United States v. Allen Smith

751 F.3d 107, 2014 WL 1856679
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedMay 9, 2014
Docket13-1390, 13-1546, 13-1640, 13-1718
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 751 F.3d 107 (United States v. Allen Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Allen Smith, 751 F.3d 107, 2014 WL 1856679 (3d Cir. 2014).

Opinion

*111 OPINION OF THE COURT

BARRY, Circuit Judge.

Allen Smith, Antoine Norman, Charles White, and Michael Merin were sentenced in 2008 for offenses related to their participation in a conspiracy to defraud banks. On direct appeal, we affirmed their convictions, but vacated their sentences and remanded for the District Court to reconsider two sentencing issues. Now, following resentencing, and in four separate appeals that have been consolidated for disposition, they challenge their new sentences and Smith challenges his new order of restitution. We will vacate the order of restitution and, in all other respects, we will affirm the judgments of sentence.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Trial and the Initial Sentencing 1

Between February 2004 and November 2005, appellants participated in a scheme to defraud four banks — Commerce Bank, Wachovia Bank, M & T Bank, and PNC Bank — out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although appellants each had individual responsibilities in the scheme, they worked together to steal the personal identification information of account holders at the four banks. Check-runners, sometimes using false identification cards provided by appellants, would then pose as those account holders and withdraw money from their accounts, at times doing so by cashing counterfeit or closed-account checks.

On July 26, 2006, appellants and six co-defendants were charged with various offenses in a 22-count indictment. Following trial, appellants were each convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. They were also convicted of one or more substantive counts of bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344, and multiple counts of aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A.

The District Court sentenced appellants at separate hearings between September and December 2008, applying to all of them several offense-level enhancements pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines. One was a four-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(2) for an offense involving at least fifty victims. Various within-Guidelines sentences of imprisonment were thereafter imposed, as well as terms of supervised release, special assessments, and orders of restitution. As relevant here, Smith was ordered to pay restitution of $68,452.

B. The Direct Appeal

On direct appeal, appellants alleged a number of trial and sentencing errors. As we noted above, we affirmed their convictions, but vacated their sentences and remanded for reconsideration of certain sentencing issues.

The government conceded on direct appeal that resentencing was necessary in light of our decision in United States v. Kennedy, 554 F.3d 415 (3d Cir.2009), which issued subsequent to the sentencings in this case. The District Court had found that appellants’ conduct injured 146 victims, including many account holders who were eventually reimbursed by the banks for their losses. Kennedy held, however, that account holders who suffer only temporary losses are not victims for purposes of the victim enhancement under § 2B1.1(b)(2). 554 F.3d at 419. We, thus, *112 determined that it was appropriate to remand the case “for proceedings consistent with our opinion in Kennedy.” Norman, 465 Fed.Appx. at 121. In doing so, we noted that, even under Kennedy, reimbursed account holders “may nevertheless qualify as victims if they ‘spent time or money seeking reimbursement.’ ” Id. (quoting Kennedy, 554 F.3d at 422). We left it “to the District Court’s discretion as to whether to allow additional evidence” regarding the number of victims. Id. We also determined that the District Court erred in calculating Smith’s criminal history category. We vacated appellants’ sentences and remanded for reconsideration of these two issues. 2

C. Resentencing Proceedings

On November 2, 2012, before it held individual sentencing hearings, the District Court held a joint hearing to ascertain, as to all appellants, the number of victims for purposes of § 2Bl.l(b)(2).

The ■ government’s first witness was Marion Marcuggi, a Commerce Bank customer, Marcuggi- testified that, in 2004, Commerce Bank reported that a person using her name made a number of suspicious withdrawals from various bank locations. The next day, Marcuggi drove to her local branch, reported that the transactions were fraudulent, and worked with bank representatives to close her existing accounts and open new ones. Within a few days, , Commerce Bank reimbursed the funds that bad , been taken from the account. Before then, Marcuggi made several trips to, the police station to fill out reports and provide information for purposes of the criminal investigation that ensued. She was not, .however, reimbursed for any of her time or travel expenses.

Elaine Ford, a PNC Bank customer, was next to testify. After noticing a discrepancy between her bank statement and check register in April 2005 and receiving several late-payment notices during the following month, Ford stated that she drove to her bank to report that money was missing from her account. There, she met with the branch manager, who flagged her account and, together, they contacted the police. One week later, Ford closed her account and opened a new one. She returned to the bank on another occasion to confirm that she was not the individual captured in surveillance footage conducting a transaction on her account and that the signature the unidentified person provided was not Ford’s own. Her two trips to the bank took several hours. She also spent approximately three hours on the phone with the bank to resolve the unauthorized activity. PNC Bank replaced the stolen funds one month after Ford first reported the suspicious transactions. The bank did not reimburse her for her time or the cost of transportation to and from the bank.

Postal Inspector Thomas Ninan, the agent assigned to the case, was the government’s final witness. He testified that, during the week leading up to the hearing, he interviewed Sandra Posey, Arelis Diaz, Kim Cogswell, Angela Peffley, Michelle Rosmarin, and Joanne Ponzio, all of whom discovered fraudulent activity in their accounts that was traced to appellants’ bank fraud operation, and all of whom were eventually reimbursed by their respective bapks for the funds fraudulently taken. With the exception of Ponzio, each of those account holders also prepared a written statement. 3 Ninan identified the written *113 statements, and they were admitted into evidence.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
751 F.3d 107, 2014 WL 1856679, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-allen-smith-ca3-2014.