In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
No. 10-3959
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
L AS HAWN L ITTRICE,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 08 CR 513-1—Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge.
A RGUED S EPTEMBER 21, 2011—D ECIDED JANUARY 31, 2012
Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and TINDER and
HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
T INDER, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted LaShawn
Littrice of fourteen counts of willfully aiding and
assisting in the preparation of tax returns containing
materially false and fraudulent claims, including phony
medical and business expenses and charitable donations.
The evidence at trial proved a tax loss of $31,849. At
sentencing, the government proposed a tax loss figure
2 No. 10-3959
of $1.6 million by identifying 662 returns Littrice
prepared that contained materially fraudulent or false
claims similar to those proven at trial and eliminating
the contested returns. After multiple hearings and con-
sidering Littrice’s evidence, the district court found
that the government proved by a preponderance of the
evidence that Littrice’s relevant conduct included the
material falsifications in the group of 662 returns that
went uncontested by the taxpayers. Yet the court dis-
counted the loss amount to the $400,000- to $1-million
range to compensate for a possible selection bias in a
sample of 100 of the returns provided to Littrice to
examine as part of her defense.
On appeal, Littrice seeks dismissal of the indictment
for violation of her statutory speedy trial rights and
alternatively a remand for resentencing on various
matters including the district court’s tax loss calcula-
tion. We cannot consider Littrice’s speedy trial claim
because she did not ask the district court to dismiss the
indictment before trial. As for her sentencing claims,
Littrice has not persuaded us that the district court’s
tax loss figure was outside the realm of permissible
computations or that the court otherwise erred or
abused its discretion in calculating Littrice’s sentence.
We affirm.
I. Factual Background
Littrice owned and operated Diamond Accounting
& Financial Services, Inc. (Diamond) from 1999 to 2006.
From 2003 to 2006, Littrice prepared some 4,385-plus tax
No. 10-3959 3
returns. In early 2005, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
special agent became suspicious that some items on
returns she prepared appeared inflated or false. The
agent developed a cover story and made an appoint-
ment at Diamond. Wired with a secret recording
device, the agent posed in Littrice’s offices as a single,
wage-earning taxpayer with one dependent, and no
deductions. The agent’s fictional tax information
showed that she owed the government a little more
than $1,200. The agent filled out an information sheet
and then met with Littrice for about nine minutes. They
discussed the agent’s tax return, education expenses,
and job. Littrice initially told the agent that she “was
upside down” and owed taxes. But by the end of the
meeting, Littrice informed the agent that she would
receive a refund. Littrice accomplished this by falsely
reporting $6,998 in charitable donations, $7,214 in
business expenses, $898 in education credits, and $2,000
in qualified expenses. The agent did not provide Littrice
with any of these figures or supporting documents
but qualified for an $808 refund that resulted in
a $578 check to the IRS agent after Littrice subtracted
her fee.
Littrice was indicted on June 25, 2008, on sixteen counts
of willfully aiding and assisting in the preparation of
tax returns containing materially false and fraudulent
information. See 26 U.S.C. § 7206(2). Littrice pleaded not
guilty, the government dismissed Counts 15 and 16,
and the case eventually went to trial. The government
presented evidence of returns Littrice prepared to get
her clients improper refunds (minus a preparer’s fee)
4 No. 10-3959
by fabricating various credits and expenses and misrepre-
senting filing statuses. The evidence demonstrated a
pattern of Littrice conjuring up nonexistent charitable
contributions, job expenses, and medical expenditures.
None of the taxpayers provided Littrice with the
false figures she used or any documentation to support
them or otherwise suggested that the bogus numbers
were anything other than a product of Littrice’s deceit.
So none of the credit or deduction figures discussed
below were provided to Littrice by the taxpayers or
had any basis in fact.
For Larry Collins, Littrice reported charitable gifts of
$6,938 and job expenses of $7,529, resulting in a $6,330
refund for 2002. For 2003, Littrice reported $5,342 in
medical expenses, $8,574 in job expenses, and $8,172
in charitable contributions. Collins received a $7,497
refund for that year.
