United States v. Martin

363 F.3d 25, 93 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1553, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 5847, 2004 WL 626732
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedMarch 30, 2004
Docket03-1068
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 363 F.3d 25 (United States v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First 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. Martin, 363 F.3d 25, 93 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1553, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 5847, 2004 WL 626732 (1st Cir. 2004).

Opinion

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Daniel Martin pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion. The district court sentenced him to three years of probation, with six months to be served in home detention. The government, believing that Martin’s sentence was too lenient, appeals. It argues that the district court improperly grouped the fraud counts with the tax evasion counts and improperly granted downward departures for extraordinary acceptance of responsibility and extraordinary physical impairment. Martin counters that, because he has already served a significant portion of his original sentence of probation, any subsequent sentence of imprisonment would violate double jeopardy principles.

Although we disagree with Martin’s double jeopardy argument as posed, this case does raise a double jeopardy issue that must be addressed at re-sentencing. There will be a re-sentencing because we agree with the government that the court erred in its grouping decision and its grant of a downward departure for extraordinary acceptance of responsibility.

I.

From 1997 until 2000, Martin participated in a scheme to defraud several food distributors and the DeMoulas Supermarkets chain of more than $1.8 million. In the food merchandise industry, food distributors often pay grocers to run promotional campaigns for their products or place their products in preferred display locations. These transactions are negotiated almost entirely between representatives of the food distributors and the grocer, with little supervision by higher level executives. Thus, only the representatives know if a distributor pays more, or a grocer receives less, than the negotiated price. A representative could easily divert funds *31 by lying to his or her supervisors about the actual terms of a contract.

Martin and his fellow conspirators took advantage of this lack of oversight. Robert Stella, a salesman for the food distributor Campbell’s, stole more than $800,000 in checks written to DeMoulas. Robert McCarthy, a food broker for Advantage ESM, similarly stole checks destined for DeMoulas worth approximately $490,000. Finally, Wayne Dick, a food buyer at De-Moulas, took more than $400,000 worth of checks given to him by various food distributors as payment to DeMoulas. Stella, McCarthy, and Dick gave their stolen checks to Martin so he could deposit them at Fleet Bank where Linda Dempski, a teller who was a party to the scheme, would convert the proceeds to cash or cashiers checks. Thus, Martin served primarily as a middleman, taking the stolen checks and converting them to cash through his contacts at Fleet.

All told, Martin converted $1,803,990 in checks made out to DeMoulas. Martin’s share of that sum was between $582,335 and $660,623. 1 Martin did not report this fraudulent income, and the resulting tax loss to the government was approximately $254,500.

In May 2000, a Fleet Bank official noticed a DeMoulas check deposited directly into Martin’s personal account. From there, the scheme unraveled quickly. De-Moulas confronted Dick about the thefts and, soon after, Dick, Stella, and Martin contacted DeMoulas about paying restitution. Over the next five and a half months the three paid a total of $1,746,930 to the victims, representing the total known loss as of December 2000. 2 Martin contributed $837,491 to DeMoulas’s and Campbell’s losses, and $11,000 toward Fleet’s attorneys’ fees, for a total of $848,491.

II.

On July 26, 2002, Martin waived indictment and pleaded guilty to an information charging him with nine counts of “receipt of stolen moneys” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2315 (the “fraud counts”) and two counts of filing a materially false U.S. income tax return in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) (the “tax evasion counts”). There was no plea agreement.

On November 21, 2002, the district court began a three day sentencing hearing. The government argued primarily that Martin was the central figure in the scheme, had recruited the other participants, and was the organizer and leader of the criminal activity. To support this view, the government offered three cooperating witnesses — McCarthy, Stella, and Dempski — who testified about Martin’s role in the scheme. The government further argued that, because Martin denied that he was the central figure in the conspiracy, the court should not grant any *32 downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility.

The defense offered evidence of Martin’s restitution payments and his history of physical problems resulting from Crohn’s disease. It argued that Martin’s restitution payments were so extraordinary that they justified a departure above and beyond the normal adjustment for acceptance of responsibility recognized in the Guidelines. It further argued that Martin’s fragile health justified a departure based on the discouraged factor of extraordinary physical impairment.

Finding the government witnesses unconvincing, the court stated that the scheme, while involving several people working in concert, was a disorganized assemblage of members concerned primarily with their own interests. Although Martin may have served as a middleman in the execution of the scheme, the court did not find that he played a central role as a leader or an organizer.

Against this backdrop, the court first calculated the sentence for the fraud counts. 3 Applying U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(a), it set the base offense level (“BOL”) at four. It added a 14 level enhancement, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(0), because the amount of stolen money was between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. 4 It further added a two level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(4)(A) for more than minimal planning. 5 This resulted in an adjusted offense level (“AOL”) of 20 for the fraud counts.

For the tax evasion counts, the court applied U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(a)(1). Pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2T4.1(K), it set the BOL at 16 because the tax loss was between $200,000 and $325,000. 6 It then added a two point enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(b)(1) for failing to report income in excess of $10,000 derived from criminal activity. 7 Thus, the AOL for the tax evasion counts was 18.

*33 The court found that the fraud counts embodied the same conduct that justified the two level upward adjustment to the tax evasion counts for failure to report criminally derived income. Thus, the court ruled that the fraud and tax evasion counts should be grouped pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(c). 8 Applying U.S.S.G. § 3D1.3, the court set the grouped offense level at 20 — the highest offense level of the counts in the group (the fraud counts). 9

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Bluebook (online)
363 F.3d 25, 93 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1553, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 5847, 2004 WL 626732, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-martin-ca1-2004.