United States v. Hussein Mehdi

MEMORANDUM

Hussein Ali Mehdi pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341-1342 . Mehdi admitted that he caused two different class-action claims administrators to issue him a total of three checks as payouts from various class action settlement funds. He appeals the district court’s imposition of a four-level sentencing enhancement based on the number of victims, and a two-level enhancement for the use of sophisticatéd means. See U.S.S.G. § 2Bl.l(b)(2), (b)(9)(C) (2010). The district court’s factual findings in support of Mehdi’s sentencing enhancements are subject to clear-error review. See United States v. Zolp, 479 F.3d 715, 718 (9th Cir.2007). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a), and we affirm the sentence.

1. Sufficient evidence supports the number-of-victims enhancement. The government produced evidence that just one of Mehdi’s false class action claims caused 1,974 other claimants to receive reduced awards. That evidence permits the reasonable inference that Mehdi’s three mail fraud offenses involved a total of at least fifty victims, the minimum necessary for a four-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. §…