Court Opinion

ID: 9400322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-07 21:00:32.145946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:43.498647
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 21-4497

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        BRADLEY OMAR JEFFREY-MOE,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
        Norfolk. Arenda L. Wright Allen, District Judge. (2:19-cr-00165-AWA-RJK-1)

        Submitted: April 28, 2023                                         Decided: June 6, 2023

        Before WILKINSON and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Diane P. Toscano, TOSCANO LAW GROUP, Virginia Beach, Virginia;
        Paul G. Beers, GLENN, FELDMANN, DARBY & GOODLATTE, Roanoke, Virginia, for
        Appellant. Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, Anthony Mozzi,
        Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
        Norfolk Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               A jury convicted Bradley Omar Jeffrey-Moe of four counts of receiving images of

        minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2), and

        three counts of possession of images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, in

        violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). The district court sentenced him to 236 months’

        imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently, followed by lifetime supervised

        release. The court also ordered Jeffrey-Moe to pay a special assessment of $700 and a

        statutory victim assessment, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3014, of $35,000, and imposed a

        number of conditions of supervised release.

               On appeal Jeffrey-Moe argues that the district court erred by denying his request

        that the Government’s case agent be sequestered during the trial, and he challenges the

        sufficiency of the evidence. He also contends that the district court erred by imposing a

        lifetime term of supervised release, as well as certain standard and special conditions of

        supervised release, and by imposing the statutory victim assessment. Upon our review, we

        affirm Jeffrey-Moe’s convictions, vacate several conditions of supervised release, and

        remand that portion of Jeffrey-Moe’s sentence to the district court for further proceedings.

        We affirm the judgment in all other respects.

               Jeffrey-Moe first argues that the district court erred by denying his request to

        sequester FBI Special Agent David Desy during opening statements and during the

        presentation of the Government’s evidence. He contends that Desy’s testimony was

        influenced by the testimony of the Government’s other witnesses. Pursuant to Federal Rule

        of Evidence 615, a government agent is properly exempted from a witness sequestration

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        order. United States v. Parodi, 703 F.2d 768, 773 (4th Cir. 1983). To the extent that

        Jeffrey-Moe assigns error to the district court for not requiring Desy to testify first, Jeffrey-

        Moe did not request that the court require this, nor did he object to Desy testifying after

        other Government witnesses.         See United States v. Mitchell, 733 F.2d 327, 330

        (4th Cir. 1984). Additionally, the government’s case agent need not testify as the first

        witness for the government if there are “good reasons” for not doing so. Id.; United States

        v. Frazier, 417 F.2d 1138, 1139 (4th Cir. 1969). Here, the Government presented the

        witnesses in the chronological order in which they became involved with Jeffrey-Moe to

        avoid confusing the jury. This is a sufficient reason for allowing Desy to testify after other

        government witnesses. See Mitchell, 733 F.2d at 330; cf. Parodi, 703 F.2d at 773-75.

               Next Jeffrey-Moe challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s

        verdict, contending that the Government failed to prove that he had knowledge of the

        sexually explicit nature of the materials and that he knew minors were involved in the

        production of the materials. We review de novo the district court’s denial of a Fed. R.

        Crim. P. 29 motion for judgment of acquittal. United States v. Farrell, 921 F.3d 116, 136

        (4th Cir. 2019). This court should affirm if, when the evidence is viewed in the light most

        favorable to the government, the conviction is supported by substantial evidence. United

        States v. Haas, 986 F.3d 467, 477 (4th Cir. 2021). “Substantial evidence is evidence that

        a reasonable finder of fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a conclusion

        of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (cleaned up). When resolving issues

        of substantial evidence, this court does not reweigh the evidence or reassess the factfinder’s

        determination of witness credibility, and it must assume that the jury resolved all

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        contradictions in testimony in favor of the government. See United States v. Roe, 606 F.3d

        180, 186 (4th Cir. 2010).

