United States v. Howard, No. 14-1075 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant Roger Howard pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering, arising from his participation in three mortgage-fraud schemes. Defendant's participation included identifying property buyers, arranging for their applications for mortgage loans to overstate assets and incomes, and obtaining inflated property appraisals and kickbacks to himself and some buyers. All buyers defaulted on their mortgage notes. Some notes had been sold by the original lenders to downstream lenders, who may themselves have resold the notes. The United States District Court for the District of Colorado sentenced defendant to 108 months’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay $8,862,191.18 in restitution. He argued on appeal to the Tenth Circuit that the district court made two errors in imposing the sentence: (1) it improperly increased his offense level by miscomputing the loss to the mortgage lenders; and (2) it awarded restitution to alleged victims without evidence of their actual losses. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded the determination of loss under USSG 2B1.1, which was calculated in accordance with precedent, but the Court largely agreed with Defendant’s restitution argument and therefore reversed the restitution order and remanded for further proceedings.
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