Reynolds v. DOJ

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Decided: June 5, 2026
• Docket: 25-1773
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 1 Filed: 06/05/2026

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

LANCE REYNOLDS, Petitioner

v.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Respondent ______________________

2025-1773 ______________________

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection Board in No. CH-0752-23-0078-I-2. ______________________

Decided: June 5, 2026 ______________________

LANCE REYNOLDS, Annapolis, MD, pro se.

JANA MOSES, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di- vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by ALBERT S. IAROSSI, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, BRETT SHUMATE; COLLEEN BERRY, Federal Bureau of Prisons, United States Department of Justice, Stockton, CA. ______________________ Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 2 Filed: 06/05/2026

Before DYK and REYNA, Circuit Judges, and BISSOON, Chief District Judge. 1 PER CURIAM. Petitioner Lance Reynolds was an employee of the Department of Justice (“agency”) employed as a Reentry Affairs Coordinator at United States Penitentiary Big Sandy in Kentucky, a law enforcement position. Mr. Reynolds, proceeding pro se, petitions for review of a Merit Systems Protection Board (“Board”) decision upholding his indefinite suspension by the agency following his indictment for sexual abuse. We affirm. BACKGROUND Mr. Reynolds began service at the Big Sandy peniten- tiary in November 2019 as a Reentry Affairs Coordinator. In 2021, two other employees alleged to the agency that Mr. Reynolds had sexually assaulted them, and the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) at the Department of Justice opened an investigation. On July 8, 2022, a Kentucky grand jury indicted Mr. Reynolds based on his alleged con- duct toward one coworker, charging him with Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, a state misdemeanor offense with a maximum penalty of 90 days’ imprisonment. See Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 510.130(3), 532.090(2). On July 12, 2022, in response to the indictment, the agency placed Mr. Reynolds on administrative leave with pay. On August 15, 2022, the agency informed Mr. Reyn- olds that it proposed to suspend him indefinitely without pay, and on October 14, 2022, the warden of the Big Sandy penitentiary informed Mr. Reynolds that he would be in- definitely suspended without pay. The warden cited “the

1 Honorable Cathy Bissoon, Chief District Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation. Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 3 Filed: 06/05/2026

REYNOLDS v. DOJ 3

extremely serious nature of the criminal charges against [Mr. Reynolds]” and determined that they outweighed the factors of his previous successful performance and prior military service. S. App’x 85. 2 The warden informed Mr. Reynolds that the suspension would “remain in effect until such time as there is a disposition of the charges against you, or there is sufficient evidence to either return you to duty or to support administrative action against you.” S. App’x 86. Mr. Reynolds’s indefinite suspension without pay began on October 20, 2022. On May 8, 2023, a Kentucky court issued an order amending the sexual abuse charge against Mr. Reynolds to Harassment under Kentucky Rev. Stat. § 525.070(1)(a) and placing the amended charge on diversion, a deferral that would result in eventual dismissal subject to Mr. Reynolds’s compliance with certain conditions. These conditions included that Mr. Reynolds would not commit new violations of law and that he would not contact or ap- proach the complaining witness. On May 22, 2023, the agency ended Mr. Reynolds’s indefinite suspension without pay, informing Mr. Reynolds that he would be placed on paid administrative leave until further notice. The OIG in- vestigation was not completed until after the resolution of the criminal proceeding, consistent with the agency’s usual practice. Mr. Reynolds, then represented by counsel, appealed to the Board, challenging his indefinite suspension without pay and seeking back pay from the beginning of that sus- pension. Before the administrative judge, Mr. Reynolds represented that he did not contend that the indefinite sus- pension was improperly based on his indictment but ar- gued that the agency should have cleared him to return to paid duty more promptly. The administrative judge found

2 Citations to “S. App’x” refer to the Corrected Sup- plemental Appendix filed by the respondent. Dkt. No. 41. Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 4 Filed: 06/05/2026

that the agency imposed the suspension for an authorized reason and that it “properly continued the suspension pending the outcome of the criminal proceeding against [Mr. Reynolds] when he entered into a diversion agree- ment” and issued an initial decision affirming the indefi- nite suspension on September 6, 2023. App’x 7. 3 The Board denied Mr. Reynolds’s petition for review and af- firmed the initial decision as the Board’s final decision on March 20, 2025. Mr. Reynolds, now pro se, timely petitions for review. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). DISCUSSION We may only set aside the Board’s decision only if it is “(1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or other- wise not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without pro- cedures required by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c). “We review the Board's legal decisions de novo and its findings of fact for substantial-evidence support.” Reyes v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 159 F.4th 1356, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2025). On review, it is unclear what arguments Mr. Reynolds is making. In his informal opening brief, Mr. Reynolds ap- pears to contend that the indefinite suspension was unjus- tified from the outset. In reply, he disavows this theory, stating it “is not” a “challenge to the initial imposition of an indefinite suspension” and argues as he did before the Board that the internal investigation should have been completed at an earlier date and that he should have been restored to paid leave status at an earlier date. Pet’r’s In- formal Reply Br. 1. While the former argument appears to

