United States v. Kevin Williams

Defendant-Appellant Kevin Williams appeals his jury conviction and sentence for three counts of wire fraud, two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm, and one count each of extortion, making a false statement, destruction of a letter box, and possession of a firearm not identified by a serial number. Williams contends that the district court erred in grouping his offenses for purposes of sentencing and in applying five sentencing enhancements. We affirm the district court’s imposition of two of the sentencing enhancements at issue, but otherwise vacate Williams’ sentence and remand for resentencing.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In 2006, the FBI began investigating an Atlanta-based Ponzi scheme known as the International Management Associates (“IMA”) fraud. The approximately 300 victims of the scheme lost a total of $86 million. Kirk Wright was the principal defendant in the federal prosecution that followed. Bill Perkins was appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as receiver for IMA’s assets and an investors’ committee, made up of the seven largest IMA investors, was formed to represent the fraud victims. Mark Kaufman was appointed as counsel for the…