United States v. Eduardo Castellanos-Loya , 503 F. App'x 240 ( 2013 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4293
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
EDUARDO CASTELLANOS-LOYA, a/k/a Heriberto Rivera-Malave,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Newport News. Arenda Wright Allen,
District Judge. (4:11-cr-00068-AWA-FBS)
Submitted: December 20, 2012 Decided: January 8, 2013
Before WYNN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Frances H.
Pratt, Larry M. Dash, Assistant Federal Public Defenders,
Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H. MacBride, United
States Attorney, Andrew L. Creighton, Special Assistant United
States Attorney, Newport News, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Eduardo Castellanos-Loya appeals his convictions and
twenty-five month sentence for false representation as a United
States citizen, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 911 (2006), and for
aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 1028A(a)(1) and (c) (2006). We affirm.
Castellanos-Loya first contends that the Government
produced insufficient evidence to support his aggravated
identity theft conviction. When a defendant challenges the
sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, we view the evidence and
all reasonable inferences in favor of the government and will
uphold the jury’s verdict if it is supported by “substantial
evidence.” United States v. Cameron, 573 F.3d 179, 183 (4th
Cir. 2009). “[S]ubstantial evidence is evidence that a
reasonable finder of fact could accept as adequate and
sufficient to support a conclusion of a defendant’s guilt beyond
a reasonable doubt.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Where the record supports conflicting inferences, we must
presume that the factfinder resolved any such conflicts in favor
of the prosecution. McDaniel v. Brown, 130 S. Ct. 665, 673
(2010).
To win a conviction for aggravated identity theft, the
government must show that the defendant has committed one of
certain enumerated predicate offenses and, “during and in
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relation to” that crime, “knowingly transfers, possesses, or
uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of
another person.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) (2006); see United
States v. Castillo-Pena, 674 F.3d 318, 323 (4th Cir. 2012);
United States v. Abdelshafi, 592 F.3d 602, 607 (4th Cir. 2010).
Castellanos-Loya does not dispute that he committed a
qualifying predicate offense by falsely representing himself as
an American citizen to the agent who detained him, violating
§ 911, see Castillo-Pena, 674 F.3d at 323, nor does he dispute
that a social security number (“SSN”) is a “means of
identification” for purposes of § 1028A(a)(1). Instead,
Castellanos-Loya argues that the Government failed to prove (1)
that the SSN belonged to a real person, (2) that Castellanos-
Loya knew that it did, and (3) that his possession of the SSN
was “in relation to” his lie that he was an American citizen.
We cannot agree. The Government adequately proved
that the SSN in question belonged to a real person simply by
demonstrating that the number was valid — i.e., that the Social
Security Administration’s records reflected that the number had
been issued to an individual. See United States v. Mitchell,
518 F.3d 230, 234 (4th Cir. 2008); United States v. Melendrez,
389 F.3d 829, 834 (9th Cir. 2004). Although Castellanos-Loya
argues that the Government’s evidence in this case was
insufficient because it failed to rule out the possibility that
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the SSN could have been fraudulently obtained in the name of a
person who never actually existed, we have no difficulty
concluding that the jury could properly have found that the
Government’s evidence sufficed to prove this element of § 1028A
“beyond a reasonable doubt.” Cameron, 573 F.3d at 183.
Castellanos-Loya’s assertion that the Government
failed to prove that he knew that the SSN belonged to a real
person, see Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U.S. 646, 647
(2009), suffers from a similar ailment: it demands of defendants
a degree of certainty that is foreign to long-accepted notions
pertaining to a mens rea of “knowledge.” See, e.g., Model Penal
Code § 2.02(7) (Thompson Reuters, Westlaw through 2011) (“When
knowledge of the existence of a particular fact is an element of
an offense, such knowledge is established if a person is aware
of a high probability of its existence, unless he actually
believes that it does not exist.”). Castellanos-Loya admitted
that the person who sold him the SSN effectively told him that
the SSN belonged to a real person. But he now asserts that,
despite his subjective belief that the SSN was authentic, he did
not actually know that the SSN belonged to a real person because
he did not verify that the seller was not lying to him.
Although we are mindful of the “difficulty in many circumstances
of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant has the
necessary knowledge,” we have no doubt that a jury could have
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found the requisite knowledge on the facts of this case.
