United States v. Benns, No. 12-51038 (5th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant, convicted of making false statements regarding a credit application, appealed his sentence and order of restitution. Defendant forged the signatures of borrowers on an application for modification to a loan related to a certain property. Because the district court neither made factual findings concerning defendant's conduct nor explained which statutes defendant violated, the court was unable to determine whether defendant's dealings with the home buyers and sellers were criminal. The district court made no findings of fact as to whether defendant's dealings with the home buyers and sellers were part of the same common scheme or whether his criminal acts must have actually caused these losses. Further, the district court erred by awarding restitution based on relevant conduct that went beyond defendant's offense of conviction. An award of restitution based on losses not resulting from the offense of conviction is an error that is clear and obvious. In this instance, the error resulted in an award of more than half a million dollars against defendant. Accordingly, the court reversed defendant's sentence and restitution award and remanded to the district court for resentencing.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.