               With these standards in mind, we have reviewed the record and find that the

        evidence presented was sufficient to support Jeffrey-Moe’s convictions.              The trial

        testimony, viewed in the light most favorable to the Government, established that Jeffrey-

        Moe searched for, downloaded, viewed, and sorted numerous files containing child

        pornography. The Government presented sufficient evidence to establish Jeffrey-Moe’s

        knowledge of the contents of each of the specific files supporting his convictions for

        receiving child pornography and that he knowingly possessed child pornography as

        charged in the three counts of possession. Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence was

        sufficient to support the convictions, and the district court did not err in denying Jeffrey-

        Moe’s motion for judgment of acquittal.

               Jeffrey-Moe next challenges the reasonableness of the district court’s imposition of

        a lifetime term of supervised release. 1 “A court’s sentencing rationale . . . can support both

        imprisonment and supervised release.” United States v. Aplicano-Oyuela, 792 F.3d 416,

        425 (4th Cir. 2015). Here, when addressing the sentencing factors, the district court

        specifically referred to the large number of videos and images attributed to Jeffrey-Moe,

        the multiple devices (“all the gadgets within arms (sic) reach containing all the child

               1
                 The Government argues that Jeffrey-Moe did not object in the district court to the
        length or the conditions of supervised release and, therefore, we must review his challenges
        to these conditions for plain error. Because we would reach the same conclusions under
        either plain error or abuse of discretion review, we need not address this contention. United
        States v. Sueiro, 59 F.4th 132, 143 n.4 (4th Cir. 2023).

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        pornography”), and the fact that he had been collecting child pornography for nearly ten

        years.     The court emphasized the seriousness of Jeffrey-Moe’s offenses and its

        determination that his downloading and viewing child pornography was a “compulsion” or

        an “addiction.”    The court further noted that Jeffrey-Moe lacked remorse, failed to

        acknowledge his crimes, and persisted in asserting his innocence. The court also expressed

        concern that Jeffrey-Moe would return to this conduct once on supervised release and

        recited some cases of defendants who reoffended after regaining access to the internet. We

        conclude that the district court’s explanation for Jeffrey-Moe’s sentence adequately

        explains the court’s reasons for imposing of a lifetime term of supervised release. See

        United States v. Boyd, 5 F.4th 550, 559 (4th Cir. 2021) (providing that “a sentence as-a-

        whole explanation can suffice” to explain reasons for conditions of supervision (internal

        quotation marks omitted)).

                 Jeffrey-Moe also challenges the imposition of a number of conditions of his

        supervised release, contending that they are overbroad and that the district court failed to

        adequately explain the reasons for imposing the conditions. Specifically, he contests

        Standard Condition 9, which prohibits him from associating with felons or persons engaged

        in criminal activity, and Standard Condition 13, which requires that he notify third parties

        of the risks that may be occasioned by his criminal record. He also contends that Special

        Conditions 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11—restricting his use of computers, access to minors, access to

        or possession of adult pornography, use of sex-related adult telephone services and

        websites, and magazines using pictures of juveniles—are overbroad and not adequately

        explained.

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               “[A] sentencing court’s duty to provide an explanation for the sentence imposed

        also requires that the court explain any special conditions of supervised release.” United

        States v. McMiller, 954 F.3d 670, 676-77 (4th Cir. 2020). Special conditions of supervised

        release must be: (1) reasonably related to the statutory goals of deterrence, protection of

        the public, and rehabilitation; (2) no greater a deprivation of liberty than is reasonably

        necessary to achieve those statutory goals; and (3) consistent with any relevant policy

        statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” Id. (cleaned up); see 18 U.S.C.

        § 3583(d). Accordingly, a district court must specifically explain the reasons for imposing

        a discretionary condition of supervised release unless (1) the reasons are “self-evident,”

        (2) the defendant raised no nonfrivolous objections to the condition, and (3) the court

        provided an adequate explanation for the sentence as a whole. Boyd, 5 F.4th at 559.

