United States v. Williams

Opinions of the United
2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
6-7-2006
USA v. Williams
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 05-1985
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Recommended Citation
"USA v. Williams" (2006). 2006 Decisions. Paper 945.
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
__________
No. 05-1985
__________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
WYNDELL WILLIAMS,
Appellant
__________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal No. 04-cr-00229-1)
District Judge: Honorable Alan N. Bloch
__________
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
on May 18, 2006
Before: RENDELL and VAN ANTWERPEN, Circuit Judges,
and ACKERMAN*, District Judge.
(Filed June 7, 2006)
__________
OPINION OF THE COURT
__________
_______________
* Honorable Harold A. Ackerman, Senior Judge of the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.
RENDELL, Circuit Judge.
Wyndell Williams pleaded guilty to possessing pornography depicting minors
engaged in sexually explicit conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). On
March 17, 2005, the District Court sentenced him to seventy-one months imprisonment,
the top of the applicable range under the Sentencing Guidelines. The sole issue Williams
raises on appeal is whether he was sentenced pursuant to an erroneous Guidelines
calculation.1 Williams challenges the District Court’s application of a five-level sentence
enhancement for “engag[ing] in a pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or
exploitation of a minor.” U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2G2.2(b)(4) (2003).2
This enhancement increased Williams’s sentencing range to fifty-seven to seventy-one
months, up from thirty-three to forty-one months.
We exercise plenary review over a district court’s interpretation of the Sentencing
Guidelines. United States v. Newsome, 439 F.3d 181, 184 (3d Cir. 2006). Our review of
the factual findings supporting a district court’s application of the Guidelines is for clear
error. United States v. Tupone, 442 F.3d 145, 149 (3d Cir. 2006); United States v. Irvin,
369 F.3d 284, 286 n. 2 (3d Cir. 2004).
1
Indeed, this is one of the very few issues that Williams can appeal, given that he
waived the right to attack his conviction or sentence on all but the very narrow grounds
specified in his plea agreement.
2
The parties stipulated that the November 2003 version of the Guidelines was applicable
to this case.
2
Williams argues that the government failed to show by a preponderance of the
evidence that he engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse or exploitation and that the five-
level sentence enhancement was therefore in error. Williams contends that he never
“engaged in any actual or verifiable contact with any minor” that would trigger the
enhancement. (Appellant Br. at 22.) Rather, he claims that his conduct was limited to
sexually explicit conversations in online “chat rooms” about sexual encounters with
minors that were nothing more than fantasies. Moreover, his mere possession of child
pornography does not constitute sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor within the
meaning of § 2G2.2. See United States v. Ketcham, 80 F.3d 789, 794 (3d Cir. 1996).
Implicit in Williams’s challenge is the erroneous view that actual contact with a
minor is required for the five-level enhancement of § 2G2.2(b)(4) to apply. The
Guidelines define “sexual abuse or exploitation” as “conduct constituting criminal sexual
abuse of a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, abusive sexual contact of a minor, any
similar offense under state law, or an attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the above
offenses.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 cmt. n.1 (emphasis added). Thus, even an unsuccessful
attempt to sexually abuse or exploit a minor is considered “sexual abuse or exploitation”
for Guidelines purposes. A “pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation
of a minor” is defined as
any combination of two or more separate instances of the
sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor by the
defendant, whether or not the abuse or exploitation
(A) occurred during the course of the offense; (B) involved
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the same or different victims; or (C) resulted in a conviction
for such conduct.
Id.
The District Court applied the five-level sentence enhancement in this case based
on considerable evidence in the record showing that Williams attempted to engage in
sexual acts with minors that, if completed, would have been criminal sexual abuse.
Relying on hundreds of pages of Williams’s conversations in online chat rooms, the
District Court found that Williams (1) offered to pay a man for a sexual encounter with
his four-year-old daughter, (2) went to a Dairy Queen to meet a sixteen-year-old girl for
the purpose of a sexual encounter with her, (3) attempted to set up meeting times with
minors, and (4) conspired with several adults to have sexual contact with their minor
children. There is more than enough evidence in the record to support the District Court’s
conclusion that these incidents were attempts on the part of Williams to have sexual
encounters with minors. Taken together, such repeated attempts constitute a “pattern of
sexual abuse or exploitation” for purposes of § 2G2.2. Consequently, we will uphold the
District Court’s decision to apply the five-level enhancement.
Williams raises no other challenges to the reasonableness of his sentence beyond
the proper calculation of the Guidelines range. We will therefore affirm the sentence.
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