United States v. Ebert

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. YITSCHAK EBERT, a/k/a Isaac, d/b/a No. 99-4877 M&I Distributors, Incorporated, a/k/a Isaac Ebert, a/k/a Issac Ebert, a/k/a Yitzchok Ebert, Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. W. Earl Britt, Senior District Judge. (CR-95-84-BR) Submitted: August 2, 2000 Decided: September 21, 2000 Before NIEMEYER, WILLIAMS, and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges. _________________________________________________________________ Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. _________________________________________________________________ COUNSEL David I. Schoen, Montgomery, Alabama, for Appellant. Janice McKenzie Cole, United States Attorney, Anne M. Hayes, Assistant United States Attorney, John Stuart Bruce, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. _________________________________________________________________ Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). _________________________________________________________________ OPINION PER CURIAM: Yitschak Ebert was convicted of one count of conspiracy to com- mit money laundering and to receive stolen property, and several sub- stantive counts. On appeal, we affirmed the conspiracy conviction but vacated the substantive convictions on venue grounds. We remanded for dismissal of the vacated charges and resentencing on the conspir- acy conviction. United States v. Ebert, No. 96-4871 (4th Cir. May 3, 1999) (unpublished). The district court resentenced Ebert to fifty-two months imprisonment followed by three years supervised release. Ebert appeals. On appeal, Ebert asserts that the district court did not comply with Fed. R. Crim. P. 32. We review a district court's application of Rule 32 to ensure it is not clearly erroneous. United States v. Souther, ___ F.3d ___, No. 99-4582 (4th Cir. July 18, 2000). Having reviewed the record on resentencing, we find no such error. Ebert also asserts that the district court erred in using U.S. Sentenc- ing Guideline § 2S1.1 (1998), governing money laundering, rather than U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 (1998), regarding receipt of stolen property, to determine the offense level for his sentence. Having considered all of Ebert's arguments on this issue, we conclude that, to the extent this issue is not foreclosed by the mandate rule, United States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66 (4th Cir. 1993), the district court correctly followed the guidelines in determining Ebert's offense level. In addition, that the district court departed downward from the guidelines range in a code- fendant's sentence is irrelevant to Ebert's sentence, see United States v. Hall, 977 F.2d 861, 864 (4th Cir. 1992), and the district court used an appropriate dollar amount in computing the sentence. Therefore, these claims lack merit. We reject Ebert's claim that the jury's calculation of the amount forfeited should have been recalculated. Section 982(a)(l) (West 2 2000) authorizes forfeiture of property involved in an offense in vio- lation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 1956 (West Supp. 2000). Section 1956(h) pro- vides that conspiracy to commit money laundering offenses is subject to the same penalties as the substantive offense. The jury's forfeiture verdict specified both the money laundering conspiracy charge and the substantive counts of money laundering. Therefore, when the sub- stantive counts were vacated, the forfeiture verdict remained valid. Ebert's final claim, that the case should be remanded for a hearing on his motion for disclosure of evidence, also lacks merit. Nothing in the record suggests that Kazinec supplied inaccurate information about Ebert to the Government. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion. We affirm the sentence imposed by the district court on remand. We deny Ebert's motion for oral argument. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately pre- sented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 3