Littrice prepared separate individual tax returns for
spouses Carla and Thomas Knighton in which she
falsely listed Carla and Thomas as single rather than
married. For Carla’s 2003 return, Littrice reported $7,812
in medical expenses, $7,971 in charitable contributions,
$5,917 in job expenses, and $10,249 in real estate losses.
Carla received a $3,492 refund. For 2004, Littrice
reported $6,057 in charitable contributions and $12,681
in real estate losses, netting Carla a $5 refund. For 2005,
Littrice reported $3,809 in charitable contributions and
Carla received a $1,044 refund. Littrice performed
similar deceptions for Thomas. For 2003, Littrice re-
ported $7,951 in medical expenses, $7,444 in charitable
No. 10-3959 5
contributions, and $7,713 in job expenses. He received
a $4,464 refund. In 2004, Littrice reported $6,266 in charita-
ble contributions and $7,577 in job expenses, resulting
in Thomas receiving a $5,265 refund. In 2005, Littrice
reported $4,712 in charitable contributions and $5,127
in job expenses. After filing the 2005 return, the IRS
sent Thomas a notice that he was being audited.
Littrice prepared Annie Plane’s 2002 and 2003 returns.
For 2002, Littrice reported $8,690 in charitable contribu-
tions, $8,917 in job expenses, and $12,335 in net business
losses, resulting in her receipt of a $4,337 refund. For
2003, Littrice reported $9,229 in charitable contributions,
$6,915 in job expenses, and $13,933 in net business
losses. She received a $5,077 refund.
Littrice prepared Tekeela and Leslie Ross’s 2003 and
2004 individual tax returns. Even though they were
married and lived in a single household, Littrice falsely
listed each of them as heads of households. For Tekeela’s
2003 return, Littrice reported $4,800 in child and depend-
ent care expenses and a $2,847 earned income credit.
She received a $4,799 refund. For Tekeela’s 2004 return,
Littrice reported $6,000 in child and dependent care
expenses and a $3,366 earned income credit, producing
a $4,569 refund. For Leslie’s 2003 return, Littrice
reported $4,799 in charitable contributions, $3,219 in job
expenses, and $2,400 in child and dependent care ex-
penses. He received a $2,940 refund. For Leslie’s 2004
return, Littrice reported $5,187 in charitable contribu-
tions, $4,718 in job expenses, and $3,000 in child and
dependent care expenses, giving him a $2,826 refund.
6 No. 10-3959
The jury found Littrice guilty on all fourteen counts.
Littrice moved for a judgment of acquittal and a new trial.
The district court denied the motion. Her sentencing
hearing, which involved several court sessions, began
on November 16, 2010. A presentence report (PSR) calcu-
lated a base offense level of 22 on a tax loss of $1 million
to $2.5 million. To calculate the tax loss, the PSR
identified 662 of the returns Littrice prepared between
2003 and 2005 that, according to IRS correspondence
audits, contained fraudulent deductions similar to the
fourteen returns introduced into evidence at trial.
The audits revealed that the taxpayers owed about
$1.8 million. To weed out returns not attributable to
Littrice’s relevant conduct, the PSR narrowed down
the returns to the 93% where taxpayers admitted or
did not contest the falsity of the claimed expenses and
contributions. The PSR calculated a total intended loss
of $1.6 million after excluding the 7% of the returns
that were contested or where no tax was due.
Littrice argued that the district court should only
hold her accountable for the $31,849 in tax loss proven
at trial. The court rejected her suggestion that the gov-
ernment had “an obligation to put a witness on” to say
that Littrice was “the person who was responsible for
adding in that deduction” for every single return. Yet the
court noted that the government had “the burden of
showing by a preponderance of the evidence that certain
other conduct is relevant conduct.” The court considered
the record’s magnitude and that the PSR only selected
a narrow group of returns and excluded contested
audits and indicated that the proposed method for calcu-
No. 10-3959 7
lating tax loss was reasonable. The court said that
Littrice would have the opportunity to review the
returns and “if there is some kind of a pattern of miscal-
culation here, or even one miscalculation . . . [t]hat
itself might raise suspicion about . . . the whole process.”
