United States v. Jackson

Opinion

Appellate Case: 25-6159 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 06/11/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 11, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. No. 25-6159 (D.C. No. 5:24-CR-00450-R-1) ANTWON MONTRELL JACKSON, a/k/a (W.D. Okla.) A Plus, a/k/a Plus,

Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________

Before BACHARACH, McHUGH, and CARSON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

In this direct criminal appeal, Defendant-Appellant Antwon Montrell Jackson

asks that we reverse the district judge’s sentencing determination as substantively

unreasonable. After Mr. Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit child sex

trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c), the district judge elected to vary

upwards from Mr. Jackson’s advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range of 70 to 87

months to impose a term of imprisonment of 156 months. Exercising jurisdiction

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined *

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1. Appellate Case: 25-6159 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 06/11/2026 Page: 2

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we discern nothing substantively unreasonable about

Mr. Jackson’s sentence, and so we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In February 2025, Mr. Jackson and his co-defendant/co-conspirator, Sarah

Larayna Holland, were charged by superseding indictment with (1) conspiracy to

commit child sex trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c), and (2) child sex

trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1) and (c). Mr. Jackson was also

charged with obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 1591(d), based on his request—memorialized on a recorded jail call—that his sister

prevent a minor sex trafficking victim, Jane Doe, from testifying at his trial.

In April 2025, Mr. Jackson and the Government entered into a plea agreement

under which Mr. Jackson agreed to plead guilty to Count 1, conspiracy to commit

child sex trafficking. In exchange, the Government agreed to dismiss Mr. Jackson’s

two remaining counts.

In advance of sentencing, the United States Probation and Pretrial Services

office prepared a Presentence Investigation Report (PSR). In describing the offense

conduct, the PSR recounted that Jane Doe’s mother and aunt contacted municipal

police in July 2024 after finding information online and on Jane Doe’s phone

suggesting that she was being sex trafficked by Mr. Jackson and Ms. Holland. Police

found Mr. Jackson and took him into custody on outstanding warrants.

A subsequent investigation revealed that Mr. Jackson worked as a sex

trafficker for decades, having “pimped out” Ms. Holland—with whom he has two

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children—alongside “[d]ozens and dozens” of other women. ROA Vol. II at 10; ROA

Vol. III.A at 11. Investigators further learned—through recovered text messages,

recorded video footage, Uber records, and electronic payment app records—that

Mr. Jackson posted (or directed Ms. Holland to post) online advertisements for

commercial sex from Jane Doe and/or Ms. Holland, that Jane Doe and Ms. Holland in

fact attended at least two commercial sex dates together, and that the proceeds from

one such transaction were immediately transferred to a CashApp account controlled

by Mr. Jackson. Apart from Mr. Jackson occasionally pretending to be Jane Doe

when texting with prospective commercial sex customers, Jane Doe related that she

understood Mr. Jackson’s role in the enterprise as keeping “her and [Ms.] Holland ‘in

check.’” ROA Vol. II at 11.

The PSR related information suggesting Mr. Jackson indeed kept them “in

check.” Interviews with Jane Doe, Ms. Holland, and others established that

Mr. Jackson routinely employed or threatened violence to ensure compliance from

Ms. Holland and others. Mr. Jackson’s seventeen-year-old daughter reported that

Mr. Jackson and Jane Doe were having sex, and his twelve-year-old son told

investigators that he saw Mr. Jackson touch Jane Doe inappropriately. Mr. Jackson’s

son further told investigators that he had seen Mr. Jackson beat both Ms. Holland (his

mother) and his sister, and that Mr. Jackson would give him a phone or tablet to

occupy him while Mr. Jackson went into the bedroom with women.

As to criminal history, the PSR detailed Mr. Jackson’s 2009 nolo contendere

plea to California state charges for kidnapping and the sale of a person for immoral

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purposes. But because that offense was too old to count for purposes of the

Guidelines, he received no criminal history points for it and instead was assessed a

single criminal history point for his 2017 Oklahoma conviction for possession of

methamphetamine. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(e)(1)–(3). That one criminal history point

placed Mr. Jackson in criminal history category I, which, when combined with his

total offense level of 27, yielded an advisory Guidelines sentencing range of 70 to 87

months’ imprisonment.

