United States v. Jeffrey Milliron

MEMORANDUM

Jeffrey James Milliron appeals the sentence imposed by the district court following his guilty plea to violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 (a)(1) and (2) by lying to the Social Security Administration (SSA) about his marital status. Milliron maintains that the district court clearly erred when it found that the government met its burden to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that it lost $33,318 as a result of his lie. We agree.

The evidence offered by the government before the district court was not sufficient to demonstrate that the couple had resources in excess of $3,000 in any given month during the relevant time period. The government relied on SSA agents’ testimony regarding the value of the vehicles that Milliron purportedly owned and the money in his wife’s bank account. This evidence was insufficient for several reasons.

First, the evidence did not establish that Milliron owned all of the vehicles for each of the fifty-one months at issue. The government relied on three sources of information regarding the vehicles: Department of Motor Vehicles information obtained in 2011; Milliron’s probation reports; and Milliron’s own 2011 Supplemental Security…