United States v. Christopher Whitman, 887 F.3d 1240

From 2008–2012, Christopher Whitman (owner of United Logistics) paid three Defense Logistics Agency employees (Potts, Philpot, McCarty) cash/goods to steer lucrative government trucking contracts to his company.
The scheme involved manipulating shipment requirements (same-day pickups, special trailers) and billing practices (short-loading, billing for more trucks) to inflate government payments; losses exceeded $15 million.
Whitman rarely performed the shipments himself; subcontractors handled many loads while United Logistics billed the government at inflated rates.
Whitman claimed at trial he paid because he was extorted (economic coercion), and late in trial sought a lesser-included-offense instruction for illegal gratuities instead of bribery. The district court denied that instruction.
Jury convicted Whitman (bribery, wire fraud, theft, obstruction) and McCarty (bribery, wire fraud, obstruction). Whitman was sentenced to 264 months and large restitution; McCarty received 120 months and restitution based on an approximately $17.5 million loss.
At sentencing the district court treated the offenses as a jointly undertaken criminal scheme and held McCarty responsible for the total loss caused by all participants; McCarty appealed that loss allocation.

Issue	Whitman’s Argument	McCarty’s Argument	Held
Whether district court abused discretion by refusing to instruct jury on illegal gratuities as a lesser-included offense of bribery	Whitman: jury could rationally acquit on bribery (no quid pro quo) and convict on gratuities	Gov’t/District: evidence did not support gratuities theory; instruction would confuse jury; Whitman also asserted extortion defense	No abuse of discretion; withholding instruction proper because Whitman’s extortion defense, if believed, would require acquittal on both offenses, so lesser-included instruction was not warranted
Whether district court clearly erred in attributing total scheme loss to McCarty for Guidelines calculation	Whitman: N/A	McCarty: other employees acted independently; he should not be accountable for their separate conduct	No clear error; evidence supported an inference of a jointly undertaken scheme, so McCarty could be held responsible for reasonably foreseeable losses caused by participants

Gutierrez v. United States, 745 F.3d 463 (11th Cir. 2014) (abuse-of-discretion review for refusal to give jury instructions)
Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705 (1989) (lesser-offense instructions can protect defendants from jury compromise verdicts)
Sun-Diamond Growers of Cal. v. United States, 526 U.S. 398 (1999) (distinguishing intent elements for bribery and illegal gratuities)
Williams v. United States, 197 F.3d 1091 (11th Cir. 1999) (two-part test for lesser-included-offense instruction)
Siegelman v. United States, 786 F.3d 1322 (11th Cir. 2015) (clear-error standard for loss-amount findings)
Sammour v. United States, 816 F.3d 1328 (11th Cir. 2016) (Guidelines permit attribution of co-participant acts in jointly undertaken criminal activity)