Finally, the PSR advised the district court that it “may wish to consider the

defendant’s lengthy history of prostitution-related activities as well as his violent

behavior as grounds for an upward variance,” pointing to permissible sentencing

factors under which the court might find a variance warranted: the history and

characteristics of the defendant, deterrence, and the protection of public from further

crimes committed by Mr. Jackson. ROA Vol. II at 34.

Both Mr. Jackson and the Government lodged objections to the PSR that are

not relevant here, and the Government further moved for an upward departure or

variance in advance of the sentencing hearing.

At the sentencing hearing, the court adopted the PSR’s computation of

Mr. Jackson’s Guidelines range. Jane Doe’s guardian ad litem then read her victim

impact statement, in which Jane Doe described the immense harm she suffered and

asked that the court impose “the maximum sentence so this does not happen to

anyone else.” ROA Vol. III.A at 37–38. Mr. Jackson advocated for a below-

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Guidelines sentence of 60 months and the Government reiterated its justifications for

an upward variance.

The district court prefaced its sentencing determination by observing that it

found the “case very depressing.” Id. at 43. Addressing Mr. Jackson, the court noted

that the “life that you have led virtually your entire adult life and the people that

you’ve abused and the laws that you’ve broken, it’s just stunning to me.” Id. “I think

a substantial sentence is appropriate,” the court continued, “primarily to protect the

public because . . . I don’t believe you’re capable of not breaking the law and doing

what you’ve done all these years.” Id. “I think about you doing this with your

children around with no conscience at all.” Id. The court then varied upwards and

imposed a 156-month term of imprisonment—“as punishment[,] as protection of

society, for deterrent purposes.” Id. “People have got to know you can’t do

something like this and get away with it.” Id.

Mr. Jackson timely appealed 1 from the district court’s entry of final judgment.

II. DISCUSSION

We review the reasonableness of sentencing decisions for abuse of discretion.

See United States v. Pena, 963 F.3d 1016, 1024 (10th Cir. 2020). This standard

applies “[r]egardless of whether the sentence imposed is inside or outside the

1 Mr. Jackson waived his right to appeal his conviction or sentence under the plea agreement, but retained his “right to appeal the substantive reasonableness of [his] sentence” in the event the sentencing court imposed an above-Guidelines sentence. ROA Vol. I at 347. The plea agreement thus does not bar Mr. Jackson’s challenge to the substantive reasonableness of his above-Guidelines sentence. 5 Appellate Case: 25-6159 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 06/11/2026 Page: 6

Guidelines range.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). And we “apply this

standard with substantial deference to the district court.” United States v. Guevara-

Lopez, 147 F.4th 1174, 1184 (10th Cir. 2025) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In reviewing sentencing decisions for substantive reasonableness, we consider

“whether the length of the sentence is reasonable given all the circumstances of the

case in light of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” United States v.

Williams, 10 F.4th 965, 977 (10th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks omitted). We “do not

reweigh the sentencing factors but instead ask whether the sentence fell within the

range of rationally available choices that facts and the law at issue can fairly

support.” United States v. Blair, 933 F.3d 1271, 1274 (10th Cir. 2019) (internal

quotation marks omitted). “Thus, as long as the balance struck by the district court

among the factors set out in § 3553(a) is not arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly

unreasonable, we must defer to that decision even if we would not have struck the

same balance in the first instance.” United States v. Sells, 541 F.3d 1227, 1239 (10th

Cir. 2008).

When a district court “decides that an outside-Guidelines sentence is

warranted, [it] must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the

justification is sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance.” Gall,

552 U.S. at 50. “A ‘major’ variance should have ‘a more significant justification than

a minor one.’” United States v. Lente, 759 F.3d 1149, 1158 (10th Cir. 2014) (quoting

Gall, 552 U.S. at 50). However, while we may “take the degree of variance into

account” in reviewing of the reasonableness of a sentence outside the Guidelines

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range, we do not “use[] the percentage of a departure as the standard for determining

the strength of the justifications required” or create a “presumption of

unreasonableness for sentences outside the Guidelines range.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 47.

