United States v. Thompson, 22-11501

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM:
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. APRIL THOMPSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Docket Number: 22-11501
• Decision Date: 23 May 2023

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
APRIL THOMPSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-11501

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

May 23, 2023

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-00378-ELR-CMS-1

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Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and BRANCH and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

April Thompson appeals her sentence of 80 months of imprisonment imposed after she pleaded guilty to ten counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 2. Thompson challenges the enhancement of her sentence by two levels for obstructing justice, United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 3C1.1, and the denial of a reduction for accepting responsibility, id. § 3E1.1. We affirm Thompson's sentence, but because the district court made a clerical error in imposing a special assessment of $1,100, instead of $1,000 based on her ten counts of conviction, see 18 U.S.C. § 3013(a)(2)(A), we vacate and remand for the district court to correct the judgment.

We review factual findings by a district court for clear error and its application of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo. United States v. Matthews, 3 F.4th 1286, 1289 (11th Cir. 2021). To be clearly erroneous, the finding of the district court must leave us with a "definite and firm conviction that the court made a mistake." Id.

The district court did not clearly err by applying the obstruction of justice enhancement, § 3C1.1, because Thompson concealed relevant financial information from the probation officer. Thompson told the probation officer that, aside from her non-liq-uid assets, she had only $80 in a personal checking account. A senior financial investigator with the U.S. Attorney's Office later discovered an undisclosed reloadable MetaBank account that was

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registered in Thompson's husband's name. The bank statements revealed that, during a six-month period, both Thompson and her husband used debit cards linked to the account to make almost $40,000 in post-indictment purchases, including $24,000 in cash withdrawals. The government also discovered that, in November 2021, about three weeks before Thompson pleaded guilty, she began diverting her income from a receiver-controlled bank account into the undisclosed MetaBank account. She later acknowledged that undisclosed bank account belonged to her and insisted that her failure to disclose the account was an immaterial oversight.

Sufficient evidence supports the finding that Thompson willfully concealed the existence of the bank account. See United States v. Massey, 443 F.3d 814, 818-19 (11th Cir. 2004). Both Thompson and her husband, a codefendant, omitted the account from their disclosures to the probation officer and the government. At sentencing, the receiver in the civil action testified that, when he asked Thompson why...