Mendoza-Sandoval

MEMORANDUM **

Efren Armando Mendoza-Sandoval (“Mendoza-Sandoval”) appeals his sentence for illegal reentry into the United States following deportation, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a) and we affirm.

Mendoza-Sandoval pled guilty to one count of illegal reentry after deportation, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . Because the district court determined that Mendoza-Sandoval had sustained three previous convictions for aggravated felonies, the court sentenced him to eighty months in prison. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (b)(2). Mendoza-Sandoval contends that in light of the Supreme Court decision of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 , 120 S.Ct. 2348 , 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), the district court erred in sentencing him above the two-year statutory maximum of § 1326(a) because the indictment did not contain the fact of his convictions and because he did not admit to such convictions at his plea hearing.

Section 1326(b), which allows for a twenty year maximum sentence where the defendant was previously convicted of an aggravated felony, is a penalty provision of the statute, not a separate crime or an element of the…