United States v. Romannose

Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit·Decided October 1, 2024·No. 22-5049·Unpublished

Opinion

FILED

United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT October 1, 2024

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. No. 22-5049 (D.C. No. 4:21-CR-00332-JFH-1)

DAVID ANTHONY ROMANNOSE, (N.D. Okla.)

Defendant - Appellant.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Before TYMKOVICH, EBEL, and EID, Circuit Judges.

David Anthony RomanNose sexually assaulted M.P., a minor, in the back seat of her father’s truck while they drove through eastern Oklahoma. A jury convicted RomanNose of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor and sexual abuse of a minor. The district court then sentenced RomanNose to life in prison for aggravated sexual abuse of a minor to run concurrently with his 180-month sentence for sexual abuse of a minor.

RomanNose now appeals his conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, arguing the evidence presented at trial was insufficient for a jury to find he

*

This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel.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 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

used force to sexually assault M.P. We disagree. The government presented ample evidence of the disparity in size and coercive power between RomanNose and M.P. as well as RomanNose’s use of physical restraint. Taken together, this evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find RomanNose used force to perpetrate the assault. Because we affirm the aggravated sexual abuse of a minor conviction, we remand for the district court to vacate his sentence either for that conviction or for the conviction for sexual abuse of a minor, as sentencing RomanNose for both counts violated his rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Finally, if the district court does not vacate the sentence for aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, it must resentence RomanNose because it plainly erred by applying U.S.S.G. § 2A3.1(b)(4)(B) without a finding that M.P. sustained a serious bodily injury other than the sexual assault.

I.

a.1

When M.P. was twelve years old, she moved from North Carolina to New York to spend the summer with her father. M.P. and her father are enrolled members of the Oneida Indian Nation. M.P.’s father lived with his then-wife, Renee Roman Nose,2 who is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. While M.P. was living with her father, Renee’s forty-year-old nephew,

1 The following facts were testified to at the trial. Neither party disputes them.

2 David Anthony RomanNose spells his last name as one word. Renee Roman Nose spells her last name as two words. To avoid confusion, we refer to Renee Roman Nose by her first name.

David Anthony RomanNose, came to stay with them. Like Renee, RomanNose is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was also a friend of M.P.’s father.

M.P. spent a great deal of time with RomanNose that summer. At trial, she testified that the two would “roughhouse [and] tease each other. . . . I would punch him[,] and he would poke my side.” R. Vol. III at 82. RomanNose made comments about M.P.’s body, her breasts in particular. “He’d just be, like, ‘Well, they’re so small, they would barely fit in one cup of a training bra in clothes.’” Id. At the time, M.P. thought his behavior was just “kid stuff” even though RomanNose was forty years old. Id. She testified, “I thought he was my friend. He was easier to talk to[,] and he would listen to me unlike a lot of people. He just made me feel relevant.” Id. at 86.

In late June, M.P., her father, Renee, and RomanNose traveled to Seiling, Oklahoma, to attend Renee’s Sun Dance ceremony. They drove from New York to Seiling in M.P.’s father’s Ford truck. The drive took approximately twenty-four hours. The Sun Dance ceremony lasted four or five days, and the family drove back to New York.

They made a few stops on the return trip. First, they visited one of Renee’s family members in Oklahoma. During the visit, M.P. ate a lollipop her father had given her. RomanNose approached her and said, “I bet you can’t fit all that in your mouth.” Id. at 87. M.P. could and showed him so. Then she “took it out and he

just—he was, like, ‘Oh, wow.’ And I just—it made me feel weird, so I went and got my dad and asked if we could head out . . . .” Id.

It was starting to get dark when they left the house. M.P.’s father and Renee sat in the front seat of the truck, alternating driving and sleeping.3 M.P. and RomanNose sat in the back seat. The two talked and roughhoused until Renee yelled at them to stop so M.P.’s father could sleep.

The sky was pitch black by the time they arrived in eastern Oklahoma. M.P.

testified about what happened next:

I got really tired so I grabbed my pillow and laid down like how I would normally do on a car ride. My head wasn’t on [RomanNose’s] lap[,] but it was touching the side of his lap like on his leg. And I had my dad’s phone[,] and I was listening to music with my earbuds in, and [RomanNose] kept trying to take the phone from me, which I wanted to listen to music[,] and I didn’t want to be bothered so, like, I kept stuffing the phone further and further under me. And I stopped for a second, then he started tracing my face, like touching it, and he moved his hand down to my mouth and traced over my lips a little bit, and then he stuck his hand down my shirt and touched my boobs or whatever—however you want to word that, but then he pulled his hand out and he stuck his fingers in my mouth and then touched my boobs again, but I rolled over and pretended like I was still sleeping. I turned my music down and I thought I heard his pants unzip[,] but I wasn’t sure. And he grabbed my hand and put it on his penis. . . .

Id. at 90–91. While holding M.P.’s hand on his penis, RomanNose started “moving his hips up and down like—he wasn’t moving my hand, he was moving himself.” Id.

3 There is conflicting testimony as to who was driving at various times. But because this dispute is irrelevant to the substance of RomanNose’s appeal, we take M.P.’s version of events and assume Renee was driving at this point.

at 92. M.P. “jerked [her hand] away” and “laid there for a second[,] and then I sat up and tossed the pillow at him, told him that he needed to sleep.” Id.

After that, RomanNose laid down with his head next to M.P.’s leg. He started rubbing her leg around her knee.

He would get higher and I’d push his hand, but the more I pushed his hand down, the higher up he would rub, and then he stuck his hand up my shorts and, like, touched me down there, but at first it was just over my underwear, and then he pulled his hand out of my shorts and started rubbing my thigh again, and then he went back in my shorts, but that time it was under my underwear. [Then,] [h]e stuck his fingers in [my vagina].

He pulled them out a few times and licked his fingers and stuck them back in again.

Id. at 93. This happened two or three times. M.P. testified that “it hurt really bad.” Id. at 94. While RomanNose was assaulting her, M.P. tried to kick the back of her father’s seat, “thinking that if I could kick my dad’s seat hard enough, he’d turn around to yell at me to stop kicking his seat and it would make [RomanNose] stop.” Id. She did not call out or say anything, and eventually she “[j]ust kinda froze.” Id. The assault ended after approximately forty minutes, when the family arrived at a rest stop.

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