The court continued the sentencing hearing to Decem-
ber 7 so Littrice could prepare documents and witnesses
to rebut the PSR’s tax loss figure. The court emphasized
that Littrice was entitled to review all 662 audit files.
The government had already provided Littrice with 100
of the 662 audit files for her review. The judge then re-
cessed the sentencing hearing to resume it several
weeks later.
Unfortunately, Littrice failed to appear at the contin-
uation of her sentencing hearing so the district court
issued a warrant for her arrest. Littrice was arrested
the next day and the hearing resumed about a week later.
At the resumed hearing, the government supported
the PSR’s relevant conduct finding by citing to inter-
views with about twenty people conducted as part of
the criminal investigation (about seven of these people
testified at trial), another ten interviewed separately, and
taxpayer statements that appeared in the audit files
indicating that the taxpayers didn’t provide the false
information. The court found that the government met
its burden of “showing that there was conduct similar
to what happened in this case with respect to other tax-
payers.” Littrice called five witnesses to rebut the
relevant conduct finding. The court again recessed the
sentencing to resume it the following day. At that final
session of the sentencing, the court stated that because
8 No. 10-3959
it was concerned that the 100 returns provided to Littrice
“were not necessarily random,” it would reduce the tax
loss figure to the $400,000 and $1 million range as “the
most conservative determination.” The court found
that the government established by a preponderance
“that other tax returns prepared by this defendant were
infected with the same kinds of phony claims that we
heard about at the trial,” noting that the claims were
of similar type and size. In a written sentencing
addendum, the district court stated that Littrice’s “pat-
tern” of manufacturing phony deductions for her clients
“was obvious from the testimony of several of her
clients and from that of the undercover officer.” The
court found that Littrice’s witnesses failed to discredit
the government’s calculation and that Littrice’s various
accounts—that she was not dishonest, her clients were
or that the deductions were in fact valid, the IRS was
just wrong—were “unlikely” and “implausible” based on
the false deductions’ similar nature and size and that
nearly all her clients wouldn’t simply accept the audit
results if the deductions were in fact legitimate.
The court’s modified tax loss figure produced a base
offense level of 20 and, with Littrice’s Category I criminal
history, a guideline range of 33 to 41 months. A state-
ment of correction to the PSR increased Littrice’s base
offense level to 22 because she was in the business of
preparing and assisting in the preparation of tax returns,
U.S.S.G. § 2T1.4(b)(1), and proposed a guideline range
of 41 to 51 months. But the district court appears to have
disregarded this enhancement in basing its sentence on
the 33- to 41-month range applicable to an offense level
No. 10-3959 9
of 20. In discussing the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, the
court considered in mitigation her family situation and
in aggravation her education, financial, and intellectual
abilities, knowledge of the tax code, duty to provide
truthful information, and that her actions caused the IRS
to audit her clients. The court noted Littrice’s failure
to appear for sentencing, how she denied the court’s
jurisdiction, that she obstinately asserted that she was
an independent sovereign protected by the Eleventh
Amendment, and her dishonesty to the court. The
district court also stated that based on Littrice’s training
and profession, she would have known that the law
requires truthful statements to the IRS. The court sen-
tenced Littrice to 36 months’ imprisonment on Count 1
followed by a consecutive 6 months’ imprisonment on
Counts 2-14 (running concurrently with each other) for
a total of 42 months’ imprisonment.
II. Analysis
A. The Speedy Trial Act
Littrice contends that the 664 days between her initial
appearance and trial violated her statutory right to a
speedy trial based on the Supreme Court’s decisions in
Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489 (2006), Bloate v.
United States, 130 S. Ct. 1345 (2010), and United States
v. Tinklenberg, 131 S. Ct. 2007 (2011). Littrice acknowl-
edges that she did not raise this issue at the district
court but believes we may still review her speedy trial
claim for plain error.
