United States v. Collins

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-4898
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM RONDELL COLLINS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Liam O’Grady, District
Judge. (1:10-cr-00045-LO-1)
Submitted: April 18, 2011 Decided: April 29, 2011
Before KING, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Lana Manitta, RICH ROSENTHAL BRINCEFIELD MANITTA DZUBIN &
KROEGER, LLP, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H.
MacBride, United States Attorney, Ryan S. Faulconer, Special
Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
William Rondell Collins appeals his forty-two month
prison sentence after pleading guilty to one count of bribery as
a public official in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2) (2006)
and one count of unlawful salary supplementation in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 209(a) (2006). On appeal, Collins contends that the
district court erred in calculating his advisory range of
imprisonment using the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (USSG)
and erred by upwardly departing from the Guidelines range. We
affirm.
We review the district court’s imposition of a
sentence under a deferential abuse of discretion standard.
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). In analyzing
whether a district court properly applied the Guidelines, we
review factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de
novo. United States v. Osborne, 514 F.3d 377, 387 (4th Cir.
2008).
The district court properly found that Collins’s
offense conduct involved more than one bribe or extortion, and
thus enhanced his offense level pursuant to USSG § 2C1.1(b)(1)
(2009). Bribery as a public official may be found even where
the official act offered in exchange for the bribe is not
harmful to the government or inconsistent with the official’s
legal obligations. United States v. Quinn, 359 F.3d 666, 675
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(4th Cir. 2004). It is irrelevant whether the public official
would have to change his or her conduct to satisfy the payor’s
expectations. Id.Moreover, Collins promised to do more than just
fulfill his official duties in exchange for payment. Collins
promised to “cover” his supervisor, the primary overseer of the
contract. Such activity constitutes bribery activity, and
coupled with Collins’s other admitted bribery scheme,
demonstrates Collins’s involvement in more than one bribe.
Collins also challenges the district court’s finding,
under USSG § 2C1.1(b)(2), that a six offense level enhancement
was appropriate because his schemes resulted in a combined loss
and gain of over $30,000. We review such a factual
determination for clear error, mindful that loss need not be
determined with precision. United States v. Miller, 316 F.3d
495, 503 (4th Cir. 2003). A district court need only make a
reasonable estimate, given the available information before it.
Id.We find no clear error in the district court’s loss
and gain calculations. According to the parties’ joint
statement of facts, the first scheme was set to yield Collins
400 Kuwaiti Dinar per month — a sum equivalent to, as agreed by
the parties, approximately $1400. The parties agreed that four
such payments were made and it was not clear error for the
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district court to find that a fifth such payment was made, or at
least contemplated, based on the overwhelming evidence in the
record. Thus, the value of the money obtained or to be obtained
through Collins’s first scheme totaled at least $7000.
The joint statement of facts chronicled a cash payment
of $5775 to Collins, representing one-half of his share of the
proceeds of the second scheme. Thus, Collins’s full share would
amount to $11,550 and, combined with the full share of his
partner, the total value to be obtained by Collins and his
partner was to be $23,100. 1 Adding the two totals together, as
directed by USSG § 2C1.1 cmt. n.2, yields a total anticipated
gain or loss of at least $30,100 based on the offense conduct. 2
We note that this figure is conservative, as the schemes were
seemingly anticipated to continue further into the future. But
for our purposes, this calculation demonstrates that the
district court’s finding as to the amount of the loss or gain
was not clearly erroneous.
1
This figure also represents the anticipated amount of loss
to the Government.
2
Collins makes much of various currency exchange rates in
his appellate briefing. Use of such rates is unnecessary given
that the district court’s findings are not clearly erroneous
using the figures contained in the parties’ joint statement of
facts. It is not dispositive that other reasonable ways to
calculate the loss or gain may exist; we review only the
propriety of the district court’s calculation.
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Lastly, Collins contends that the district court acted
substantively unreasonably in departing upwardly from the
advisory Guidelines range of imprisonment. The district court
provided a cogent explanation of adequate reasons to justify
Collins’s forty-two month sentence. In light of the deference
due to the district court’s sentence, we do not find it
unreasonable under a totality of the circumstances.
We therefore affirm Collins’s sentence. We deny
Collins’s motion seeking leave to file a pro se supplemental
brief. 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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