United States v. August Kreis, III ( 2012 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4004
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff -Appellee,
v.
AUGUST BYRON KREIS, III,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., District
Judge. (3:11-cr-00646-JFA-1)
Submitted: June 26, 2012 Decided: July 6, 2012
Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Allen B. Burnside, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Columbia,
South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United
States Attorney, Dean A. Eichelberger, Assistant United States
Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
August Byron Kreis, III, pled guilty pursuant to a
plea agreement to one count of knowingly falsifying an Improved
Pension Eligibility Verification Report, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1001(a)(3) (2006), and was sentenced to time served and
two years’ supervised release. Kreis was also ordered to pay
$192,837 in restitution. Kreis asserts that the district court
erred when it calculated the loss amount attributable to his
crime and, thus, he argues that the district court erroneously
calculated his restitution amount. We affirm.
Although the district court’s “[d]iscretion in
ordering restitution is circumscribed by the procedural and
substantive protections of the statute authorizing
restitution[,]” United States v. Leftwich, 628 F.3d 665, 667
(4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted),
where an identifiable victim has suffered pecuniary loss, the
district court must order restitution in the full amount of the
victim’s loss, regardless of the defendant’s economic
circumstances. See 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 3663A, 3664(f)(1)(A) (West
2000 & Supp. 2011). We review a district court’s restitution
order for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Llamas, 599
F.3d 381, 387 (4th Cir. 2010).
However, we review “for clear error the district
court’s factual determination of the amount of loss attributable
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to [Kreis], mindful that the [district] court need only make a
reasonable estimate of the loss.” United States v. Cloud, 680
F.3d 396, 409 (4th Cir. 2012) (construing United States v.
Miller, 316 F.3d 495, 503 (4th Cir. 2003), and USSG § 2B1.1 cmt.
n.3(C)), pet. for cert. filed, June 8, 2012. This deferential
standard of review requires reversal only if this court is “left
with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.” United States v. Stevenson, 396 F.3d 538, 542 (4th
Cir. 2005) (quoting Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573
(1985)). We nonetheless review the district court’s
interpretation of the term “loss” under the Sentencing
Guidelines under a de novo standard of review. See Miller, 316
F.3d at 498; United States v. Parsons, 109 F.3d 1002, 1004 (4th
Cir. 1997).
We have reviewed the record and have considered the
parties’ arguments and conclude that the district court did not
err in calculating the amount of loss to attribute to Kreis and,
thus, did not err in calculating Kreis’s restitution amount.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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