10 No. 10-3959
We cannot. Littrice never moved to dismiss the indict-
ment on speedy trial grounds before trial and 18 U.S.C.
§ 3162(a)(2) expressly provides that “[f]ailure of the
defendant to move for dismissal prior to trial or entry of
a plea of guilty or nolo contendere shall constitute a
waiver of the right to dismissal under this section.” We
have “held that the failure to move for dismissal under
the act constitutes a waiver, not merely a forfeiture.”
United States v. Gearhart, 576 F.3d 459, 462 (7th Cir. 2009).
Our decision in United States v. Hassebrock, No. 10-3296,
2011 WL 5924412, at *3 (7th Cir. Nov. 22, 2011), disposes
of the arguments Littrice advances in an attempt to
justify plain error review of her speedy trial claim.
Like Littrice, the Hassebrock defendant conceded that he
did not raise a speedy trial objection in a motion to
dismiss before trial but asked us to review his claim
as merely forfeited. Id. We held that the Speedy Trial
Act’s “express terms” did not permit this interpretation.
United States v. Morgan did note that we have reviewed
speedy trial claims for plain error even though they
were never presented to the district court. See 384 F.3d
439, 442 (7th Cir. 2004). But Hassebrock clarified that
this statement merely summarized our prior incon-
sistent approach. 2011 WL 5924412, at *3. To Littrice’s
argument about Zedner, Bloate, and Tinklenberg, our deci-
sion in Hassebrock held that those cases never called
“into question the well-established conclusion that
failure to move to dismiss constitutes waiver under the
Act.” Id. Littrice’s failure to move for dismissal below
means she did not preserve her statutory speedy trial
claim for appellate review. Given that Littrice does not
raise a Sixth Amendment-based argument that her right
No. 10-3959 11
to a speedy trial was violated, we have nothing to
review here.
B. Consecutive Sentences
We ordinarily review a challenge to the imposition of
consecutive sentences for an abuse of discretion, United
States v. O’Hara, 301 F.3d 563, 571 (7th Cir. 2002), but
Littrice did not raise this argument below so we review
for plain error, United States v. Martinez, 289 F.3d 1023,
1027 (7th Cir. 2002). The jury convicted Littrice on
fourteen counts, each carrying a maximum prison sen-
tence of 36 months. See 26 U.S.C. § 7206(2). The district
court imposed a 42-month sentence that was “just a
hair above the guideline range.” That total sentence,
as noted, consisted of a period of incarceration of
36 months on Count 1 which was stacked consecutively
to six-month concurrent sentences given for each of
Counts 2 through 14. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d) (advising
that “[i]f the sentence imposed on the count carrying
the highest statutory maximum is less than the total
punishment, then the sentence imposed on one or more
of the other counts shall run consecutively, but only to
the extent necessary to produce a combined sentence
equal to the total punishment”).
Littrice argues the court violated Apprendi v. New Jersey
by imposing consecutive sentences above the statutory
maximum without making the appropriate findings.
See 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000) (holding that “any fact that
increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed
statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and
12 No. 10-3959
proved beyond a reasonable doubt”). But the statutory
maximum for each of Littrice’s violations of 26 U.S.C.
§ 7206(2) was 36 months. Given that the jury found
Littrice guilty of fourteen counts of violating that provi-
sion, her statutory maximum was 504 months. Because
Littrice’s sentence did not exceed this, there are no
Apprendi issues for us to consider. See, e.g., United States
v. Veysey, 334 F.3d 600, 602 (7th Cir. 2003) (noting that a
fact that merely moves the “sentence around within
the statutory sentencing range need not be proved
beyond a reasonable doubt”).
C. The Tax Loss Calculation
Littrice challenges the district court’s finding that the
government showed by a preponderance of the evidence
that the uncontested returns audited by the IRS and
prepared by Littrice “were infected with the same kinds
of phony claims that we heard about at trial.”
The loss amount must be determined “on the basis of
the conduct of conviction and relevant conduct” that
“must be criminal or unlawful conduct.” United States v.
Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746, 752 (7th Cir. 2008) (quoting United
States v. Frith, 461 F.3d 914, 917 (7th Cir. 2006)). The
government bore the burden of showing by a preponder-
ance of the evidence “that the unpaid taxes discovered
through the civil audit were attributable to” Littrice’s
“criminal or unlawful conduct.” Id. The preponderance
standard requires “that the fact-finder believe that the
existence of a fact is more probable than the non-existence
No. 10-3959 13
of that fact.” Id. at 753 (quoting United States v. Smith,
267 F.3d 1154, 1161 (D.C. Cir. 2001)). The figure does not
need to be precise; “a reasonable estimate will suffice.” Id.
at 752 (citing U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1 cmt. 1). The court may
adopt the PSR’s facts “ ‘as support for its findings and
conclusions’ if they ‘bear sufficient indicia of reliability
to support their probable accuracy.’ ” Id. (quoting United
States v. Taylor, 72 F.3d 533, 543 (7th Cir. 1995)). The
court “may consider relevant information without
regard to its admissibility under the rules of evidence
applicable at trial, provided that the information has
sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable
accuracy.” Id. (quoting U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a)). We review
for clear error. Frith, 461 F.3d at 917. “A finding of fact
is clearly erroneous only if, based upon the entire
record, we are left with the definite and firm conviction
that a mistake has been committed.” United States v.
Severson, 569 F.3d 683, 689 (7th Cir. 2009) (internal quota-
tions omitted). Littrice “must show that the district
court’s calculation was not only inaccurate but outside
the realm of permissible computations.” United States v.
Al-Shahin, 474 F.3d 941, 950 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal quota-
tions omitted).
Littrice contends that the district court clearly erred
in adopting the PSR’s finding that Littrice’s relevant
conduct included the returns she helped file (containing
materially fraudulent or false deductions similar to
those proven at trial) where the taxpayer-client admitted
or failed to deny the IRS’s determination that the
returns contained false or fraudulent information. She
maintains that this violated her right to due process.
14 No. 10-3959
After a close inspection of the record supporting the
district court’s finding, we disagree. A jury found beyond
a reasonable doubt that Littrice made up, among others,
fake deductions for business and educational expenses
and charitable contributions on fourteen returns. The
testimony from several of her clients and the undercover
agent suggested a clear pattern of clients entering
Littrice’s office with taxable income that should have
resulted in money being owed to the IRS, yet they were
able to leave expecting refunds because of Littrice’s
knack for conjuring up fake information. The PSR identi-
fied 662 returns audited by the IRS and prepared by
Littrice that featured materially false and fraudulent
information similar to the fourteen returns at trial. The
government cited interviews with about twenty people
conducted as part of the criminal investigation, another
ten interviewed separately, and taxpayer statements
that appeared in the audit files indicating that the tax-
payers didn’t provide the false information. The district
court did not clearly err in finding that this evidence
supported a pattern of deception attributable to Littrice
and that by excluding from the group of 662 returns
all cases in which the taxpayer contested their audit or
where no additional tax was due, the government
proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the
remaining returns reflected Littrice’s relevant conduct.
Cf. United States v. Mehta, 594 F.3d 277, 282 (4th Cir.)
(holding that the district court did not err in finding “a
‘pattern of numbers’ reported for various deductions
that was strikingly similar to the returns proven
fraudulent at trial” established relevant conduct when
No. 10-3959 15
the taxpayers agreed to pay the assessments without
protest), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 279 (2010). We agree
with the district court that requiring the government to
go through all the needles in the haystack of materially
fraudulent and false returns Littrice helped prepare to
determine her exact level of involvement would place
a burden on the government beyond what the preponder-
ance standard requires. The evidentiary burden for sen-
tencing is not so cumbrous that it requires each
individual taxpayer to attest in court that they were
ignorant of the fraudulent and false information on the
returns or that the phony numbers were solely the
product of Littrice’s imagination. Given the govern-
ment’s evidence of Littrice’s involvement, we are not
convinced that the district court clearly erred in
finding that the government met its burden of proving
that it was more probable than not that Littrice’s
relevant conduct included the uncontested returns from
the group of 662.
