on Williams’s limited

        role in the heroin conspiracy and sentenced her to a within-Guidelines sentence of 168

        months’ imprisonment. Williams challenges the sufficiency of the evidence for both

        convictions and argues her sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We

        affirm.

                                                      I.

                                                      A.

                  Williams met her codefendant Tracy Hall in 2013. They formed a romantic

        partnership and Hall moved into Williams’s Virginia home soon after.

                  Williams knew Hall was a fugitive who had been on the run for four years. But she

        was initially in the dark about his large-scale heroin operation, as Hall told Williams he

        was selling only marijuana. Williams learned the truth when she found heroin in their

        washer and dryer. She was initially “kind of angry” and told Hall to get the heroin “out of

        the house.” J.A. 225–26. But Hall explained that the drugs paid the bills, and Williams

        acquiesced.

                  As it turned out, the drug sales greatly benefited the couple’s finances. Williams

        and Hall moved to Atlanta with their children, and Hall used drug proceeds to buy a large

        home. Later, $200,000 was stolen from that home, reflecting the considerable cash the

                                                      2
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093       Doc: 38            Filed: 08/11/2023   Pg: 3 of 15

        couple had on hand. And Hall bought tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry for himself

        and Williams.

               Hall led the drug conspiracy and made regular trips to the Northeast to obtain

        kilogram-level quantities of heroin. His cousin, Marcus Joe, sometimes joined him on

        supply runs. Joe then distributed the drugs in Virginia through a network of street-level

        dealers, including Hall’s father and other family members. In the years after Hall and

        Williams moved to Atlanta, the group distributed between 50 and 54 kilograms of heroin

        and took in $1.5 million in profits.

               Despite her initial misgivings, Williams eventually joined the heroin conspiracy.

        She never sold drugs (though she did accompany Hall on one or two trips to resupply). Her

        main role was financial. When Joe brought drug proceeds to Hall and Williams’s home

        every two weeks, Williams helped Hall count the money by hand and with a money-

        counting machine.

               Williams also provided access to the banking system, which Hall couldn’t use

        because he was a fugitive. She began making large cash deposits into both personal and

        business accounts just months after she started dating Hall, at a time when her direct-

        deposit payments from legitimate work were decreasing.

               Williams’s finances had other suspicious inconsistencies.         For example, she

        reported on a 2014 personal bankruptcy petition that she had just $200 in savings and an

        $1,800 monthly income. But later that year, she deposited over $18,000 into a personal

        account within just two months. Williams used that account to pay for phones, cars, and

        residences used by the drug conspiracy.

                                                        3
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38          Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 4 of 15

               Hall and Williams laundered drug proceeds through a liquor store they bought in

        Atlanta. The store was in Williams’s name and the money to buy it came from Williams’s

        business account. That account saw deposits of around $90,000 in the months after

        Williams opened it, including around $40,000 in cash.

               Hall and Williams developed a scheme to transfer the remaining money to the

        account while avoiding detection by money-laundering prevention systems. Working

        through Joe, they distributed cash drug proceeds to family and friends. Those individuals

        used the money to fund personal and cashier’s checks, which were deposited in Williams’s

        account as “investments” in the liquor business.

               Nearly $40,000 in funds entered Williams’s business account in this way. And the

        use of cashier’s checks (rather than making cash deposits directly into the account) allowed

        the conspirators to avoid triggering currency-reporting requirements for the business

        account.

               In the end, however, the scheme’s traces were clear. Many of the “investors” had

        financial difficulties inconsistent with the liquidity needed for their purported investments.

        And each investment came with suspicious banking activity.

               For example, one couple sent nearly $20,000 to Williams’s business account in a

        month, all while under a Chapter 13 repayment plan. One day, the couple made four cash

        deposits totaling $3,000 and then drew a cashier’s check for the same amount. On another

        occasion, the couple deposited $6,000 in cash and the next day wrote Williams a personal

        check for the same amount.