3 Citations to “App’x” refer to the Appendix filed by Mr. Reynolds. Dkt. No. 23. Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 5 Filed: 06/05/2026

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have been waived before the Board, neither argument has merit. First, the Board did not err in sustaining the imposi- tion of the indefinite suspension. “[T]o sustain an indefi- nite suspension, the agency must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that it had reasonable cause to believe the employee committed a crime for which im- prisonment may be imposed.” Pararas-Carayannis v. Dep’t of Com., 9 F.3d 955, 957 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (footnotes omit- ted). “[A]n indictment for a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed will, as a general rule, pro- vide reasonable cause . . . .” Henderson v. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 878 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (quoting Rich- ardson v. U.S. Customs Serv., 47 F.3d 415, 419 (Fed. Cir. 1995)). Additionally, the agency “must prove that the sus- pension would promote the efficiency of the service.” Pararas-Carayannis, 9 F.3d at 957 (citing 5 U.S.C. § 7513(a)). The agency’s decision to suspend Mr. Reynolds based on the criminal charge finds ample support in our cases. See Dunnington v. Dep’t of Just., 956 F.2d 1151, 1157 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“[A]n indictment following an investiga- tion and grand jury proceedings[] would provide, absent special circumstances, more than enough evidence of pos- sible misconduct to meet the threshold requirement of rea- sonable cause to suspend.”); Richardson, 47 F.3d at 419 (“[W]hen the nature of the crime alleged relates to the em- ployee's ability to perform his or her duties, an agency may summarily suspend the employee, without pay, pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.”). Mr. Reynolds argues that the agency failed to demon- strate a nexus between his alleged conduct and the effi- ciency of the service. The agency and the Board identified ample nexus between the alleged conduct and the efficiency of the service—sexual misconduct that was “antithetical to [Mr. Reynolds’s] role as a Federal law enforcement officer” Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 6 Filed: 06/05/2026

and that would “implicate [his] ability to perform [his] du- ties” requiring him to be “directly responsible for the super- vision and correction of inmates.” S. App’x 86. Moreover, the alleged conduct underlying the indictment was alleged to have occurred while Mr. Reynolds was on duty and in- volved a coworker. Mr. Reynolds also argues that the Board failed to con- sider mitigating factors set forth in Douglas v. Veterans Administration, 5 M.S.P.R. 280 (1981), supporting a lesser penalty. Mr. Reynolds raises that he (1) “[h]ad no prior dis- cipline”; (2) “[w]as never arrested or convicted”; (3) “[d]enied the allegations throughout”; (4) “[u]ltimately had the case dismissed”; and (5) “[s]uffered several emo- tional, physical, and mental hardship from months without pay.” Pet’r’s Br. 9. However, except for his lack of prior discipline, these facts are not relevant under Douglas. See Connor v. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 8 F.4th 1319, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (quoting Douglas, 5 M.S.P.R. at 305–06). As for Mr. Reynolds’s lack of prior discipline and satisfac- tory work record, the deciding official explicitly recognized “that [his] performance has been at a successful level or higher” but found that fact to be outweighed by the serious- ness of alleged misconduct. S. App’x 85. The Board did not err in determining that the deciding official “considered all relevant aggravating and mitigating factors in determin- ing that an indefinite suspension was the appropriate pen- alty.” App’x 9. Second, Mr. Reynolds argues that the suspension should have been terminated earlier. An agency may sus- pend an employee “pending the outcome of criminal pro- ceedings, but then the agency must terminate the suspension within a reasonable amount of time after reso- lution of the criminal charges.” Morrison v. Nat’l Sci. Found., 423 F.3d 1366, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The agency restored Mr. Reynolds to paid status fifteen days after en- try of the diversion order. We see no error in the Board’s determination that the agency had reasonable cause to Case: 25-1773 Document: 44 Page: 7 Filed: 06/05/2026

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indefinitely suspend Mr. Reynolds until his criminal case was resolved, and Mr. Reynolds has not established that the agency should have terminated his suspension at an earlier date. We have considered Mr. Reynolds’s remaining argu- ments and find them unpersuasive. AFFIRMED COSTS No costs.