U.S. v. Cameron

• Decision Date: 21 July 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-4277.,08-4277.
• Citation: 573 F.3d 179
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenny CAMERON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

573 F.3d 179

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenny CAMERON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 08-4277.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 15, 2009.

Decided: July 21, 2009.

ARGUED: Jonathan D. Byrne, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Steven Loew, Office of the United States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Mary Lou Newberger, Federal Public Defender, Edward H. Weis, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Charles T. Miller, United States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Before Sandra Day O'CONNOR, Associate Justice (Retired), Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation, and NIEMEYER and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion, in which Associate Justice O'CONNOR and Judge NIEMEYER joined.

OPINION

GREGORY, Circuit Judge:

The Appellant, Kenny Cameron, was convicted of three counts of uttering counterfeited obligations of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472 (2006); and one count of falsely making and counterfeiting obligations of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 471 (2006). At sentencing, the district court applied a four-level enhancement because it found that Cameron was a leader or organizer of a counterfeiting operation that involved five or more participants. Cameron challenges both his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 471 as well as the district court's application of the enhancement. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Cameron's conviction but vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing.

I.

On October 3, 2003, Cameron made a purchase from the Tobacco Plus store in Dunbar, West Virginia, using a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. The store owner suspected that the bill was counterfeit and called the police. Two Dunbar police officers, Scott Dempsey and Charles Young, responded to the call. When the officers arrived on the scene, Officer Young asked Cameron to give him the change from the transaction. Although Cameron complied with the request, the officers noticed that Cameron kept his left hand clenched. From this, the officers surmised that Cameron was attempting to conceal an object in his hand. Officer Dempsey grabbed Cameron's left wrist, causing him to unclench his hand and reveal a second counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Cameron was then arrested and taken to the police station, where he admitted that he passed a counterfeit bill at the Tobacco Plus store and that he planned to pass the second counterfeit bill.

After Cameron's arrest, police officers and United States Secret Service personnel executed a search warrant on the home of Cameron's grandmother, where Cameron was residing at the time of his arrest. In an upstairs bedroom, officers found cut and uncut counterfeit bills, an X-Acto cutting board,¹ currency envelopes, and a counterfeit detection pen. While officers were searching the home, Cameron arrived in a vehicle being driven by Brett Reynolds. Reynolds consented to a search of the vehicle, and officers found sixteen counterfeit $100 bills in a paper box located in the passenger-side floorboard.

The following day, police officers and Secret Service personnel executed a search warrant on the home of Cameron's sister. During this search, officers recovered a computer, paper cuttings, printer ink cartridges, ink refills, and a printer manual.

At trial, the Government presented testimony from Secret Service agents who analyzed several of the items recovered from the homes. Vici Inlow, a fingerprint expert with the Secret Service, testified that Cameron's fingerprints were discovered on eight of the sixty-one counterfeit bills found in his grandmother's home. Special Agent Mark Grantz, a computer forensic examiner, testified that a deleted file was recovered from the computer found in the home of Cameron's sister. According to Special Agent Grantz, the file contained an image of a twenty-dollar bill that matched the serial number of one of the bills that was seized from the home of Cameron's grandmother.

At the close of the Government's case, Cameron moved for a judgment of acquittal on the count of falsely making and counterfeiting obligations of the United States, claiming that the Government had not produced sufficient evidence that he actually manufactured the counterfeit bills.² The district court denied Cameron's motion, and the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts.

At sentencing, Cameron objected to a recommended four-level enhancement for being the leader or organizer of the counterfeiting operation. In support of the enhancement, the Government presented the testimony of Ashley Campbell, a participant in the counterfeiting operation. Campbell testified that her role in the operation was to make small purchases with the counterfeit bills and return the change to Jessie Smith, another participant in the operation. Reynolds recruited people into the operation and supervised the participants, and the earnings from the scheme were ultimately split between three participants—Reynolds, Smith, and Jason D'Arco.

By contrast, Campbell's testimony provided little insight into the nature of Cameron's involvement in the operation beyond his manufacturing of counterfeit bills. According to Campbell, she first met Cameron when she, D'Arco, Smith, and Reynolds picked him up from his place of work and drove him home. At that time, Smith and Reynolds gave Cameron cocaine and a genuine $100 bill. Reynolds then entered Cameron's home and returned a few minutes later with the same bill.

Two days later, Campbell, D'Arco, Smith, and Reynolds again drove to Cameron's home. This time, Reynolds went into the home and returned ten minutes later with counterfeit bills. Although Campbell could not say how many bills Reynolds received from Cameron, she testified that Reynolds gave her eight counterfeit $100 bills and that Reynolds used the rest of the bills to purchase approximately $2000 worth of marijuana. Campbell had no knowledge of the nature of the relationship between Reynolds and Cameron, but she knew that Cameron supplied the counterfeit bills for the operation.

In addition to the testimony of Campbell, the district court had before it the presentence investigative report ("PSR") and the representations made by the Government during sentencing. According to the PSR, Secret Service agents had traced counterfeit bills manufactured by Cameron to at least twelve states, and the loss attributed to the operation was determined to be $10,520. The Government further proffered that the counterfeit bills had been passed in over 250 businesses.

Based on this evidence, the district court overruled Cameron's objection to the enhancement, stating that it was "very comfortable that this manufacturing operation was extensive and that the person who did the manufacturing of the bills and the distribution of them, or a leader of that enterprise[,] was this defendant." (J.A. 304.) The court continued: "This was a rather major counterfeit operation and this—you know, it's like saying Henry Ford wasn't a leader of Ford, he just made the cars. This defendant made money. He decided who to turn it over to. He passed it himself. He received drugs." (J.A. 304-05.) After applying the recommended enhancements, including a two-level enhancement for manufacturing the counterfeit bills, Cameron's total offense level was nineteen and his criminal history category was III, which yielded a Guidelines range of thirty-seven to forty-six months' imprisonment. The district court ultimately sentenced Cameron to a term of forty-six months' imprisonment, followed by a three-year term of supervised release.

II.

A.

Cameron first challenges his conviction on the count of falsely making and counterfeiting obligations of the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 471. In a criminal case tried by a jury, we must sustain a guilty verdict "`if there is substantial evidence, taking the view most favorable to the Government, to support it.'" United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 862 (4th Cir.1996) (en banc) (quoting Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942)). In this context, "substantial 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. To that end, this Court "must consider circumstantial as well as direct evidence, and allow the government the benefit of all reasonable inferences from the facts proven to those sought to be established." United States v. Tresvant, 677 F.2d 1018, 1021 (4th Cir. 1982); accord United States v. Harvey, 532 F.3d 326, 333 (4th Cir.2008).

B.

Cameron advances several arguments in support of his contention that the Government did not present substantial evidence to support his conviction for manufacturing counterfeit bills: (1) there was no evidence during trial regarding the inside details of the counterfeiting operation; (2) the link between the computer seized from his sister's home and the counterfeiting operation was weak, since the computer contained only one image of a counterfeit bill; (3) there was no evidence that Cameron himself used the computer to create counterfeit bills; (4) officers did not recover a printer when they searched his sister's home; and (5) Cameron's fingerprints were identified on only eight of the sixty-one documents recovered from his residence.

Cameron's arguments, however, discount the significance of the circumstantial evidence introduced by the Government at trial and the reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom. In Cameron's room at his grandmother's home, officers found the trappings of a counterfeiting operation-cut and uncut counterfeit bills, cutting equipment, a counterfeit...