               The first challenged condition is Standard Condition 9, which restricts Jeffrey-Moe

        from associating with felons or persons engaging in criminal activity. We conclude that

        that the reasons for this condition are evident from the record and, to the extent Jeffrey-

        Moe contends that the condition is overly broad, we recently addressed this argument and

        reaffirmed the “general rule that a district court may not revoke supervised release for

        inadvertent violations.” United States v. Van Donk, 961 F.3d 314, 324 (4th Cir. 2020)

        (internal quotation marks omitted). As we stated in Van Donk, “[i]f vagueness issues do

        arise, [the defendant] may bring an as-applied challenge in revocation proceedings.” Id.

        at 325-26.

               The Government concedes that Standard Condition 13, as imposed by the district

        court, “may be an improper delegation of judicial power.” See Boyd, 5 F.4th at 558

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        (acknowledging that, absent meaningful guidance to the probation officer, this risk-

        notification condition “may be an improper delegation of judicial power”). To address this

        concern, the United States Sentencing Commission has updated the language of this

        condition. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5D1.3(c)(12) (2018); see U.S. Sentencing

        Comm’n, Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines 44 (Apr. 28, 2016). Because the

        district court did not provide guidance for its application, we vacate Standard Condition 13

        and remand to the district court for further proceedings, during which the court may modify

        the condition to conform to the current version or provide appropriate guidance and

        explanation for the condition.

               We turn next to Jeffrey-Moe’s argument that the district court erred when it

        imposed, without explanation, five lifetime special conditions of supervised release,

        namely, the ban on employment or volunteer activities that allow him access to computers

        or minors (Special Condition 5), the ban on access to adult pornography or magazines using

        juvenile models or pictures of juveniles (Special Condition 6), the limitation on contact

        with minors (Special Condition 7), the prohibition against using “any sex-related adult

        telephone services, websites, or electronic bulletin boards” (Special Condition 8), and the

        restriction on possession or use of a computer without prior approval of the probation

        officer (Special Condition 11).

               We have recently held that “a complete internet ban is almost always excessive for

        non-contact child pornography activity, or similar conduct where there was no actual

        contact with the victim.” United States v. Arce, 49 F.4th 382, 396 (4th Cir. 2022) (internal

        quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Hamilton, 986 F.3d 413, 421 (4th Cir. 2021)

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        (confirming that, in a non-contact case, an internet ban “sweeps too broadly”). Because

        Jeffrey-Moe’s case did not involve contact with children, we vacate this condition. As in

        Acre, the district court is free, on remand, to set other computer restrictions that are more

        appropriately tailored to this case. 49 F.4th at 397.

               Likewise, the portion of Special Condition 5 banning Jeffrey-Moe for life from

        engaging in employment or volunteer services that allow him access to minors, and Special

        Condition 7’s lifetime prohibition on contact with minors unless supervised, absent any

        specific guidance and further explanation, are similarly infirm, especially when imposed

        in a non-contact case such as this. See United States v. Heckman, 592 F.3d 400, 411

        (3d Cir. 2010) (finding language similar to Jeffrey-Moe’s Special Conditions 5 and 7 to

        amount to “an improper delegation of authority to the Probation Office”); United States v.

        Scott, 821 F.3d 562, 571 (5th Cir. 2016) (finding supervised release condition that imposed

        lifetime ban on unsupervised contact with minors “unreasonably broad given its lack of

        tailoring by duration or scope and the fact that [defendant] did not have any history of

        directly abusing a child” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also United States v.

        Voelker, 489 F.3d 139, 154 (3d Cir. 2007) (barring “no minors” condition as “unbridled

        delegation” and observing that the condition gave the probation officer “the sole authority

        for deciding if Voelker w[ould] ever have unsupervised contact with any minor, including

        his own children, for the rest of his life”).

               The adult pornography ban and the prohibition against using sex-related adult

        telephone services, websites, and electronic bulletin boards in Special Conditions 6 and 8

        prohibit Jeffrey-Moe from accessing legal material that generally enjoys First Amendment

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        protection. Van Donk, 961 F.3d at 323. We have recently held that supervised release

        conditions that impose such restrictions “‘must be supported by individualized evidence to

        meet § 3583(d)’s reasonably related standard.’” United States v. Castellano, 60 F.4th 217,

        225 (4th Cir. 2023) (quoting United States v. Ellis, 984 F.3d 1092, 1100 (4th Cir. 2021)).

