Court Opinion

ID: 9912526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-22 18:01:02.255037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:17.224699
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       DEC 22 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.    22-50138

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No.
                                                2:19-cr-00036-JAK-1
 v.

MATTHEW GATREL, AKA Fluffy,                     MEMORANDUM*

                Defendant-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Central District of California
                   John A. Kronstadt, District Judge, Presiding

                    Argued and Submitted November 16, 2023
                              Pasadena, California

Before: BYBEE, D.M. FISHER,** and DESAI, Circuit Judges.

      Matthew Gatrel appeals his convictions for conspiracy (in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 371) and damaging and attempting to damage protected computers (in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A)), as well as his sentence of twenty-four

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
            The Honorable D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation.
months’ imprisonment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18

U.S.C. § 3742(a). We affirm his conviction and sentence.

      1. Upon de novo review, sufficient evidence supports Gatrel’s conviction.

See United States v. Hursh, 217 F.3d 761, 767 (9th Cir. 2000). The Government

presented overwhelming evidence that Gatrel conspired to and attempted to

damage protected computers through two web services he operated:

DownThem.org and AmpNode.com. For instance, there was documentary

evidence of Gatrel bragging about his services, explaining their power, and

providing customer support. Whether either service could have caused damage to

protected computers is irrelevant to the sufficiency of evidence, because no actual

damage was required to return a verdict of guilty. United States v. Fleming, 215

F.3d 930, 936 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Factual impossibility is not a defense to an

inchoate offense.”). Taken in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a

reasonable jury could conclude that Gatrel—at the very least—conspired to and

attempted to damage computers. Because the evidence “is adequate to allow ‘any

rational trier of fact [to find] the essential elements of the crime beyond a

reasonable doubt,” we affirm. United States v. Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1164 (9th

Cir. 2010) (en banc) (alteration in original) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S.

307, 319 (1979)).

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      2. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the introduction

of certain evidence. See United States v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1259 (9th Cir.

2009) (en banc). Testimony that DownThem and AmpNode were very similar to

other illegal web services was relevant, probative, and not barred by any

evidentiary rule. Cf. United States v. Espinosa, 827 F.2d 604, 611–13 (9th Cir.

1987). Email exchanges with customers, which Gatrel argues are hearsay, were

admitted only to prove their effect on him, not the truth of the matter asserted. Fed.

R. Evid. 801(c). Finally, statements about the use of AmpNode by the operator of

an illegal client service were properly admitted because they were “made by

[Gatrel’s] coconspirator,” Bukoski, “during and in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). We uphold evidentiary rulings unless they are

“illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that may be drawn from

the facts in the record.” Hinkson, 585 F.3d at 1263. The evidentiary rulings here

clear this threshold.

      3. The same abuse-of-discretion standard applies to the District Court’s

decision not to issue a specific unanimity instruction with respect to the precise

protected computers Gatrel was alleged to have damaged. See United States v.

Kim, 196 F.3d 1079, 1082 (9th Cir. 1999). The jury unanimously agreed that

Gatrel damaged or attempted to damage ten or more computers within a one-year

period, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(4)(A)(i)(VI). “[I]n the ordinary case, a

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general instruction that the verdict must be unanimous will be sufficient to protect

the defendant’s rights.” United States v. Anguiano, 873 F.2d 1314, 1319 (9th Cir.

1989). A specific unanimity instruction is required only where a case is “factually

complex,” id. at 1320, or “it appears that there is a genuine possibility of jury

confusion or that a conviction may occur as the result of different jurors

concluding that the defendant committed . . . acts consisting of different legal

elements,” United States v. Tuan Ngoc Luong, 965 F.3d 973, 985 (9th Cir. 2020)

(alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In this case,

no specific unanimity instruction was necessary. The statutory element in question

is straightforward: 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(4)(A)(i)(VI) penalizes damaging or

attempting to damage “10 or more protected computers during any 1-year period.”