Littrice argues that the district court erred in accepting
the results of computerized searches of the universe of
the returns she helped prepare to find those with
like-kind flaws. But identifying returns that contained
flaws similar to those proven at trial merely sorted
the obviously fraudulent returns from other returns
that were not as obviously fraudulent or perhaps not
fraudulent at all. Littrice’s argument either sug-
gests that the government needed to go through all
4,385-plus returns she helped prepare and calculate a
more comprehensive tax loss figure or select at random
from the returns to approximate her relevant conduct.
16 No. 10-3959
Yet just as the government maintains significant pros-
ecutorial discretion, cf. United States v. Sakellarion, 649
F.3d 634, 640 (7th Cir. 2011), the government has discre-
tion in proposing which returns should be considered in
determining relevant conduct, cf. United States v. Porter,
23 F.3d 1274, 1279 (7th Cir. 1994) (noting that it is “an
entirely proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion to
present the evidence of the defendant’s conduct to the
court as conduct relevant to his sentencing” even if
the evidence does not prove criminal conduct beyond
a reasonable doubt).
Littrice faults the district court for failing to determine
a more precise figure upon reducing the tax loss figure
from $1.6 million to a $400,000- to $1-million range. We
recognize that the district court’s remedy for a possible
selection bias in the sample of returns the government
provided Littrice was somewhat rough, but we are not
convinced that its calculation was “outside the realm of
permissible computations.” Al-Shahin, 474 F.3d at 950;
cf. Mehta, 594 F.3d at 282-84 (finding harmless error in
the district court’s failure to alter its $1.125 million tax
loss finding to reflect for a possible selection bias
because a reasonable estimate of the tax loss would still
be above $1 million); id. at 284-85 & n.2 (Shedd, J., con-
curring in judgment) (finding no error because the
estimate remained reasonable). We distinguish this
case from Schroeder, where we noted problems with a
particular sentencing hearing involving a similar tax
loss calculation that, unlike this case, “was flawed from
the outset.” Schroeder, 536 F.3d at 752. Quite unlike
Littrice’s case, the district court in Schroeder announced
No. 10-3959 17
its loss finding at the beginning of the sentencing
hearing and before the defendant had an opportunity
to present an argument. This essentially forced the de-
fendant to interrupt the district court, so we found it
questionable whether the court gave the defendant’s
arguments “the due consideration they deserved.” Id. at
753. Here, the district court withheld its tax loss
finding until after Littrice had the opportunity to
review and present evidence. In no sense did the
district court pre-judge the tax loss figure as we found
in Schroeder. Also unlike in Schroeder, where the district
court confused the government’s burden of proof with
the evidence’s admissibility and failed to hold the gov-
ernment to that burden, id. at 753-54, the district court
here recognized the government’s burden and properly
weighed the evidence in making its relevant conduct
finding.
We also noted in Schroeder that the defendant made
a persuasive challenge against using civil audits “to
attribute criminal liability,” particularly where the audit
only showed that the defendant’s clients overstated
their deductions but “did not purport to attribute re-
sponsibility for the improper deductions.” Id. at 754. Yet
quite unlike Schroeder, the district court here held
multiple hearings and analyzed the government’s
evidence to determine whether the civil audits could
support a finding by a preponderance that Littrice’s
unlawful conduct caused the underpayments. A district
court may rely on civil audits, or any other information,
to support a relevant conduct finding at sentencing so
long as it considered whether it “has sufficient indicia
18 No. 10-3959
of reliability to support its probable accuracy.” Taylor,
72 F.3d at 543; see also Mehta, 594 F.3d at 282 (finding
“ample evidence” to support a finding that it was more
probable than not that the defendant “fraudulently pre-
pared the audited returns such that they could be used
to calculate the tax loss”); United States v. McLeod, 251
F.3d 78, 82 (2d Cir. 2001) (finding it proper to use civil
audit results to determine tax loss for relevant conduct).
