United States v. Aaron Hymas

Aaron and Tiffany Hymas were each convicted, pursuant to plea agreements, of one count of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 . Aaron appeals his sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment, contending that facts found by the district court in sentencing should have been subject to the clear and convincing standard of proof rather than the preponderance of the evidence standard that the district court applied; because of the disproportionate impact of those facts on the sentence that was imposed. We agree, in part, vacate that sentence, and remand to the district court for further proceedings. Both defendants also appeal the district court’s orders requiring restitution. We affirm those orders.

I. Background

Aaron and Tiffany Hymas are a married couple. They partially owned and ran two businesses in the housing industry, Crest-wood Construction and OPM Enterprises. In order to acquire financing, the Hymases and their business partner developed a plan to borrow money to construct houses, sell them, and use the proceeds to pay off the loans, ideally leaving a profit.

It was alleged, however, that many of the mortgage loan applications submitted by the defendants from 2005 to 2007…