United States v. Arnold Maurice Mathis

767 F.3d 1264, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18297, 2014 WL 4724697
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 24, 2014
Docket13-13109
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 767 F.3d 1264 (United States v. Arnold Maurice Mathis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Arnold Maurice Mathis, 767 F.3d 1264, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18297, 2014 WL 4724697 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Arnold Maurice Mathis, a registered sex offender, enticed a minor to engage in sexual activity in 2004. Seven years later, in 2011, he attempted to convince a minor to take sexually explicit pictures and send them to him via text message, and he actually succeeded in convincing a different minor to do so. Based on this conduct, a jury convicted Mathis of several child exploitation offenses and the district court sentenced him to a 480-month total term of imprisonment. On appeal, Mathis raises numerous challenges to his convictions and sentences, which we address in turn. After a thorough review of the record and consideration of the parties’ briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm Mathis’s convictions and sentences. However, we remand to the district court for the limited purpose of correcting a scrivener’s error in the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Mathis’s Sexual Abuse of Jarvis J. and Subsequent Arrest

In 2004, Mathis, who was approximately 34 years old, approached Jarvis J. after a high school basketball game. Jarvis was 14 years old at the time. Mathis introduced himself as Pastor Maurice and gave Jarvis approximately $20 to purchase items at the concession stand. Mathis also told Jarvis that he was willing to act as a father figure or mentor and that he could assist Jarvis financially by helping him purchase shoes and clothes. Mathis gave Jarvis his cell phone number and told Jarvis to call him the next day.

At some point the following week, Jarvis met Mathis and Mathis gave him a pair of shoes, a shirt, and $100 to purchase a prepaid cell phone. Jarvis subsequently purchased a cell phone, phone card, and minutes for the phone. Jarvis used the phone to talk to Mathis, and the two met a few days after Jarvis bought the phone. On that occasion, after going to a fast food restaurant, Mathis took Jarvis to Mathis’s house where Mathis eventually goaded Jarvis into showing him his penis. Mathis then performed oral sex on Jarvis. Mathis told Jarvis not to tell anyone about the encounter and promised that he would give Jarvis money and take care of him. Mathis took Jarvis to an ATM and gave him money.

Following the incident at Mathis’s house, Jarvis used his cell phone to talk to Mathis on a daily basis. During his conversations with Jarvis, Mathis became more explicit and told Jarvis that he wanted to engage in sexual conduct with him. Mathis eventually met Jarvis again and, after having a meal, Mathis took Jarvis to Mathis’s house. Mathis performed oral sex on Jarvis and instructed him to perform anal sex on Mathis. Jarvis complied with Mathis’s instructions.

Sometime thereafter, Mathis talked to Jarvis on the phone about traveling to Orlando to go bowling. When Mathis ar *1269 rived to pick up Jarvis, Jarvis observed another man in the car with Mathis as well as a boy around Jarvis’s own age. The group drove to Orlando, but instead of going bowling, they went to a diner and then a hotel. At the hotel, Mathis performed oral sex on Jarvis and had Jarvis perform anal sex on him while the other boy performed anal sex on the other man.

Subsequently, Mathis took Jarvis to a townhouse in Lakeland and tried to perform oral sex on him, but Jarvis resisted. Jarvis did not tell anyone about his experiences with Mathis until December 2011, nearly seven years later. At that time, Jarvis ran into the other man who had gone with him and Mathis to Orlando. After arguing with the man in a store, Jarvis talked to his pastor and then went to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. At the sheriffs office, Jarvis told Sergeant James Evans and Detective Zoe Vizcarrondo about his experiences with Mathis. Detective Vizcarrondo asked Jarvis to make a recorded phone call to Mathis. During the call, Mathis acknowledged that he had engaged in sexual conduct with Jarvis.

A few hours after Jarvis’s recorded call with Mathis, law enforcement officers arrested Mathis. During the arrest, officers seized Mathis’s cell phone, which was a Sprint smartphone.

B. The Search of Mathis’s Smartphone

After Mathis was arrested, Detective Vizcarrondo obtained a search warrant for the contents of his cell phone. In support of her application for a search warrant, Detective Vizcarrondo submitted an affidavit which provided in pertinent part that the victim in the case, Jarvis, was 21 years old and that when he was between the ages of 14 and 15, Mathis sexually abused him. The affidavit explained that, according to Jarvis, Mathis continuously called him from Mathis’s cell phone and that Mathis would also communicate "with him via text message. Detective Vizcarrondo stated that Mathis had maintained the same phone number since the time of the crimes, and that a forensic examination of the phone would reveal a log of the recorded phone call between Jarvis and Mathis. In addition, Detective Vizcarrondo averred that, based on her knowledge, experience, and training in child sexual abuse investigations,

[T]here are certain characteristics common to many individuals involved in the communication made between the suspect and victim of such investigations. These suspects sometimes possess and maintain “soft copies” of such communication in the privacy and security of their personal cell phones and retain these items for many years. They often conceal such correspondence and often maintain lists of names, addresses, and telephone numbers of individuals with whom they have been in contact with and who share the same interests in encounters, sexual in nature, with children.

Glenn Hayes, a computer forensics examiner with the Polk County Sheriffs Office, initially examined Mathis’s cell phone on December 22, 2011. During the initial examination of Mathis’s phone, Hayes was able to retrieve contact lists, phone logs, and text messages, but could not retrieve multimedia messages—i.e., text messages to which a file was attached. Hayes examined the phone a second time on August 1, 2012. During the second examination, Hayes was able to retrieve all of the same data as before in addition to multimedia messages. Based on information obtained from Mathis’s cell phone, law enforcement officers believed that he had either persuaded or attempted to persuade two other minors—Jerel A. and Harold J.—to *1270 send him sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

C. The Indictment

A grand jury returned a second superseding indictment charging Mathis with (1) knowingly employing, using, persuading, inducing, enticing, and coercing Jerel A., a minor, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, and attempting to do so, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (Count One); (2) knowingly attempting to employ, use, persuade, induce, entice and coerce Harold J., a minor, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
767 F.3d 1264, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18297, 2014 WL 4724697, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-arnold-maurice-mathis-ca11-2014.