FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAR 11 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 12-50425
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 2:11-cr-00575-PSG-2
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MARIA ARRIAZA,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Philip S. Gutierrez, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted March 6, 2014**
Pasadena, California
Before: PAEZ, N.R. SMITH, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.
Maria Arriaza was convicted by a jury on four counts of conspiracy and wire
fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1343, for her role as an escrow officer and notary public
in fraudulently inducing various lending institutions to loan millions of dollars in
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
an extensive mortgage-fraud scheme. She challenges both her conviction and her
forty-month prison sentence. We affirm.
1. Substantial evidence supports the jury’s guilty verdict on each of the counts.
Multiple witnesses testified at length to Arriaza’s intricate and pivotal role in the
scheme. The Government presented documentary and testimonial evidence
establishing that Arriaza: (1) created and processed fake documents for the specific
purpose of defrauding lenders and inducing them to make millions of dollars worth
of loans; (2) notarized documents with forged signatures of people whose identities
had been stolen; (3) distributed the fraudulently obtained funds to the various co-
conspirators; (4) charged a higher fee for her services on the fraudulent loans
because of the risk it involved, and; (5) was aware of the wrongfulness of her
actions. Viewing the evidence “in the light most favorable to the prosecution,”
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979), there is more than enough evidence
to substantiate the jury’s guilty verdicts, including that Arriaza acted with the
requisite criminal intent.
2. The district court did not commit procedural error in arriving at its forty-
month sentence. Although the Government did not present evidence that fully
explained why the seller is different than the lender on four of the loans used in
arriving at the loss calculation, there is no basis for concluding that the district
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court committed procedural error by applying the eighteen-level enhancement.
The court’s loss calculation may not have been exact, but it was a “reasonable
estimate” based on the “available information.” See United States v. Zolp, 479
F.3d 715, 719 (9th Cir. 2007) (explaining that “[t]he court need not make its loss
calculation with absolute precision; rather, it need only make a reasonable estimate
of the loss based on the available information”); see also U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1),
cmt. 3(C).
3. The district court did not impose a substantively unreasonable sentence.
Although the pre-sentence report established the Guidelines range at fifty-seven to
seventy-one months, and the Government sought forty-six months, the district
court settled on an even shorter sentence of forty months. Arriaza provides no
basis for holding that this below-Guidelines sentence was substantively
unreasonable. The district court properly considered the applicable factors under
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), along with Arriaza’s particular circumstances, in arriving at a
sentence that was sufficient, but not greater than necessary.
AFFIRMED.
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