United States v. Siu Kuen Ma

290 F.3d 1002, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3971, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 5073, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 8878, 2002 WL 927116
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 9, 2002
Docket01-10025
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 290 F.3d 1002 (United States v. Siu Kuen Ma) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Siu Kuen Ma, 290 F.3d 1002, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3971, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 5073, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 8878, 2002 WL 927116 (9th Cir. 2002).

Opinion

OPINION

NOONAN, Circuit Judge.

Siu Kuen Ma appeals the sentence imposed by the district court following her plea of guilty to three counts of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. The district court did not engage in the colloquy with her required by Fed. R.Crim.P. 11(c)(6). While the appeal was pending, the legal landscape on Rule 11 error was altered by United States v. Vonn, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1043, 152 L.Ed.2d 90 (2002). Under Vonn, Ma has failed to show that the error affected her substantial rights or that it “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. at 1048 (internal quotation marks omitted and alteration in original). Accordingly, we dismiss her appeal.

FACTS

In her plea agreement with the government, Ma acknowledged the truth of the following: At all relevant times she was employed by First Republic Bank (the Bank), a federally insured financial institution in San Francisco, California. Beginning in December 1997 and continuing until March, 2000, she fraudulently transferred funds from and to accounts to which her position at the Bank gave her access. More particularly in November and December 1999, she fraudulently debited various customers’ accounts to obtain cashier’s checks and bank checks payable to herself which she deposited into her account at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. She then withdrew the funds from Wells Fargo to buy cashier’s checks payable to herself. She subsequently used the checks at various casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada to obtain gaming chips. In particular, she purchased in this way $30,000 worth of markers at the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino and $240,000 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The total value of the funds she laundered was more than $2 million and less than $3.5 million.

The Presentence Report provides further undisputed facts which flesh out the frigid recitation of the plea agreement. Ma was born on January 2, 1970 in Guan-dong, China. She came with her parents to the United States in 1987 at the age of seventeen. Her parents worked long hours six days a week to support the family and after five years made a down payment on a house. Ma, who also worked on her arrival here, was hired in 1996 by the Bank as a New Account Officer. In 1997, she was promoted to Senior Savings Officer. On July 1, 1998, she became an Assistant Branch Manager.

Ma’s troubles began in 1995 when her parents sold their home, and her mother gave her $61,000 to deposit in a normal bank account. Instead, Ma invested the money in the stock market and suffered substantial loss. Ashamed, she did not want to tell her mother what had happened. She began to gamble to make up the loss. At first she only borrowed from friends, but as she lost more money the gambling became an addiction. To sustain it, she took the cashier’s checks and the money from the accounts of the Bank.

PROCEEDINGS

On March 2, 2000, Ma was arrested in Las Vegas. On March 22, 2000, she was charged by the filing of an information. On July 21, 2000, pursuant to Fed. R.Crim.P. 11(e)(1)(B), she agreed to plead *1004 guilty to violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. The plea agreement set out the Guideline Calculations as follows: Basic Offense level, 17; increase of 2, because Ma knew the funds came from her embezzlements; increase of 6 since the total value of the funds was more than $2 million and less than $3.5 million; reduction of 3 for her acceptance of responsibility. The government reserved the right to argue for a 2-point increase because of her abuse of a position of responsibility. Assuming that this increase was imposed, the plea agreement set the offense level at 24, which, with a criminal history of I, pointed to a guideline range of 51 to 63 months. The government agreed to recommend the low end of the range.

According to the terms of the plea agreement, Ma agreed “to waive the right to appeal all matters pertaining to this case and any sentence, including any order of restitution, fine, term of imprisonment, or condition of supervised release or probation.” She agreed “to pay restitution for the full loss caused by her activities, including relevant conduct not charged in the indictment.” Ma acknowledged in writing that she had read and understood the plea agreement.

On July 21, 2000, Ma appeared before the district court and pleaded guilty as she had agreed to do. The hearing was conducted with an interpreter translating for Ma. The charges were read to Ma, and the court ascertained that she understood the essential elements of the offenses and that she read English. The court madé sure that Ma knew she was waiving the right to an indictment by the grand jury; to jury trial; to have an attorney at trial; not to incriminate herself; to be confronted by her accusers; and to -testify in her own defense.

The court then asked the prosecuting assistant United States attorney to give a brief summary of the plea agreement. The prosecutor set out all of the terms set out above, including the fact that Ma had agreed to waive her right to appeal. The court asked Ma’s counsel if what had been presented agreed with his understanding and if he had discussed these matters with his client. He answered affirmatively. The court then asked Ma if she understood the agreement and was in agreement with it. She, too, replied affirmatively. The court then interrogated her as to whether she was acting voluntarily and without threat or promise; as to whether she understood that only the court would determine her sentence and that in doing so the judge would select a sentence from the guidelines but might depart below or above them and that the court in sentencing could take into account all relevant information. Satisfied by her answers that Ma understood all these things, the court accepted her plea of guilty. Sentencing was postponed. During Ma’s sentencing proceeding, the judge stated, “The defendant has waived her right to appeal her conviction and sentence.”

The Presentence Report stated that the Bank had suffered a total loss of $1,316,904 from Ma’s activities and that various Las Vegas casinos had suffered a loss of $780,000 from stolen checks used by Ma and dishonored by the bank. Ma argued the report overstated the loss in three ways: (1) It estimated the loss to First Republic as $1,316,904, but it included in that number $52,583 found in Ma’s possession when she was arrested. This amount was neither laundered nor lost to the Bank, whose total loss was therefore $1,264,321. The report estimated loss to the three casinos as $780,000, but that was the total amount of the cashier’s checks used to obtain credit at the casinos; $280,000 of this credit Ma did not draw upon, so the total loss to the casinos was $500,000. Adding the loss of the bank and the casinos, Ma stated that the total loss to victims was $1,764,321.

*1005 In reply to Ma, the government estimated that “the actual amount of loss incurred by the victims ...

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Bluebook (online)
290 F.3d 1002, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3971, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 5073, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 8878, 2002 WL 927116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-siu-kuen-ma-ca9-2002.