                                                      4
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38          Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 5 of 15

               Williams took on an increased role in the drug conspiracy after Hall was arrested on

        his outstanding warrants. Hall’s phone (with his supplier’s number) was seized during his

        arrest. So Williams arranged a three-way call where Hall gave Joe his phone security

        information, allowing Joe to get a new phone with the same number and contact the

        supplier. Since Hall dialed in from jail, that call was recorded. The recording shows the

        conspirators discussed the importance of Hall’s phone to reach “the people up top” (which

        Hall later explained meant “the connection [he] was getting the drugs from, from

        Massachusetts”). J.A. 252.

               In Hall’s absence, Joe delivered the drug proceeds to Williams.            Eventually,

        Williams began traveling from Georgia to Virginia to pick up money from Joe. One trip

        led to a Virginia traffic stop where authorities seized more than $20,000 in drug proceeds.

                                                     B.

                                                      1.

               Williams was charged alongside several coconspirators with (1) conspiracy to

        distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and

        846, and (2) conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h).

        Hall and Joe took plea deals and testified against Williams at trial. Williams didn’t testify,

        but the purported liquor-store investors testified in her defense, maintaining that their

        contributions were legitimate.

               At the close of the government’s case, Williams moved for a judgment of acquittal

        under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, which the district court denied. After

        presenting her defense, she renewed her motion with the same result.

                                                      5
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093       Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023      Pg: 6 of 15

               The jury found Williams guilty on both counts.

                                                      2.

               The presentence report grouped Williams’s counts of conviction under U.S.S.G.

        § 3D1.2(a), and her Guidelines calculation was driven by the drug conspiracy, see U.S.S.G

        § 2S1.1(a)(1). Based on Hall’s testimony that the conspiracy distributed between 50 and

        54 kilograms after he and Williams moved to Atlanta, the presentence report attributed 50

        kilograms of heroin to Williams. That gave Williams a base offense level of 36. She

        received a two-level enhancement related to money laundering and had a criminal history

        category of I, resulting in a guideline range of 235 to 293 months.

               Williams objected to the 50-kilogram drug weight, arguing that the evidence was

        insufficient because Hall and Joe testified that she wasn’t involved in day-to-day drug

        sales. The district court overruled her objection, finding it “irrelevant that [Williams] never

        handled the drugs” and concluding that the evidence showed “the conspiracy distributed

        50 kilograms or more of heroin.” J.A. 935.

               Williams also objected to the presentence report’s conclusion that she didn’t qualify

        for a mitigating-role reduction. Here, the district court agreed with her. The court

        acknowledged that Williams had a major role in the money-laundering conspiracy. But it

        determined that Williams’s sentencing exposure was driven by the drug conspiracy, and it

        found her role in that conspiracy to be more limited. The court’s minor-role finding

        reduced Williams’s offense level by five. As a result, her guideline range fell to 135 to

        168 months.

                                                      6
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 7 of 15

               The government sought an upward variance to 180 months and Williams sought a

        downward variance to the mandatory minimum of 120 months. The district court imposed

        concurrent sentences of 168 months on both counts.

               This appeal followed.

                                                    II.

               Williams contends that there was insufficient evidence to sustain her conspiracy

        convictions and that her 168-month within-Guidelines sentence is procedurally and

        substantively unreasonable. We consider her convictions before turning to her sentence.

                                                    A.

               We review the district court’s denial of Williams’s Rule 29 motions de novo,

        considering whether each conviction is supported by “substantial evidence.” United States

        v. Colon, 64 F.4th 589, 594 n.5 (4th Cir. 2023). We view the trial evidence in the light

        most favorable to the prosecution. United States v. Robertson, 68 F.4th 855, 862 (4th Cir.

        2023). 1 And we reverse only if “no reasonable juror could have found the essential

        elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (cleaned up).

               1
                The district court denied Williams’s Rule 29 motion after the government’s case
        and then Williams put on a defense before renewing her motion. The government argues
        we should therefore consider all the evidence (including the testimony of Williams’s
        witnesses) and do so in the light most favorable to the government. See Appellee’s Br. at
        23 n.3; cf. United States v. Gray, 405 F.3d 227, 237 (4th Cir. 2005) (explaining that we
        may not consider defense evidence in a different situation: when the district court reserves
        judgment on a Rule 29 motion made at the close of the government’s case). Williams
        doesn’t contest this argument, and in fact relies on her defense evidence in her appeal, so
        we take the government’s suggested approach.

