United States v. Ramanathan Prakash

MEMORANDUM

Ramanathan Prakash was convicted of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1347 and 1349, and sentenced to 120 months in prison. We previously vacated Prakash’s sentence and remanded to allow Prakash to present evidence that the intended loss from the fraud was less than the amount billed to Medicare, United States v. Popov, 742 F.3d 911, 916 (9th Cir. 2014). On remand, the district court resentenced Prakash to 120 months. We affirm.

1. In the prior appeal, we held that the amount billed to Medicare is prima facie evidence of intended loss for purposes of calculating the offense level under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (“U.S.S.G.”) § 2B1.1, but that “the. parties may introduce additional evidence to support arguments that the amount billed overestimates or understates the defendant’s intent.”. Popov, 742 F.3d at 916 . Prakash does not deny that the district court allowed the introduction of such evidence, but argues -that our instructions in Popov violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because the opinion relied on 2011 amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines while his crimes occurred in 2006-08.

2. The argument…