This element is satisfied if the jury agrees that at least ten computers were

damaged but does not require the jury to agree on which ten computers were

damaged. It follows that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in declining

to issue a specific unanimity instruction.

      4. Gatrel believes he should have been tried in the Northern District of

Illinois, where he resided. Upon de novo review, venue was proper in the Central

District of California. See United States v. Childs, 5 F.3d 1328, 1331 (9th Cir.

1993). A federal offense may be “prosecuted in any district in which such offense

was begun, continued, or completed.” 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a). To analyze the

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propriety of venue in a given state or district, we consider each count individually.

See United States v. Corona, 34 F.3d 876, 879 (9th Cir. 1994).

         Turning first to the conspiracy charge, it is unnecessary that Gatrel either

entered or committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy “within the

district, as long as one of his co-conspirators did.” United States v. Meyers, 847

F.2d 1408, 1411 (9th Cir. 1988). His co-conspirator, Juan Martinez, lived and

administered DownThem in the Central District of California, so venue was proper

there.

         Turning second to the charge of causing and attempting to cause computer

impairment, “direct proof of venue is not necessary where circumstantial evidence

. . . supports the inference that the crime was committed in the district where venue

was laid.” Childs, 5 F.3d at 1332 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Given Martinez’s role in administering the site and launching attacks, the jury

could have concluded that—wherever Gatrel lived—his attempts to cause

impairment to protected computers involved criminal activity committed in the

Central District of California.

         5. Nor did the District Court clearly err in continuing Gatrel’s trial during

the COVID-19 pandemic. See United States v. Henry, 984 F.3d 1343, 1349–50

(9th Cir. 2021). The Speedy Trial Act requires that a criminal trial begin within

seventy days from the day an indictment is filed or the defendant makes his initial

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appearance. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). But Congress provided for an exception where

a district court finds “that the ends of justice served by [the delay] outweigh the

best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.” Id. § 3161(h)(7)(A).

Gatrel now acknowledges that we have held that the COVID-19 pandemic

presented the sort of public emergency during which the ends of justice could

justify delay. United States v. Olsen, 21 F.4th 1036, 1047 (9th Cir. 2022). Because

there is no argument or evidence suggesting that this case is materially different

from Olsen, the District Court did not violate Gatrel’s speedy trial rights.

      6. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in applying the United

States Sentencing Guidelines. See United States v. Gasca-Ruiz, 852 F.3d 1167,

1170 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc). It applied a two-level enhancement for an offense

committed through the intentional use of “sophisticated means,” U.S.S.G.

§ 2B1.1(b)(10), and a four-level enhancement that applies to any defendant

convicted of damaging protected computers, id. at § 2B1.1(b)(19)(A)(ii). Gatrel

claims that applying both enhancements is impermissible double-counting, but he

is wrong.

      A sentencing court should “consider all applicable Guidelines provisions in

calculating the guidelines range for an offense.” United States v. Smith, 719 F.3d

1120, 1123 (9th Cir. 2013) (“In particular, the Sentencing Guidelines contemplate

that courts will apply all applicable specific offense characteristics to enhance the

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base offense level.”). The Sentencing Commission expressly indicates when

Guidelines provisions are not to be applied cumulatively. Id. at 1124. It has made

no such indication here, and for good reason. The Sentencing Commission enacted

the protected-computers enhancement because of a “heightened showing of intent

to cause damage,” not to deter sophisticated criminal activity. U.S.S.G. amend. 654

(effective Nov. 1, 2003). It follows that the sophisticated-means enhancement does

not increase Gatrel’s punishment based on “a kind of harm that has already been

fully accounted for” in the protected-computers enhancement. United States v.

Gallegos, 613 F.3d 1211, 1216 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Stoterau,

524 F.3d 988, 1001 (9th Cir. 2008)).

      7. Finally, as we conclude that no individual error occurred, no cumulative

error occurred either. United States v. Jeremiah, 493 F.3d 1042, 1047 (9th Cir.

2007).

      Gatrel’s convictions and sentence are AFFIRMED.

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