                                                     7
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093       Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023      Pg: 8 of 15

                                                      1.

               Williams first challenges her conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possess

        with intent to distribute heroin.

               To convict Williams, the government had to prove: (1) that Williams entered an

        agreement with at least one other person to distribute and possess with intent to distribute

        heroin, (2) that Williams knew the agreement’s purpose, and (3) that knowing that purpose,

        Williams voluntarily joined the conspiracy. United States v. Hickman, 626 F.3d 756, 763

        (4th Cir. 2010) (citing 21 U.S.C. § 846).

               Williams argues that Hall and Joe “substantially exonerated” her by testifying that

        she wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operations of selling heroin. Appellant’s Br. at 8.

        And she contends that Hall’s testimony implicating her in the conspiracy was “hopelessly

        inconsistent,” “inexplicable, and inherently incredible as a matter of law.” Id. at 9. Neither

        argument persuades.

                                                      a.

               Williams’s first argument fails because each conspirator doesn’t have to “agree to

        commit or facilitate each and every part of the substantive offense.” Salinas v. United

        States, 522 U.S. 52, 63 (1997). The conspirators may instead “have a plan which calls for

        some conspirators to perpetrate the crime and others to provide support.” Id. at 64. In that

        case, “the supporters are as guilty as the perpetrators.” Id.

               The government presented sufficient evidence for the jury to find that Williams

        knew Hall and Joe were distributing heroin and voluntarily agreed to support their efforts.

        Williams learned that Hall was selling heroin when she found it in their washer and dryer.

                                                      8
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093       Doc: 38        Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 9 of 15

               Although initially upset, Williams eventually joined the conspiracy. She received

        and counted drug proceeds, provided access to the banking system, and opened a liquor

        store using laundered funds. She also used her bank accounts (padded by cash from heroin

        sales) to pay for phones, vehicles, and residences used by the conspiracy. And she

        accompanied Hall on resupply trips and then helped reestablish contact with their supplier

        after Hall was jailed.

               We’ve affirmed drug-conspiracy convictions based on similar evidence. In United

        States v. Kennedy, we upheld a conviction where the defendant “ran drug-related errands

        for [a conspiracy’s leader] and assisted [the leader] in his efforts to collect money from

        other drug distributors.” 32 F.3d 876, 886 (4th Cir. 1994). And in United States v. Hatcher,

        we upheld a conviction where the defendant’s coconspirators sold drugs in front of him,

        stored drugs and drug-related funds in his home, and had the defendant drive them to pick

        up cocaine. 132 F. App’x 468, 478–79 (4th Cir. 2005).

               Taken in the light most favorable to the government, a rational juror could have

        found that the evidence established that Williams knew Hall and Joe were engaged in

        heroin distribution and voluntarily agreed to join their efforts. That’s enough to affirm

        Williams’s conviction, even if she never sold drugs.

                                                     b.

               We aren’t persuaded otherwise by Williams’s argument that Hall’s testimony is

        “hopelessly inconsistent and contradictory.” Appellant’s Br. at 9.

               To start, when assessing the sufficiency of the evidence, we don’t second-guess the

        jury’s witness-credibility determinations. See United States v. Barronette, 46 F.4th 177,

                                                     9
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 10 of 15

        205 (4th Cir. 2022) (“A reviewing court is not entitled to assess the credibility of

        witnesses.” (cleaned up)). Instead, “we assume that the jury resolved any conflicting

        evidence in the prosecution’s favor.” United States v. Savage, 885 F.3d 212, 219 (4th Cir.

        2018) (cleaned up).

               Moreover, we don’t agree that Hall’s testimony was “hopelessly inconsistent.”

        Williams first points out that Hall’s testimony that Williams “didn’t want any drugs around

        her” was contradicted by his later testimony that Williams “want[ed] heroin around her.”

        J.A. 301. But Hall reconciled these statements, explaining that Williams was initially angry

        about the drugs but softened once she learned they were his main source of income.

