United States v. Yolanda Gonzalez

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-4442
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
YOLANDA GONZALEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Frank D. Whitney,
Chief District Judge. (3:13-cr-00264-FDW-6)
Submitted: August 15, 2016 Decided: August 17, 2016
Before SHEDD and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Robert C. Carpenter, ADAMS, HENDON, CARSON, CROW & SAENGER,
P.A., Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Jill
Westmoreland Rose, United States Attorney, Amy E. Ray, Assistant
United States Attorney, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Yolanda Gonzalez appeals her sentence of 240 months’
imprisonment following her convictions for conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute heroin and conspiracy to commit money
laundering. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
We ordinarily review a criminal sentence “under a
deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United
States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). We “first ensure that the
district court committed no significant procedural error, such
as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the
Guidelines range, . . . failing to consider the [18 U.S.C.]
§ 3553(a) [(2012)] factors, . . . or failing to adequately
explain the chosen sentence.” Id. at 51. If there is no
significant procedural error, we then consider the sentence’s
substantive reasonableness under “the totality of the
circumstances.” Id.
Gonzalez first claims that the district court did not make
factual findings necessary to support a two-level Sentencing
Guidelines enhancement for obstruction of justice. As Gonzalez
did not object to the enhancement at sentencing, we review this
claim only for plain error. See United States v. Strieper, 666
F.3d 288, 295 (4th Cir. 2012). The presentence report concluded
that the enhancement was proper because Gonzalez had testified
untruthfully at trial. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
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§ 3C1.1 & cmt. n.4(F) (2014). Because neither party disputed
this fact at sentencing, we find that the district court did not
err, let alone plainly so, by accepting the PSR’s conclusion as
a finding of fact. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(A).
Gonzalez also contends that her sentence is substantively
unreasonable because the district court did not adequately
account for the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities
among similarly situated defendants. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(a)(6). Because the district court imposed a sentence
below the properly calculated Guidelines range, we presume that
Gonzalez’s sentence is reasonable. United States v. Louthian,
756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 421
(2014). A defendant can rebut this presumption only “by showing
that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the
. . . 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.” Id.
The record reveals that the district court explicitly
considered the need to avoid sentence disparities. Indeed,
Gonzalez received a term of imprisonment identical to the term
of the co-conspirator the district court deemed most similar to
her. We therefore conclude that Gonzalez has failed to rebut
the presumption of reasonableness we apply to her below-
Guidelines sentence.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
3
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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