        In light of the recent changes to our jurisprudence concerning supervised release conditions

        restricting access to legal pornography, see id. at 224 (acknowledging that “Van Donk and

        Ellis . . . altered the law surrounding [pornography-restriction] conditions” of supervised

        release), we vacate these conditions and remand for further proceedings.

               The final supervised release condition Jeffrey-Moe challenges is Special

        Condition 11, which requires prior approval of the probation officer for the possession or

        use of a computer to access any online services. This condition does not suffer from the

        same infirmity as the computer ban in Special Condition 5 because it contemplates that

        Jeffrey-Moe will be able to access and use computers—albeit, with the approval of the

        probation officer. We further find that the district court adequately explained the reason

        for imposing such condition, noting that Jeffrey-Moe used a number of electronic devices

        to download, view, categorize, and store child pornography; that the conduct involved a

        large number of files containing child pornography; and that the evidence showed that

        Jeffrey-Moe had been engaging in this activity for ten years. We conclude that the district

        court did not abuse its discretion by not providing further explanation for imposing Special

        Condition 11.     See McMiller, 954 F.3d at 677; see also Acre, 49 F.4th at 397

        (acknowledging that computer restrictions may be warranted in certain circumstances).

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               Jeffrey-Moe also challenges the district court’s imposition of $35,000 in special

        assessments pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3014. This provision requires the district court to

        “assess an amount of $5,000 on any non-indigent person . . . convicted of [enumerated]

        offense[s],” including receipt and possession of child pornography.              18 U.S.C.

        § 3014(a)(3). Jeffrey-Moe contends that the district court failed to make a determination

        that he was non-indigent. See McMiller, 954 F.3d at 674. However, the defendant bears

        the burden of showing that he is indigent. See United States v. Mann, 770 F. App’x 649,

        650 (4th Cir. 2019) (No. 18-4162); see also United States v. Aramony, 166 F.3d 655, 665

        (4th Cir. 1999) (stating defendant bears burden of demonstrating inability to pay fines).

        Here, Jeffrey-Moe presented no evidence to establish his indigency, and he refused to

        provide information about his financial condition. We find no plain error by the district

        court in imposing the special statutory assessment pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3014 where

        Jeffrey-Moe failed to establish his indigency. See United States v. Doak, 47 F.4th 1340,

        1361 (11th Cir. 2022) (“Evidence that a defendant has failed to disclose assets may support

        a determination that the defendant is able to pay a fine with those undisclosed assets.”

        (cleaned up)), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 623 (2023).

               Lastly, Jeffrey-Moe seeks to file a pro se supplemental brief in which he contends

        that the district court erred by denying his attorney’s pretrial motion to withdraw. Although

        “[a] defendant’s right to have a lawyer of his or her own choosing is an essential element

        of the Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel,” that right is not an absolute right.

        United States v. Mullen, 32 F.3d 891, 895 (4th Cir. 1994). We review the denial of a motion

        to substitute counsel for an abuse of discretion, after considering (1) the timeliness of the

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        motion, (2) the adequacy of the court’s inquiry into the defendant’s complaint, and

        (3) whether a total breakdown in attorney/client communication had developed such that it

        prevented the attorney from putting forth an adequate defense. Id. Based upon our review

        of the record and consideration of these factors, we find no abuse its discretion in the

        district court’s denial of Jeffrey-Moe’s counsel’s motion to withdraw.

              We therefore grant Jeffrey-Moe’s motion to file a supplemental pro se brief. We

        affirm Jeffrey-Moe’s convictions, vacate Standard Condition 13 and Special Conditions 5,

        6, 7, and 8, and remand to the district court for further proceedings. 2 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 the decisional process.

                                                                            AFFIRMED IN PART,
                                                                             VACATED IN PART,
                                                                              AND REMANDED

              2
                  We affirm the judgment in all other respects.

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