United States v. Carmen Mosley

652 F. App'x 511
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 13, 2016
Docket14-10395
StatusUnpublished

This text of 652 F. App'x 511 (United States v. Carmen Mosley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Carmen Mosley, 652 F. App'x 511 (9th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM ***

Carmen Mosley appeals her 57-month prison term, the $1,172,000 in restitution she was ordered to pay, and the district court’s order that she forfeit all of the criminal proceeds obtained by the conspiracy of which she was a part, an amount totaling $2,145,014.50.

I

The “courts of appeals must review all sentences ... under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). “[A]ppellate review of sentencing decisions is limited to determining whether they are ‘reasonable.’ ” Id. at 46, 128 S.Ct. 586. A sentence “will usually be reasonable” if it falls within the range recommended by the Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984, 994 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (quoting Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 351, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007)).

District courts enjoy “broad discretion” when they sentence offenders. E.g., United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 233, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Nevertheless, sentencing judges must consider a handful of factors in the course of doing so. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). For one, courts “shall consider ... the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have *513 been found guilty of similar conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6)..

Mosley concedes that her 57-month sentence fell within her correctly calculated Guidelines range. It was not unreasonable for the district court to give Mosley such a sentence while also giving her co-defendant, Zulfiya Karimova, a much lighter one. The most straightforward reason is that Mosley and Karimova are not similarly situated offenders, so the gap between their sentences does not suggest that the district court was indifferent to unwarranted disparities.

Unlike Mosley, Karimova cooperated with the government and played a key role in its investigation, pled guilty, and testified at Mosley’s trial. These circumstances triggered a Guidelines range of 12-18 months for Karimova, in stark contrast to the 57-71 months recommended for Mosley. Moreover, the district court found that Karimova demonstrated compelling family circumstances that justified giving her a below-Guidelines sentence. None of the above could be said for Mosley. In short, the record reflects that the district court was far from inattentive to unwarranted disparities. Instead, the court here took seriously “the need to avoid unwarranted similarities among other co-conspirators who were not similarly situated.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 55, 128 S.Ct. 586.

Moreover, because “the District Judge correctly calculated and carefully reviewed the Guidelines range, he necessarily gave significant weight and consideration to the need to avoid unwarranted disparities.” See id.

II

A

We decline to review Mosley’s evidentiary challenge to the amount of restitution she was ordered to pay because Mosley clearly waived such challenge. See United States v. Perez, 116 F.3d 840, 845 (9th Cir. 1997). Waiver applies because Mosley was “aware of’ and “knew of’ the error she now seeks to redress for the first time on appeal, and explicitly abandoned her objection before the district court. See id.

Not only did Mosley not object to the restitution amount the district court imposed, but at her sentencing hearing she affirmatively, repeatedly, and unequivocally agreed to it. What is more, in court filings prior to sentencing Mosley indicated an intention to raise the exact same evi-dentiary argument she presses now, but then expressly relinquished it when asked by the district court.

B

A restitution amount violates the Eighth Amendment if it is “grossly disproportional to the crime committed.” United States v. Dubose, 146 F.3d 1141, 1145 (9th Cir. 1998). Here, “because the full amount of restitution is inherently linked to [Mosley’s] culpability,” the restitution order requiring her to compensate the conspiracy’s victims in the full amount of their'loss is not excessive. Id. Moreover, “an Eighth Amendment gross disproportionality analysis does not require an inquiry into the hardship [restitution] may work on the offender,” id. and thus, Mosley’s likely inability to pay the order is irrelevant. Finally, Mosley cites nothing to support her argument that restitution may become unconstitutional when coupled with a prison term.

III

Federal law mandates that if an offender is convicted of violating, or con *514 spiring to violate, 18 U.S.C. § 1344, the court “shall order” such offender to “forfeit to the United States any property constituting, or derived from, proceeds the person obtained directly or indirectly, as the result of’ his crime. 18 U.S.C. § 982(a)(2). Curiously, “forfeiture” may extend to property no longer in existence and sometimes even to property the defendant never actually possessed, a counter-intuitive interpretation made by prior precedent. See United States v. Newman, 659 F.3d 1235, 1241-45 (9th Cir. 2011). The district court did not err in ordering Mosley to forfeit the entire amount of the conspiracy’s illegal proceeds.

Mosley’s challenge is foreclosed by Newman, which held that “[f]or purposes of criminal forfeiture, the ‘proceeds’ of a fraudulently obtained loan equal the amount of the loan. Moreover, [where an offender] enter[s] into a conspiracy, the ‘proceeds’ of his crime equal the total amount of the loans obtained by the conspiracy as a whole.” Id. at 1244 (internal citations omitted) (emphasis added).

Under Newman, Mosley may be ordered to forfeit up to the entire amount of the loans she and her co-conspirators obtained by defrauding the banks. It makes no difference that Mosley’s role was not particularly lucrative, or that she may not have enjoyed all of the loan proceeds personally; Newman squarely holds that, for purposes of the criminal forfeiture statute, she “obtained” the entire amount by virtue of her role in the conspiracy to obtain such amount.

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Related

United States v. Booker
543 U.S. 220 (Supreme Court, 2004)
Rita v. United States
551 U.S. 338 (Supreme Court, 2007)
Gall v. United States
552 U.S. 38 (Supreme Court, 2007)
United States v. Newman
659 F.3d 1235 (Ninth Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Samuel Davis
706 F.3d 1081 (Ninth Circuit, 2013)
United States v. Carty
520 F.3d 984 (Ninth Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Melissa Beecroft
825 F.3d 991 (Ninth Circuit, 2016)
United States v. Dubose
146 F.3d 1141 (Ninth Circuit, 1998)

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Bluebook (online)
652 F. App'x 511, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-carmen-mosley-ca9-2016.