United States v. Joseph

705 F. App'x 711
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedAugust 10, 2017
Docket16-4109
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 705 F. App'x 711 (United States v. Joseph) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Joseph, 705 F. App'x 711 (10th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Gregory A. Phillips Circuit Judge

Gabriel Joseph purchased a home for $3.4 million through a company that he controlled and then sold it to himself five days later for $7 million. Using the fraudulently inflated value, he received a loan and line of credit from Washington Mutual (“WaMu”) totaling $5,659,357.88. After Joseph defaulted, WaMu purchased the property in foreclosure. With an outstanding principal balance of $5,690,725, the property sold for $1.5 million. So Joseph caused what the Sentencing Guidelines and basic economics call, in technical terms, a “loss,” but what Joseph calls a wash. Appellant Opening Br. at 15-16. Based on his own understanding of loss, Joseph challenges the district court’s 18-level loss enhancement. He also argues that the district court erred in applying a gross-receipts enhancement and in dismissing certain charges without prejudice when the government committed a Speedy Trial Act (“STA”) violation. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

I. Facts

The facts underlying Joseph’s offenses involve one real-estate deal and two limited-liability companies, Annuit Coeptis, LLC and SCIPC, LLC. Joseph and his wife, Shandi, each owned a 50% interest in Annuit Coeptis and Joseph controlled SCIPC, LLC, an acronym for Shandi’s Cabin In Park City. On October 11, 2006, SCIPC purchased a cabin (referred to as “Red Hawk”) in Park City, Utah for $3.4 million. On October 16, 2006, just five days later, Joseph entered into a real-estate purchase contract to personally buy Red Hawk from SCIPC for $7,000,000.

In February 2007, Joseph requested a mortgage and line of credit from WaMu based on Red Hawk’s $7 million purchase price, concealing from WaMu that he controlled SCIPC, had inflated the property’s value, and was selling it to himself. He also misrepresented facts about his income and assets and about his intention to occupy Red Hawk as his residence. WaMu approved the loan and gave Joseph a $4,959,586.88 mortgage and a $699,771 line of credit. Because SCIPC was the seller, WaMu deposited $1,983,991.02 of the loan proceeds into SCIPC’s account. Joseph then routed about this amount of money through his and Shandi’s joint account, *714 Annuit Coeptis’s account, and his personal account.

Joseph defaulted on the loan. Through a foreclosure sale, WaMu purchased the property. Neither party provided the foreclosure-purchase price. Then, in late 2008, WaMu went into receivership, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) seized its assets arid liabilities. The FDIC sold the property to JPMorgan Chase, which then sold it for $1.5 million. At the time of this sale, the loan had an outstanding principal balance of $5,690,725.

II. Charges and Jury Trial

In April 2011, the government brought a two-count Misdemeanor Information, charging Joseph with two counts of willful failure to file tax returns in the 2004 and 2005 tax years, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. In February 2012, with the misdemeanor case pending, the government also charged Joseph with two felony counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and one felony count of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. Joseph successfully consolidated the 2011 and 2012 cases (the “Consolidated Case”). The government later obtained a Superseding Indictment in the 2012 case, adding three counts of making false statements to a bank, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014.

In October 2014, three-and-a-half years after the government filed the first charges, Joseph moved to dismiss the Consolidated Case with prejudice for violation of the STA. The government conceded the violation but argued for dismissal without prejudice. In considering whether to dismiss with or without prejudice, 1 the district court concluded that Joseph’s offenses were serious, stating that “the Tenth Circuit has recognized that financial crimes, white collar crimes, may constitute serious offenses,” and that Joseph’s offenses “resulted in a loss of approximately $9,000,000.” Appéllant App. vol. Ill at 775. Ultimately, the district court dismissed the charges in the Consolidated Case (which included both the felony and misdemeanor counts) without prejudice.

In February 2015, after the district court’s dismissal of the Consolidated Case, the government re-indicted Joseph for two counts of wire fraud, one count of money laundering, three counts of making false statements to a bank, and one count of willfully failing to file an income tax return. The government later dismissed two of the counts for making false statements to a bank. The government also filed a “Notice of Intention to Seek Criminal Forfeiture” under 18 U.S.C. § 982(a). Appellant App. vol. I at 41. A jury convicted Joseph on all five remaining counts, and the district court granted the government’s Motion for Order of Forfeiture.

III. Sentencing

The probation office prepared a Third Amended Presentence Investigation Report (PSR). 2 The PSR calcúlated a total offense level of 28 and a criminal-history category of I, rendering an advisory guideline range of 78 to 97 months of imprisonment. The PSR grouped the four convic *715 tions for wire fraud, money laundering, and false statements to a bank, and calculated their sentencing impact under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2B1.1 (U.S. Sentencing Comm’n 2015) (“USSG”). For these counts, the PSR set a base offense level of 7, under § 2Bl.l(a)(l); added 18 levels for a specific offense characteristic of losses more than $3.5 million, under § 2Bl.l(b)(l)(J); and added 2 more levels for Joseph’s having derived more than $1 million from financial institutions as part of his offense, under § 2Bl.l(b)(16)(A). 3 Then, for Joseph’s money-laundering conviction, the PSR turned to USSG § 2S1.1. The base offense level for that crime incorporated the offense level of 27 already calculated from § 2B1.1. See USSG § 2Sl.l(a)(l). It then added another offense level because Joseph was convicted for money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1957. USSG § 2Sl.l(b)(2)(A). That gave Joseph a total offense level of 28.

For the misdemeanor willful-failure-to-file count, the PSR calculated a base-offense level of 16. See USSG § 2T1.1; USSG § 2T4.1(F) (providing an offense level of 16 for tax losses of more $100,000 but not more than $250,000). But because this offense level was 12 levels fewer than the money-laundering offense level, the misdemeanor convictions did not increase the total offense level. See

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
705 F. App'x 711, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-joseph-ca10-2017.