               Williams next argues that Hall told her sister that he “never did nothing for

        [Williams] with no liquor store” and later disavowed that statement at trial. J.A. 302. But

        Hall explained that he lied to Williams’s sister because he was “trying to get money” from

        Williams in exchange for “not testifying against her.” J.A. 290, 302.

               The jury could have believed Hall’s explanations for his conflicting statements, and

        it’s not our job to second-guess its determinations.

                                                     2.

               Williams next challenges her conviction for conspiracy to commit money

        laundering.

               We will affirm if there is substantial evidence that (1) Williams and at least one

        other person agreed to commit the crime of money laundering; (2) Williams knew of the

        agreement’s unlawful purpose; and (3) Williams joined in the agreement willfully with

        intent to further the unlawful purpose. United States v. Alerre, 430 F.3d 681, 693–94 (4th

                                                     10
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093       Doc: 38        Filed: 08/11/2023      Pg: 11 of 15

        Cir. 2005).    Money laundering is conducting or attempting to conduct a financial

        transaction involving the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—here, the conspiracy to

        distribute heroin. Id. at 693.

               Williams attacks her conviction on three grounds. First, she argues that “the lack of

        evidence supporting [her] membership in a heroin conspiracy[] equally attenuate[s] any

        alleged connection between her and the money laundering.” Appellant’s Br. at 12. Second,

        she points to Joe’s testimony that he didn’t communicate with her about the liquor store.

        Third, she says her investor-witnesses’ testimony undermined the government’s case. We

        find that substantial evidence supports her conviction.

               Williams’s first argument fails because, as discussed, there was sufficient evidence

        to connect her to the heroin conspiracy.

               Her second argument fares no better. True, Joe answered “No” when asked if he

        had any “direct communications with Ms. Williams about starting the [liquor] store.” J.A.

        409. But the context of that testimony shows Joe’s answer may have been limited to an

        occasion when he delivered a document to Williams through Hall; it’s not clear that Joe

        meant he never communicated with Williams about the store.

               More importantly, Joe’s testimony says nothing about whether Williams and Hall

        agreed to commit money laundering. And Hall testified that he and Williams came up with

        the plan to distribute the drug proceeds to individual “investors.” J.A. 235–36.

               Williams’s third argument focuses on her defense witnesses—the purported liquor-

        store investors—who testified that their contributions were legitimate. She argues her

        witnesses were “substantially unimpeached.” Appellant’s Br. at 12. But the government’s

                                                    11
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38          Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 12 of 15

        financial analyst testified about the financial difficulties faced by Williams’s witnesses,

        casting doubt on their ability to access such large cash flows. He also detailed the

        accompanying cash deposits and explained how using cashier’s checks would avoid

        triggering currency-reporting requirements.

               In essence, Williams asks us to weigh this conflicting testimony and find her

        witnesses more believable. But under the substantial evidence standard, “we must assume

        that the jury resolved all contradictions” in the government’s favor. Barronette, 46 F.4th

        at 205 (cleaned up). And taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the government,

        a rational juror could have found that Williams conspired to commit money laundering.

                                                      B.

               We turn now to Williams’s within-Guidelines sentence, which she contends is both

        procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We disagree on both fronts.

                                                      1.

               Williams argues her sentence is procedurally unreasonable because there was

        insufficient evidence to support her attributed drug weight.

               “We review the district court’s calculation of the quantity of drugs attributable to a

        defendant for sentencing purposes for clear error.” United States v. Williamson, 953 F.3d

        264, 272 (4th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up). In cases without a drug seizure, the district court

        should “approximate the quantity of the controlled substance” and has “considerable

        leeway” in doing so. Id. at 273 (cleaned up).

               We find no clear error in the district court’s attribution of 50 kilograms of heroin to

        Williams. The district court based its finding on Hall’s testimony that the conspiracy

                                                      12
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38          Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 13 of 15

        distributed “50 to 54 [kilograms] of heroin” after he and Williams moved to Atlanta. J.A.

        289. We’ve upheld reliance on accomplice testimony in prior cases, emphasizing defense

        counsel’s opportunity for cross-examination, which occurred here. See Williamson, 953

        F.3d at 272–73. And the district court observed Hall at trial and apparently found him

        credible.

