United States v. Souleymane Diarra

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit·Decided January 30, 2025·No. 22-3232·Unpublished

Opinion

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Nos. 22-3232 & 23-1405

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

SOULEYMANE DIARRA, Appellant in 22-3232;

MALAN DOUMBIA, a/k/a “FRENCHIE”, Appellant in 23-1405

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Criminal Nos. 2:19-cr-00392-001 and 002)

District Judge: Honorable Wendy Beetlestone

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

July 12, 2024

Before: SHWARTZ, PHIPPS, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judges.

(Opinion filed: January 30, 2025)

OPINION *

MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, Malan Doumbia and Souleymane Diarra challenge certain convictions and sentences relating to their participation in a credit and debit card fraud

*

This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.

scheme. They challenge the sufficiency of evidence supporting their aggravated identity theft and wire fraud conspiracy convictions and related sentencing enhancements. And they argue that the District Court improperly instructed the jury on their money laundering conspiracy charge. They also argue that recent precedent requires vacating their aggravated identity theft convictions. Because sufficient evidence supports their convictions, the District Court’s jury instructions were not plainly erroneous, and recent precedent does not require vacatur, we will affirm. I. BACKGROUND Doumbia’s and Diarra’s convictions stem from a fraud scheme that involved purchasing stolen credit and debit card numbers from the dark web and attempting to withdraw funds from those accounts. In 2015, following an investigation, the Secret Service executed search warrants of Doumbia’s and Diarra’s homes. During the search of Doumbia’s home, investigators recovered various items allegedly used in the fraud scheme, including Western Union receipts, VISA gift cards, phones, laptops, altered gift cards, and an embossing machine. In the search of Diarra’s home, investigators recovered evidence of stolen and fraudulent credit cards.

A grand jury returned a 9-count indictment charging Doumbia, Diarra, and Souleymane Jallow 1 with the following offenses: conspiracy to commit wire fraud (“Count 1”); counterfeit access device fraud and aiding and abetting (“Count 2” and

1 Jallow has yet to be arrested and was not tried with Doumbia and Diarra.

“Count 3”); aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting (“Counts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8”); and conspiracy to commit money laundering (“Count 9”).

At trial, another alleged co-conspirator, Fousseiny Camara, described how the scheme worked. He explained that Diarra purchased stolen credit cards from contacts in Ukraine, Russia, and Vietnam using bitcoin or Western Union.

These overseas contacts provided Diarra with victims’ identifying information, including “name, address, social security, everything.” App. 225. Diarra had another person use an embosser machine to affix those names and numbers onto empty credit cards, then Camara and others could make withdrawals from the accounts associated with the stolen numbers. Camara also testified that Diarra provided Doumbia with debit cards and associated pin numbers so that Doumbia could withdraw money directly from ATMs.

Following trial, a jury found Doumbia and Diarra guilty on all charges. At sentencing, the District Court found that the Government proved there were 22 victims, 17 people whose card numbers were found on Diarra’s seized laptop and five banks. Under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, the District Court applied various enhancements to their sentences, including a 10-or-more victim enhancement, an overseas enhancement, a loss amount enhancement, and a money laundering enhancement. See U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual §§ 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(i), (b)(10)(B), (b)(1)(D); 2S1.1(b)(2)(B) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2022).

Ultimately, the District Court sentenced Doumbia to “a term of 62 months on each of Counts 1, 2, 3 and 9 to be served concurrently [and a] term of 24 months on each of counts 4, 5, 6, 7, [and] 8 to be concurrently to each other but consecutively to the terms

imposed on Counts 1, 2, 3 and 9 to produce a total term of 86 months.” App. 904. The District Court sentenced Diarra to “a term of 37 months on each of Counts 1, 2, 3 and 9 to be served concurrently and the term of 24 months on each of counts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 to be served concurrently to each other but consecutive to the terms imposed on counts 1, 2, 3 and 9 to produce a total term of 61 months of imprisonment.” 2 App. 855.

Diarra moved for acquittal on all counts, and Doumbia moved for acquittal on the conspiracy to commit wire fraud and the aggravated identity theft counts. The District Court denied these motions.

Doumbia and Diarra now appeal.

II. DISCUSSION 3 Doumbia and Diarra make four arguments on appeal: (1) Dubin v. United States, 599 U.S. 110 (2023), requires this Court to vacate their aggravated identity theft convictions; (2) insufficient evidence supports the aggravated identity theft and wire fraud conspiracy convictions; (3) the jury instructions for money laundering conspiracy were erroneous; and (4) the District Court erred by applying the 10-or-more victim, overseas, and loss amount sentencing enhancements. We address each issue in turn.

2 Doumbia and Diarra also were sentenced to identical terms of supervised release of three years on Counts 1, 2, 3, and 9 and a term of one year on each of Counts 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, “such terms to run concurrently.” App. 855. And they were ordered to pay restitution and a special assessment. 3 The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742.

A. Dubin v. United States Doumbia and Diarra argue that the recent Supreme Court decision in Dubin requires vacating their aggravated identity theft convictions. Not so.

Dubin was convicted of healthcare fraud and aggravated identity theft for overbilling Medicaid through a company he helped manage. Dubin, 599 U.S. at 114–15. The scheme involved inflating the services the company provided to real patients. Id. at 114. The Government argued that Dubin should be convicted of aggravated identity theft on top of his substantive healthcare fraud conviction because Dubin’s “fraudulent billing included the patient’s Medicaid reimbursement number (a ‘means of identification’).” Id. at 115.

But the Supreme Court held that a defendant should be convicted of aggravated identity theft only where “a defendant ‘uses’ another person’s means of identification ‘in relation to’ a predicate offense when this use is at the crux of what makes the conduct criminal.” Id. at 131. Under this framework, the Court vacated Dubin’s aggravated identity theft conviction because the use of patient names was ancillary to the healthcare fraud scheme that was based on “misrepresenting how and when services were provided to a patient, not who received the services.” Id. at 132. Although Dubin’s scheme included the use of real identifying information, the “crux” of the underlying fraud was exaggerating the healthcare service, not using specific identities. Id.

Contrary to Doumbia’s and Diarra’s assertions, Dubin supports their aggravated identity theft convictions. Unlike in Dubin, the conduct at issue here, using “another person’s identification information to get access to that person’s bank account,” is

“classic identity theft.” Id. at 126 (quoting Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U.S. 646, 656 (2009)). Misrepresenting others’ identities to creditors and banks is at the “crux of the underlying criminality,” which is the bank and access fraud. Id. at 129. Accordingly, Dubin does not require us to vacate Doumbia’s and Diarra’s aggravated identity theft convictions. 4

B. Sufficiency of Evidence Underlying the Aggravated Identity Theft and Wire Fraud Conspiracy Convictions

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