United States v. Howard Allen Feldman

338 F.3d 212, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 15194, 2003 WL 21751935
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJuly 30, 2003
Docket02-3547
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 338 F.3d 212 (United States v. Howard Allen Feldman) 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. Howard Allen Feldman, 338 F.3d 212, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 15194, 2003 WL 21751935 (3d Cir. 2003).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

BECKER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal by Howard Allen Feldman turns on the meaning of “loss” under the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the Victim Witness Protection Act (as amended by the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act). Feldman filed a bankruptcy petition in which he vastly understated the amount of property he owned. Indicted for concealing assets and making false declarations in bankruptcy, he pled guilty and was sentenced to fifteen months imprison *215 ment and ordered to pay restitution to his creditors. Feldman contests the District Court’s determination of the amount of loss, which affected both the prison sentence he received (under the Sentencing Guidelines a defendant’s base offense level will be increased incrementally for the loss cause by his crime) and the amount of restitution he was ordered to pay to his creditors.

Feldman contends that there was little if any actual loss that resulted from his crime and that the District Court erred in its calculation that his creditors lost over $138,000, and were entitled to restitution in that amount. He submits that most of the property he failed to report was held by him and his wife as tenants by the entireties under Pennsylvania law, making the property unavailable for execution by his creditors to satisfy the debt owed by Feldman alone. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663 and 3664 (stating that restitution is limited to the amount of loss actually caused by the defendant’s crime). In other words, Feldman claims that although he committed a crime (he acknowledges that he was obligated to report the property), his crime had no effect on the amount of money his creditors ultimately received from the bankruptcy discharge.

The District Court did not determine whether or not the property owned by Feldman and his wife as tenants by the entireties would have been exempt from bankruptcy, reasoning instead that Feld-man lost the right to claim the exemption when he failed to disclose the property. The Court then concluded that the actual loss to Feldman’s creditors was the difference between what was owed to them and what they actually received in the bankruptcy discharge. The Court based this conclusion on case law suggesting that bankruptcy courts can refuse to allow an exemption for property that the debtor initially concealed.

Without getting into the merits of whether property exempt from bankruptcy because it is held as tenants by the entire-ties can ever be distributed to the creditors unique to one spouse, we conclude that the District Court’s reasoning was flawed. In our view, the loss of an exemption during a bankruptcy proceeding does not impact upon the determination of actual loss (for restitution or sentencing purposes) since the bankruptcy court, unlike the District Court here, is not calculating the harm caused by the defendant’s crime.

The determination of actual loss is relevant to the sentencing enhancement, since loss under the Sentencing Guidelines is the greater of the actual loss caused by the defendant’s illegal actions or the amount of loss the defendant intended to cause. See U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1 application note 8 (“[I]f an intended loss that the defendant was attempting to inflict can be determined, this figure will be used if it is greater than the actual loss.”); United States v. Yeaman, 194 F.3d 442, 456 (3d Cir.1999). Under our jurisprudence, even if the District Court erred in determining actual loss, we must still affirm the sentence if the District Court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Feldman intended to cause a loss (greater than the actual loss), even if it was impossible for that loss to have actually occurred.

Feldman claims that the government failed to show that he intended to cause a loss to his creditors; rather, he maintains that he thought the property he concealed was exempt from bankruptcy and he did not disclose it because he thought the large amount of property would “raise a red flag” and delay the bankruptcy proceeding. Feldman also submits that he never intended his creditors to receive less money by fading to disclose all of his prop *216 erty, since by reason of the exemption they would not be able to reach the concealed assets. However, we do not believe that the government was obligated to disprove Feldman’s claim that he thought the property was exempt. While the government must prove Feldman’s intent by a preponderance of the evidence, we conclude that intent can be inferred from the fact that Feldman concealed a large amount of property. It is enough that the District Court found unbelievable Feldman’s claim that he simply wanted to expedite the bankruptcy process. Thus, while the District Court may have erred in its discussion of actual loss, that error is irrelevant for sentencing purposes since the District Court did not abuse its discretion by determining that Feldman intended to cause a loss of the entire amount of debt owned. Accordingly, the increase in Feldman’s base offense level, while not justified by a finding of actual loss, is justified by a finding of intended loss; hence we will affirm the sentence imposed.

In contrast, a restitution award can only be based upon actual loss. Since the District Court erred in its determination of actual loss, we will vacate the restitution award and remand for further proceedings, so that the District Court can compute actual loss based on the difference between what Feldman’s creditors would have received if Feldman had acted lawfully and disclosed all of his assets and the amount they actually received.

I.

On September 22, 1997, Feldman filed a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy petition, 11 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking relief from $205,253.30 in credit card debt he had incurred. Feldman listed his personal property as valued at $5,845 and his real estate holdings as valued at $325,000. On December 17, 1997, Feldman amended the original bankruptcy schedule, listing his personal property at $7,445. He testified at a meeting of creditors on January 5, 1998 that he had fully and accurately disclosed all real and personal property he owned.

A bankruptcy trustee was appointed who learned that Feldman had an ownership interest in a number of valuable pieces of art and other antiques that he had not listed on the bankruptcy schedule. These assets included “The Howard and Catherine Feldman Collection,” a collection of Chinese treaty port paintings, American and English furniture, decorations, folk art, clocks, rugs and phrenological material, which eventually sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $1,207,325 on October 9, 1998 (netting $910,870.25 after commission). Between September 22, 1996 and June 8, 1999, Feldman and his wife also sold numerous other items through the Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses for a total of $231,272.46. The proceeds from these sales were wired to the Feld-mans’ joint bank account.

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Bluebook (online)
338 F.3d 212, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 15194, 2003 WL 21751935, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-howard-allen-feldman-ca3-2003.