In fact, this court “uphold[s] even substantial variances when the district court

properly weighs the § 3553(a) factors and offers valid reasons for the chosen

sentence.” United States v. Gross, 44 F.4th 1298, 1304 (10th Cir. 2022) (quotation

marks omitted). “Still, we do not just provide a rubber stamp of approval and

therefore must determine if the district court’s proffered rationale, on aggregate,

justifies the magnitude of the sentence.” United States v. Walker, 74 F.4th 1163, 1202

(10th Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Mr. Jackson advances three arguments that, he urges, establish that his carceral

sentence 2 is substantively unreasonable. He first argues that the sentencing court

improperly based its upward variance on considerations already embodied by the

Guidelines range computed by the court. But we have held and continuously

reiterated “that district courts have broad discretion to consider particular facts in

fashioning a sentence, even when the Guideline-range sentence already accounts for

those facts.” United States v. Zamora-Guerra, 169 F.4th 1026, 1031 (10th Cir. 2026).

2 Mr. Jackson repeatedly characterizes his 156-month sentence as “more than double” his Guidelines range. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. at 12. But his Guidelines range extended up to 87 months, from which the district court varied upwards by 69 months, not “more than double” as he suggests. In any event, Supreme Court precedent dissuades reliance on “the percentage of the departure” as a starting point in the substantive reasonableness analysis. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 47 (2007).

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Next, Mr. Jackson raises the specter that his sentence was infected with racial

bias, positing that “being a black male in a sex trafficking case all too easily can be

misinterpreted into false narratives and disproportionate media coverage about the

nature of sex trafficking and a specific archetype of a black male as a violent

coercive pimp.” Appellant’s Br. at 16. These stereotypes, Mr. Jackson continues, led

the district court to impose on him, a black male, “nearly ten more years of

punishment” than his white, female co-conspirator, Ms. Holland. 3 Id. at 14–15.

Our review discloses no indication that the sentencing court improperly

considered Mr. Jackson’s race at sentencing. And Mr. Jackson—who for decades

comported and referred to himself as a “pimp”—does not stand in the same shoes at

sentencing as his comparator co-defendant, Ms. Holland—one of the victims of sex

trafficking in Mr. Jackson’s employ against whom he repeatedly inflicted or

threatened violence. 4 ROA Vol. II at 12, 15.

Finally, Mr. Jackson faults the district court for not giving adequate weight to

the facts that (1) he had been minimally incarcerated before his arrest in this case,

3 Relatedly, Mr. Jackson laments the lack of accountability for the “white johns who bought and paid for sexual services” from Ms. Holland and Jane Doe. Appellant’s Br. at 15. But Mr. Jackson was not arrested at the site of a commercial sex date where police let the johns walk free. In any event, we cannot see how the discretionary prosecutorial determinations of state and local law enforcement inform the question whether the district court’s sentencing determination was borne of racial considerations, and Mr. Jackson makes no attempt to draw such a connection. 4 Apart from this “history and characteristics” distinction between the co- defendants, Mr. Jackson’s Guidelines range is necessarily higher than Ms. Holland’s owing to his attempted obstruction of justice, which conduct gave rise to a two-point offense level increase. See ROA Vol. II at 20. 8 Appellate Case: 25-6159 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 06/11/2026 Page: 9

and (2) at forty-four years of age, statistics suggest he posed a lower risk of

recidivism. With these arguments, Mr. Jackson asks that we reweigh the sentencing

factors and reach a different balance than that rendered by the sentencing court,

something we will not do in a substantive reasonableness appeal. See United States v.

Lawless, 979 F.3d 849, 856 (10th Cir. 2020) (declining to reassess the importance

placed by the district court on certain § 3553(a) factors “because reweighing the

factors is beyond the ambit of our review”); see also United States v. McCrary, 43

F.4th 1239, 1250 (10th Cir. 2022) (“Although [appellant] disagrees with the district

court’s weighing of [the sentencing] factors, that is not sufficient to warrant relief

from his sentence.”).

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons articulated, the district court’s decision to vary upwards by 69

months was not substantively unreasonable, and we therefore AFFIRM Mr. Jackson’s

sentence.

Entered for the Court

Carolyn B. McHugh Circuit Judge