United States v. Wagner-Dano

679 F.3d 83, 2012 WL 1660956, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9721
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 14, 2012
Docket10-4593-cr.
StatusPublished
Cited by91 cases

This text of 679 F.3d 83 (United States v. Wagner-Dano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second 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. Wagner-Dano, 679 F.3d 83, 2012 WL 1660956, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9721 (2d Cir. 2012).

Opinion

LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Melissa WagnerDano (“Wagner-Dano”) appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Norman A. Mordue, Chief Judge), entered October 26, 2010, convicting Wagner-Dano, upon her guilty plea, of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and sentencing her principally to 78 months’ imprisonment. Wagner-Dano argues that her sentence is both procedurally defective and substantively unreasonable. She argues that the district court procedurally erred by: (1) inadequately considering the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors; and (2) neglecting to address several of her objections to the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”), allegedly in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(3)(B). We hold that because Wagner-Dano did not raise either procedural objection before the district court, our review of both procedural arguments is restricted to plain error. We further conclude that neither alleged procedural defect amounts to plain error. Because we also conclude that the sentence imposed by the district court is substantively reasonable, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

Background

I. The Offense Conduct

Melissa Wagner-Dano, a thirty-three-year-old married mother of two, was employed as a bookkeeper by: (1) the Town of Lewis, New York, a small community of *85 about 1100; (2) the Oneida Lewis Milk Producers Cooperative (“OLMPC”), a dairy farm cooperative of eighteen dairy farms in Oneida and Lewis counties; and (3) the Boonville Farms Cooperative, Inc. (“BFC”), made up of thirty-nine member dairy farms in Oneida, Lewis, and Herkimer counties. The latter two regional dairy cooperatives sell milk from their dairy farm members to milk processors, collect the receipts, and pay their respective cooperative members. As the bookkeeper for the Town and the dairy farm cooperatives, Wagner-Dano controlled the bank accounts for all three entities.

From January 2007 through December 2009, Wagner-Dano stole $1,169,717.74 from her employers through unauthorized withdrawals from their bank accounts by means of wire transfers, Internet accounts, fictitious payroll accounts, and checks payable to herself. She transferred funds between the three entities’ accounts to cover her theft. 1 Wagner-Dano used the stolen money to purchase, among other things, property improvements, a customized truck for “truck pulling” competitions, and fifteen gypsy horses.

The scheme began to unravel in September 2009, when a BFC board member was notified by the company’s bank that BFC’s $250,000 line of credit had reached its limit. The board member contacted WagnerDano, who falsely told him that the problem stemmed from the malfunction of her computer. She then paid back BFC’s line of credit, also paying associated late fees and penalties on the account. She thereafter transferred $50,000 from her personal checking account to the Town of Lewis’s bank account. In a letter to the BFC board of directors she sent in October, Wagner-Dano repeated her explanation that the credit line had reached its limit as a result of unauthorized transfers caused by a computer crash. When OLMPC board members confronted her one month later, however, she admitted that she had transferred money between accounts for OLMPC and the Town of Lewis. Wagner-Dano waived indictment on April 19, 2010, and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in a scheme against OLMPC, BFC, the members of those cooperatives, and the Town of Lewis.

II. The Presentence Investigation Report

The United States Probation Office prepared a PSR that summarized the facts of Wagner-Dano’s offense. It contained a calculation of Wagner-Dano’s sentencing range pursuant to the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“the Guidelines”) of 63 to 78 months’ imprisonment. Wagner-Dano submitted a lengthy sentencing memorandum objecting to several statements in the PSR. The PSR was thereafter revised to address some of these objections. 2 Wagner-Dano’s remaining objections were appended to the PSR.

The revised PSR and its addenda recount eight objections made by WagnerDano.

*86 First, although the PSR states that $1,169,717.74 was lost, Wagner-Dano objected that the correct loss amount was $1,119,595.35.

Second, the PSR states that WagnerDano owed $1,016,867.46 in restitution, but she argued that the proper restitution amount was $966,745.07.

Third, the PSR reports that “the Town of Lewis Supervisor .... states that the entire budget for the Town of Lewis is approximately $500,000 and the defendant stole half.” Wagner-Dano objected that “it would be more accurate to consider the loss over the three-year period she took the funds, in which case the stolen funds represent about 15% of the Town’s budget.”

Fourth, the PSR states that “[o]n October 29, 2009, the defendant wrote a letter and sent it via fax to the Board of Directors of BFC in which she falsely stated that unauthorized transfers from the BFC checking account had occurred and were the result of her computer system having crashed.” Wagner-Dano objected that she wrote this letter not in an attempt to cover up her thefts, but rather because she was advised to “concoct[] an excuse for the missing money” by BFC’s treasurer, who “was running for public office at the time and apparently wanted to avoid having to take any responsibility for her actions.”

Fifth, the PSR states that:

In October and November of 2009, Wagner-Dano repaid some of the monies she stole from the victims before she was under investigation for or charged with the offense. Specifically, the defendant made payments totaling $81,900 to BFC; $17,800 to OLMPC; and $60,000 to the Town of Lewis.... [L]oss shall be reduced by the money returned by the defendant to the victim before the offense was detected. The time of detection of the offense is the time the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the offense was detected or about to be detected by a victim or government agency. WagnerDano knew or reasonably should have known her offense was detected or about to be detected by the victims because she had been questioned by BFC about missing monies in September 2009. The defendant not only started repaying some of the money, she also lied to the victims and reported the money shortages were due to computer problems she was having and promised she would resolve the issue.

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Bluebook (online)
679 F.3d 83, 2012 WL 1660956, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 9721, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-wagner-dano-ca2-2012.