United States v. Simmons
| Docket Number | 22-1321 |
| Decision Date | 07 August 2023 |
| Parties | United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Christopher Simmons, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
ARGUED MAY 24, 2023
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 20-cr-10029-2 - James E. Shadid Judge.
Before SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
Christopher Simmons used another person's Social Security number to open a savings account and apply for multiple loans and credit cards at a credit union. A jury convicted Simmons of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Simmons challenges the latter conviction, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he knew the Social Security number was real. He also challenges the district court's loss amount finding at sentencing. We affirm.
In January 2020, Christopher Simmons and his brother, Adreen Canterberry, set out to defraud a credit union in Peoria Illinois. To kick things off, Canterberry applied for a $49,900 loan to purchase an Audi on January 21. Canterberry fabricated his earnings and falsely listed Simmons as the car's seller. The next day, Canterberry went to the credit union, opened a savings account, and obtained a $49,900 cashier's check payable to Simmons.
After successfully procuring their first loan, Simmons started applying for additional loans through the credit union. On January 23, Simmons applied for a credit card with a $15,000 limit. On the application, Simmons used an Illinois woman's Social Security number, fabricated his earnings and falsely claimed that he worked for Salesforce and was renting an apartment in Peoria. Simmons supplemented his application with two forged paystubs. By submitting his application, Simmons authorized the credit union to run a credit check using the information he provided.
Within hours of submitting his credit card application, the credit union's lending coordinator, Greg Davis, informed Simmons that it had been approved. Simmons responded that he was also in the market for a vehicle and asked whether he was pre-approved for a car loan or needed to apply separately. Davis told Simmons that he would need to submit a separate application, but if he applied within 30 days, the credit union "would not re-run [Simmons's] credit." Simmons immediately applied for a $45,930 loan to purchase an unspecified vehicle, using the same woman's Social Security number and the same false employment information and address. An hour later, the credit union informed Simmons that it was denying his applications for both the credit card and the car loan. The high dollar amount, temporal proximity between the two applications, and inconsistencies between Simmons's address on his pay stubs (Chicago) and the apartment he listed as his residence (Peoria) all raised red flags. Davis informed Simmons that the loan officers suspected fraud and that to proceed with either application, Simmons would need to visit a local branch to be identified.
On January 24, Simmons stopped at a local branch of the credit union to cash the $49,900 cashier's check procured by Canterberry. After the teller handed Simmons the cash, she asked for a Social Security number. Simmons handed her a piece of paper with a number that had fewer digits than a valid Social Security number. Simmons left before credit-union employees discovered the problem, and they were unable to find Simmons in their system because he was not a member. Just over an hour after cashing the check, Simmons went to another branch of the credit union and used the same false information-including the same woman's Social Security number-to open a savings account. He then went online and reapplied for a $15,000 credit card. Simmons again authorized the credit union to obtain his credit report. This second credit card application was also denied.
On January 28, Simmons applied for another car loan- this one for $50,496.75-ostensibly to purchase a Maserati. Again, Simmons used the same woman's Social Security number and provided the same false information about his employment and residence. And again, Simmons was told that by submitting his application, he authorized the credit union to obtain his credit report. By that point, however, the credit union had caught on to Simmons's fraud. After reporting its findings to law enforcement, the credit union invited Simmons to come to the office to sign paperwork to close the car loan. When Simmons showed up and signed the paperwork to receive his $50,496.75 check on January 31, undercover detectives arrested him on the spot.
Soon thereafter, a grand jury indicted Simmons on three counts of bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1344, and one count of aggravated identity theft, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(1), (c)(5). The bank fraud alleged in Count Two of the indictment-which concerned Simmons's use of fraudulent information to open the savings account on January 24-served as the predicate offense for the aggravated identity theft charge. The case proceeded to a two-day jury trial in October 2021. At the close of the government's case, Simmons moved for a judgment of acquittal on the aggravated identity theft count under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(a). Simmons argued that the government had not proved that he knew the Social Security number belonged to another person. The district court denied the motion and sent the case to the jury, which found Simmons guilty on all counts. Simmons renewed his motion for a judgment of acquittal, but the court again denied the motion.
At sentencing, Simmons objected to the Presentence Investigation Report's calculation of the intended loss amount. The PSR calculated Simmons's total intended loss amount at $176,326. The amount included the cashier's check Simmons had cashed (which Simmons did not dispute), plus each loan and credit card amount for which he had applied-the January 23 credit card, the January 23 car loan, the January 24 credit card, and the January 28 car loan. Simmons argued that the PSR incorrectly double counted the credit card and car loan applications because he only intended to obtain one credit card and one auto loan from the credit union. In other words, if he had succeeded in obtaining the credit card and car loan on January 23, he would have stopped. Excluding the January 24 and January 28 applications would have brought the loss amount under $150,000, resulting in an enhancement of only eight levels instead of ten. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b).
The district court adopted the PSR's loss amount, finding that each application represented "separate incidents, separate counts, individual attempts" and that no evidence supported Simmons's argument that he would've stopped pursuing more loans if he had obtained the credit card and car loan on January 23. After applying the ten-level enhancement, the district court calculated Simmons's Guidelines range at 30 to 37 months for the bank fraud counts. The court sentenced Simmons to an above-Guidelines sentence of 46 months on the bank fraud counts, followed by a mandatory consecutive sentence of 24 months on the aggravated identity theft count.
On appeal, Simmons challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his identity theft conviction and the district court's loss amount finding. We address each issue in turn.
We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal de novo, but in practice, "the standard of review is that for sufficiency of the evidence." United States v Fitzpatrick, 32 F.4th 644, 648 (7th Cir. 2022). "In a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge after a jury verdict we review the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the government and draw all reasonable inferences in its favor." Id. at 648-49 (quoting United States v. Anderson, 988 F.3d 420, 424 (7th Cir. 2021)).
"[W]e defer heavily to the jury's findings ... and will reverse only where no rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty." United States v. Armbruster, 48 F.4th 527, 531 (7th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up).
A person is guilty of aggravated...
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