United States v. Ferdman, No. 13-2196 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant Joshua Ferdman and three co-conspirators concocted a scheme to fraudulently obtain cellular phones from Sprint stores in three states and resell them. Defendant obtained account information for a number of Spring corporate customers. With this information, defendant went to retain stores, purchased the phones, charging the price of the phones to the corporate accounts. Some of the phone were sold to one of his co-conspirators for resale online. Defendant ultimately pled guilty on conspiracy charges, for which he was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. As part of his sentence, the court ordered Defendant to pay Sprint $48,715.59 in restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA). The court calculated this amount based on what Sprint referred to as the “retail unsubsidized price” of 86 cell phones Defendant fraudulently procured, plus Sprint’s shipping and investigative costs. Defendant appealed the district court’s restitution order, arguing the Government’s proof of loss was insufficient to support the award. Finding that the district court erred in its application of the MVRA in calculating defendant's restitution amount, the Tenth Circuit vacated the order of restitution for lack of an adequate evidentiary basis, and remanded for further proceedings.
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