Flores-Figueroa, 556 U.S. at 655. See, e.g., id. at 656; United
States v. Valerio, 676 F.3d 237, 244-46 (1st Cir. 2012); United
States v. Clark, 668 F.3d 568, 574 (8th Cir. 2012); United
States v. Doe, 661 F.3d 550, 561-65 (11th Cir. 2011), cert.
denied, 132 S. Ct. 1648 (2012); United States v. Gomez–Castro,
605 F.3d 1245, 1249 (11th Cir. 2010).
As for Castellanos-Loya’s assertion that the
Government failed to prove that he possessed the SSN “in
relation to” his false representation offense, he has waived any
such argument on appeal by failing to raise it in his Fed. R.
Crim. P. 29 motion before the district court. United States v.
Chong Lam, 677 F.3d 190, 200 (4th Cir. 2012).
Castellanos-Loya next urges that the district court
abused its discretion in declining to prohibit testimony about
the date of birth associated with the SSN, due to the
Government’s late disclosure of the pertinent information. We
have reviewed the record and conclude that, regardless of
whether the district court properly considered the factors
enumerated in United States v. Hastings, 126 F.3d 310, 317 (4th
Cir. 1997), any error was harmless. United States v. Johnson,
617 F.3d 286, 292 (4th Cir. 2010) (holding that evidentiary
rulings are subject to harmless error renew).
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Finally, Castellanos-Loya attacks his sentence,
contending that he was improperly assigned an obstruction of
justice enhancement under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
(“USSG”) § 3C1.1 (2011). In assessing whether a sentencing
court properly applied the Guidelines, the district court’s
factual findings are reviewed for clear error and its legal
conclusions are reviewed de novo. United States v. Osborne, 514
F.3d 377, 387 (4th Cir. 2008).
A defendant merits a two-level obstruction of justice
enhancement where he “willfully obstructed or impeded, or
attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice
with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of
the instant offense of conviction, and (2) the obstructive
conduct related to (A) the defendant’s offense of conviction and
any relevant conduct; or (B) a closely related offense.” USSG
§ 3C1.1. As the application notes specify, the enhancement
applies to perjury. USSG § 3C1.1, cmt. n.4(B).
As Castellanos-Loya observes, the obstruction
enhancement is inapplicable to his aggravated identity theft
conviction and therefore applies only to his false
representation conviction under § 911. See USSG § 2B1.6(a).
But at trial, Castellanos-Loya admitted his guilt on the false
representation charge; thus, he argues, his false trial
testimony could have obstructed only his aggravated identity
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theft conviction, not his § 911 conviction. Because his perjury
related only to the former offense, he claims, the district
court erred in applying the enhancement to the Guidelines range
pertaining to the latter.
But Castellanos-Loya’s position underappreciates the
“broad reading” that must be given to § 3C1.1. United States v.
Jones, 308 F.3d 425, 429 (4th Cir. 2002). In fact, the
defendant’s “perjurious statements need not be about the offense
of conviction [to support application of the § 3C1.1
enhancement]; it is enough if the perjurious statements were
given during the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of
the instant offense.” Id. at 428 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Moreover, the enhancement applies where the
obstructive conduct “related to” an offense “closely related” to
the defendant’s offense of conviction. USSG § 3C1.1. See
United States v. Mollner, 643 F.3d 713, 715-19 (10th Cir. 2011)
(collecting cases and describing how the term “closely related”
was chosen to increase the breadth of § 3C1.1’s scope). Given
that Castellanos-Loya perjured himself during the trial on his
false representation charge and that the statements related to
the dependent § 1028A charge, we conclude that the district
court did not err in assigning him an enhancement under § 3C1.1.
See Mollner, 643 F.3d at 716-17; Jones, 308 F.3d at 429; Doe,
661 F.3d at 566.
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Castellanos-Loya’s complaint that the district court
failed to specifically find that his false testimony concerned
“a material matter” fails for the same reason. United States v.
Perez, 661 F.3d 189, 192 (4th Cir. 2011). The district court’s
findings “clearly establishe[d]” that Castellanos-Loya’s false
trial testimony went to the heart of his § 1028A charge. Id. at
193 (emphasis omitted); United States v. Quinn, 359 F.3d 666,
681 (4th Cir. 2004). And because his false testimony on the
§ 1028A charge was sufficiently related to his § 911 offense,
the district court made all the findings of materiality that
were necessary to support the application of the enhancement.
See Mollner, 643 F.3d at 717; cf. United States v.
Killingsworth, 413 F.3d 760, 765 (8th Cir. 2005) (the
enhancement applies to “perjury that was immaterial to the
defendant’s own sentence and conviction” because it was made
during his testimony in a closely related case) (internal
quotation marks, alteration, and emphasis omitted).
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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