United States v. Erik Ledford

MEMORANDUM

Erik Ledford, convicted of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 , appeals his sentence and the district court’s restitution order. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 .

The district court did not err in relying on the spreadsheet prepared by the government to conclude that the fraud loss attributable to Ledford exceeded $200,000. See United States v. Ali, 620 F.3d 1062, 1073 (9th Cir.2010). The spreadsheet had “sufficient indicia of reliability,” id., because it was based on admissions by other members of the scheme, phone records showing the use of scheme members’ phones in conjunction with fraudulent transactions, and other corroborating evidence. The declarations by certain merchants that they had no record of the losses at issue did not undercut the reliability of the spreadsheet, given the district court’s finding that many of the merchants were small businesses with unsophisticated record keeping and the evidence in the record that some of the fraudulent transactions resulted in a loss to a victim other than the merchant involved. Nor did the discrepancy between Jennifer Tithering-ton’s stipulation and her testimony at…