Court Opinion

ID: 9912479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-22 17:00:45.130105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:59:32.109643
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                             For the Eighth Circuit
                         ___________________________

                                 No. 23-1362
                         ___________________________

                             United States of America

                                       Plaintiff - Appellee

                                         v.

                               Bradley Jon Matheny

                                    Defendant - Appellant
                                  ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                 for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids
                                  ____________

                          Submitted: December 11, 2023
                            Filed: December 22, 2023
                                  [Unpublished]
                                  ____________

Before GRUENDER, GRASZ, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

PER CURIAM.

      Bradley Jon Matheny was convicted of seven counts of forging or
counterfeiting postage stamps and three counts of smuggling. See United States v.
Matheny, 42 F.4th 837, 840 (8th Cir. 2022). At sentencing, the district court ordered
Matheny to pay $256,441.78 in restitution to the United States Postal Service
(“USPS”). Id. at 841. We vacated the restitution order and remanded after
concluding that the restitution amount must be based solely on the USPS’s loss from
packages with forged labels. See id. at 845-46. On remand, the district court1
entered an amended judgment ordering Matheny to pay $192,330.00 in restitution
to the USPS, representing 75% of the original award. Matheny appeals, arguing that
the correct amount of restitution is $168,210.78, or 65.6% of the original award.

       “We review . . . the district court’s factual findings about the amount of loss
for clear error.” United States v. Garbacz, 33 F.4th 459, 473 (8th Cir. 2022). “The
Government has the burden to prove the amount of restitution based on a
preponderance of the evidence, and a restitution award is limited to the victim’s
provable actual loss.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
“However, a district court is charged only with reasonably estimating the loss when
the amount lost through fraud is difficult to estimate.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).

       In calculating the restitution amount, the district court relied on a USPS
review of Matheny’s packages. Neither party disputes using the USPS review to
calculate restitution. During the USPS review, Matheny shipped 2,898 total
packages, of which 384 were posted correctly, 613 had genuine labels but
“underweighted” the package by listing a lighter weight than the package’s actual
weight, and 1,901 had forged labels—which included an indeterminate number of
labels that also underweighted the package. Combined, these 1,901 packages with
forged labels and 613 packages with genuine but underweighted labels—2,514
packages altogether—formed the basis for the district court’s calculation of the
USPS’s total loss of $256,441.78. The 1,901 packages with forged labels
represented 75.62% of the 2,514 total packages. In reaching its conclusion that the
correct amount of restitution was $192,330.00, the district court reduced the
restitution amount to 75% of the USPS’s total loss. Because the district court

      1
        The Honorable C.J. Williams, United States District Judge for the Northern
District of Iowa.

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“reasonably estimate[ed] the loss” from packages with forged labels, it did not
clearly err in making its restitution calculation. See id.

       Matheny also argues that we should apply the rule of lenity, but we consider
the rule of lenity only in the case of “a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty.” United
States v. Buford, 54 F.4th 1066, 1068 (8th Cir. 2022) (quoting Donnell v. United
States, 765 F.3d 817, 820 (8th Cir. 2014)), cert. denied, 601 U.S. ---, 2023 WL
6378211 (Oct. 2, 2023) (No. 22-7660). That is not the case here.

      Affirmed.
                       ______________________________

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