Here, the district court recognized that the audits
did not attribute responsibility to Littrice on their own;
instead, the court relied on the trial testimony of the
taxpayers Littrice assisted, government interviews with
dozens of taxpayers, statements in the audits that the
taxpayer did not provide the false and fraudulent
figures, and a pattern of materially false and fraudulent
deductions of similar nature and size. Morever, as distin-
guished from Schroeder, the district court did not merely
treat the false and fraudulent items as attributable to
Littrice because she helped prepare the returns. The
court weighed the evidence, gave Littrice an opportunity
to review the evidence and respond, and made a con-
sidered decision that does not leave us with the definite
and firm conviction that the district court made a mis-
take. See Severson, 569 F.3d at 689. Littrice’s case is closer
to United States v. O’Doherty, where we found that the
district court reasonably relied on a PSR’s calculation
because its information was “sufficiently reliable,” and the
defendant “failed to meet his burden to draw the facts of
the PSR sufficiently into question.” 643 F.3d 209, 219 (7th
Cir. 2011). Littrice does not appeal the district court’s
determination that her attempts to challenge the PSR’s
No. 10-3959 19
relevant conduct finding produced “unlikely” and “im-
plausible” justifications to explain the large quantity
of returns containing materially fraudulent and false
deductions of a similar nature and size. Given that Littrice
failed to draw the PSR’s facts sufficiently into question,
the district court was entitled to rely on the PSR’s
relevant conduct finding.
D. Health and Family Circumstances
Littrice concedes that the district court acknowledged
her health and family circumstances but argues that
the district court failed to appropriately consider them
under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Littrice’s argument faces sub-
stantial hurdles. First, we routinely affirm sentences even
when a district court does not adequately address each
particular argument where it gives adequate reasons
to support its sentence. United States v. Paige, 611 F.3d
397, 398 (7th Cir. 2010). “A judge need not comment on
every argument the defendant raises.” United States v.
Miranda, 505 F.3d 785, 792 (7th Cir. 2007). We review a
sentencing court’s application of the § 3553(a) factors
“under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.”
United States v. Jackson, 547 F.3d 786, 792 (7th Cir. 2008).
The defendant must also actually raise the argument at
the district court. See United States v. Cunningham, 429
F.3d 673, 676 (7th Cir. 2005) (noting that a district court
“must, if asked by either party, consider whether the
guidelines sentence actually conforms, in the circum-
stances, to the statutory factors”). Here, Littrice’s counsel
only raised her health issues in the context of the facility
20 No. 10-3959
in which she would be incarcerated so it “would be able
to deal with some of these issues.” The court recog-
nized the request by stating that it could “make a recom-
mendation that” the Bureau of Prisons evaluate “her
physical situation” in her placement. Littrice simply
never gave the district court a reason to discuss her
health issues in its § 3553(a) analysis.
As to the district court’s discussion of Littrice’s
family circumstances, we find that the district court
did not abuse its discretion in its consideration of her
several children. The district court stated that “Littrice
does present a sympathetic situation in that she is obvi-
ously the devoted mother to her own children and
those that were born to other women but to whom she
is devoted as a mother herself.” Given that the district
court expressly gave her family circumstances some
weight, we don’t find that the sentence imposed was
unreasonable, particularly in relation to the substantial
aggravating circumstances cited by the district court,
including her education, financial and intellectual
abilities, knowledge of the tax code and duty to provide
truthful information, and that her actions caused the
IRS to audit her clients. Additionally, Littrice failed to
appear for a sentencing hearing, she was dishonest to
the district court, she frivolously denied the court had
jurisdiction over her, and similarly asserted she was
an independent sovereign protected by the Eleventh
Amendment. We are satisfied that the court “connected
the facts relating to the statutory factors to the sen-
tence” imposed. Cunningham, 429 F.3d at 676.
No. 10-3959 21
III. Conclusion
We D ISMISS the aspect of Littrice’s appeal seeking
dismissal of the indictment and A FFIRM the sentence.
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