United States v. Jeremiah Pitts

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: November 26, 2025
• Docket: 23-4556
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-4556

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

JEREMIAH V. PITTS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:19-cr-00243-MOC-DCK-1)

Submitted: September 22, 2025 Decided: November 26, 2025

Before NIEMEYER, BENJAMIN, and BERNER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Roderick M. Wright, Jr., RODERICK WRIGHT LAW FIRM, PLLC, Cornelius, North Carolina, for Appellant. Dena J. King, United States Attorney, Anthony J. Enright, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

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PER CURIAM:

In January 2022, a jury convicted Jeremiah V. Pitts of three counts of mail fraud, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and eight counts of bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 1344. After the verdict, the district court released Pitts on bond, and Pitts eventually

stopped communicating with the probation office and his counsel. Efforts by Pitts’s

probation officer and the United States Marshals Service were unsuccessful in locating

Pitts. When Pitts did not appear at the sentencing hearing, the district court heard evidence

regarding the Government’s efforts to locate Pitts, as well as arguments from Pitts’s

counsel. The court found that Pitts had absconded, so it held the hearing in absentia. The

court sentenced Pitts to 87 months’ imprisonment, the low end of the Sentencing

Guidelines range. Pitts appeals, arguing that the district court erred in sentencing him in

absentia, calculating the loss amount under the Guidelines, and imposing an unreasonable

sentence. We affirm.

We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision to conduct a sentencing

hearing without the defendant’s presence. United States v. Muslim, 944 F.3d 154, 160 (4th

Cir. 2019); see United States v. Camacho, 955 F.2d 950, 953 (4th Cir. 1992). In addition,

“[v]iolations stemming from a defendant’s absence from the courtroom are subject to a

harmless error analysis.” Muslim, 944 F.3d at 160. The defendant’s presence is normally

required at sentencing. Fed. R. Crim. P. 43(a)(3); see United States v. Lawrence, 248 F.3d

300, 302 (4th Cir. 2001). However, a defendant who was initially present at trial waives

the right to be present when he is later voluntarily absent. Fed. R. Crim. P. 43(c)(1)(A).

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A defendant may waive the right to be present knowingly and voluntarily or

“impliedly waives his right to be present by absconding before sentencing.” United States

v. Castellon, 92 F.4th 540, 543 (4th Cir. 2024) (internal quotation marks omitted).

However, “[t]he right [] cannot cursorily, and without inquiry, be deemed by the trial court

to have been waived simply because the accused is not present when he should have been.”

Camacho, 955 F.2d at 954 (internal quotation marks omitted). In determining whether a

defendant is voluntarily absent, the district court must attempt to “find out where the

defendant is and why he is absent, and should consider the likelihood the trial could soon

proceed with the defendant, the difficulty of rescheduling and the burden on the

government.” United States v. Rogers, 853 F.2d 249, 252 (4th Cir. 1988).

We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Pitts was

voluntarily absent from his sentencing hearing. The record demonstrates that the court

considered testimony and evidence from Pitts’s probation officer and the United States

Marshal assigned to locate Pitts. Based on the evidence, the court reasonably concluded

that Pitts had absconded.

Pitts next argues that the district court erred in calculating the Guidelines range and

imposed an unreasonable sentence. We “‘review[] all sentences—whether inside, just

outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range—under a deferential abuse-of

discretion standard.’” United States v. Torres-Reyes, 952 F.3d 147, 151 (4th Cir. 2020)

(quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007)). In doing so, we first ensure that

the district court committed no significant procedural error. United States v. Fowler, 948

F.3d 663, 668 (4th Cir. 2020). “If [we] find[] no significant procedural error, [we] then

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consider[] the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed,” United States v.

Arbaugh, 951 F.3d 167, 172 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted), “taking

into account the totality of the circumstances,” United States v. Provance, 944 F.3d 213,

218 (4th Cir. 2019). A sentence within or below a properly calculated Guidelines range is

presumptively reasonable. See United States v. Smith, 919 F.3d 825, 841 n.12 (4th Cir.

2019). A defendant can only rebut the presumption “by showing that the sentence is

unreasonable when measured against the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.” United States v.

Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014).

When analyzing a district court’s calculations under the Guidelines, we review the

court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v.

Gross, 90 F.4th 715, 720 (4th Cir. 2024). Thus, we will uphold the district court’s factual

findings if they were “plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety.” Id. at 722.

Under the Guidelines, courts apply increases to the offense level for fraud offenses

based on the loss amount. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2B1.1(b) (2024). The

commentary to the fraud Guideline explains that the loss amount is the greater of actual or

intended loss. USSG § 2B1.1, cmt. n.3(A); see United States v. Boler, 115 F.4th 316, 325-

28 (4th Cir. 2024) (holding that commentary regarding loss amount is authoritative). The

commentary further defines intended loss as “the pecuniary harm that the defendant

purposely sought to inflict,” including “pecuniary harm that would have been impossible

or unlikely to occur.” USSG § 2B1.1, cmt. n.3(A)(ii).

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We have reviewed the record and conclude that the district court committed no

procedural error in sentencing Pitts. Though the actual loss for Pitts’s transactions was less

than the intended loss, the Guidelines commentary instructs courts that loss is the greater

of actual or intended loss. Here, the district court did not clearly err in calculating the

intended loss. Moreover, we presume that Pitts’s within-Guidelines-range sentence is

substantively reasonable, and Pitts has not rebutted that presumption.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and

argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED