United States v. Sergio Rodriguez

MEMORANDUM

Defendant Sergio Rodriguez was convicted by a jury of willfully attempting to interfere with the safe flight of an aircraft by aiming a laser pointer at it, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 32 (a)(5) and (a)(8), and aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 39A. He was sentenced to 168 months on the § 32(a)(5) and (a)(8) offense and 60 months on the' § 39A offense. The facts of this case are set out in considerable detail in our decision on Rodriguez’s first appeal. United States v. Rodriguez, 790 F.3d 951 (9th Cir. 2015). In that decision, we vacated Rodriguez’s conviction and sentence on the § 32(a)(5) and (a)(8) offense. Although Rodriguez had not appealed his conviction on the § 39A offense, we also remanded for resentencing on that offense. We did so in light of an intervening decision in United States v. Gardenhire, 784 F.3d 1277 (9th Cir. 2015), and because Rodriguez’s statutory-maximum sentence for his § 39A conviction was a result of the district court’s calculation of his base offense level for the § 32(a)(5) and (a)(8) conviction, which we had reversed. Rodriguez, 790 F.3d at 961 .

On remand, the court again sentenced Rodriguez to 60…