               Williams contends that the district court relied on only “a single strand of

        testimony.” Appellant’s Br. at 15. But that’s not true. Hall’s testimony on drug quantity

        matched his testimony that he made $1.5 million selling heroin after moving to Atlanta.

        J.A. 379; see also J.A. 220 (“Off of a kilo . . . I make 20- to $30,000 profit.”). 2 And there

        was other evidence pointing to the conspiracy’s scale.

               Hall testified that he purchased the liquor store and expensive jewelry with drug

        proceeds and admitted that $200,000 was stolen from his and Williams’s home. And the

        government’s financial analyst testified that he couldn’t identify a legitimate source for the

        large cash deposits in Williams’s accounts or the money used to start the liquor store.

        While not as specific, this evidence lends credibility to Hall’s 50-kilogram estimate. And

        it shows that the conspiracy’s scale was foreseeable to Williams.

               We’re no more persuaded by Williams’s contention that there isn’t enough

        “evidence . . . as to exactly when these 50 kilograms were distributed” to tie the quantity

               2
                The court may “use street values to calculate an amount of drugs equivalent to
        large sums of money seized from defendants” as long as it doesn’t double count testimony
        on drug quantities and proceeds. United States v. Uwaeme, 975 F.2d 1016, 1019 (4th Cir.
        1992).

                                                     13
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 14 of 15

        to Williams. Appellant’s Br. at 14–15. Hall made the 50-kilogram estimate in response to

        a specific question about distribution after he and Williams moved to Atlanta. See J.A.

        289. So the estimate was time-bound. And as the government argues, it was likely

        “conservative,” Appellee’s Br. at 35, because Hall testified that Williams learned he was

        selling drugs while they lived in Virginia.

               The district court avoided uncertainty by focusing on the period for which it had

        specific testimony from Hall.      It didn’t procedurally err in calculating Williams’s

        attributable drug quantity.

                                                      2.

               Williams contends that her sentence was substantively unreasonable for two

        reasons.   Returning to her arguments about drug weight, she says it was “grossly

        disproportionate” to treat her like Hall, who played a more significant role in the drug

        conspiracy than Williams. Appellant’s Br. at 15. And she says her “lifelong law-abiding

        status” renders her 168-month sentence unreasonable as a matter of law. Id. at 16.

               Williams faces an uphill battle. Her sentence was within the guideline range, so it’s

        presumptively reasonable, and it’s her burden to rebut that presumption based on the

        sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306

        (4th Cir. 2014). We conclude she hasn’t done so.

               True, the district court attributed the same drug quantity to both Williams and Hall.

        But that’s how the Guidelines work: A defendant is responsible for “all acts and omissions

        of others that were (i) within the scope of [] jointly undertaken criminal activity, (ii) in

        furtherance of that criminal activity, and (iii) reasonably foreseeable in connection with

                                                      14
USCA4 Appeal: 22-4093      Doc: 38         Filed: 08/11/2023     Pg: 15 of 15

        that criminal activity.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B). Plus, Williams received a five offense-

        level reduction based on her minor role in the drug conspiracy. So while she and Hall had

        the same drug weight, they didn’t have the same guideline range. And in the end, Hall

        received 295 months’ imprisonment to Williams’s 168.

               Williams’s limited criminal history was also considered in her guideline range,

        through her criminal history category.

               The district court considered the § 3553(a) factors and found a sentence at the top

        of the range was justified. It emphasized the drug conspiracy’s seriousness and scope and

        Williams’s role in facilitating its operations.     And while the court acknowledged

        Williams’s education, prior legitimate employment, and law-abiding history, it found those

        factors also suggested she wasn’t a naïve or unwitting participant. See J.A. 984 (“It is

        stunning . . . that someone of her education would do with those bank accounts what she

        was doing.”).

               The court’s chosen sentence was substantively reasonable, and we won’t disturb it.

                                                   III.

               Williams’s convictions are supported by substantial evidence, and we find no error

        in her within-Guidelines sentence. We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. We

        dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately

        presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid in our decision.

                                                                                      AFFIRMED

                                                    15