Sentencing – Amount of loss

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing – Amount of loss

The district court did not clearly err in calculating amount of loss from a Ponzi scheme in sentencing the defendant for mail fraud.

“The district court did not clearly err in crediting the government’s evidence despite Nelson’s insistence that Galvin was an unreliable witness, that Kuzlik had inconsistently reported the amount of his investment in the fraud, and that Lagori may have used both JNL and Maxim Mortgage to invest in the fraud. A loss calculation is clearly erroneous only if it is ‘outside the realm of permissible computations.’ See United States v. Littrice, 666 F.3d 1053, 1060 (7th Cir. 2012) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The district court’s loss calculation has adequate evidentiary support and is well within the realm of permissible computations. Because the court did not clearly err in calculating the loss amount, Nelson’s due-process argument also fails.”

Affirmed.

13-2648 U.S. v. Nelson

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Der-Yeghiayan, J., Per Curiam

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