United States v. Randy Beltramea, 16-4354

Beltramea previously was convicted for a fraud scheme involving investments in "Castlerock Estates" and was sentenced to 111 months' imprisonment in that case.
The government recorded a lis pendens on Castlerock Estates and sought forfeiture; Beltramea had pleaded guilty in the earlier case and had restrictions on dealing with the property.
After notice of the forfeiture claim, Beltramea engaged in transactions involving several Castlerock lots (accepting payments, selling a lot, and mortgaging the development) and later pleaded guilty to four counts of obstruction of justice based on those post-indictment actions.
The advisory Guidelines range for the obstruction counts was 24–30 months; the district court imposed a 24-month sentence to run consecutively to the prior 111-month sentence.
At sentencing the district court stated it had considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, described Beltramea as untrustworthy and likely to recidivate, and explained that consecutive imprisonment was necessary to achieve sentencing goals.
On appeal Beltramea challenged (1) procedural error in imposing the sentence consecutively and (2) substantive unreasonableness of the 24-month consecutive sentence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court procedurally erred by running the 24-month sentence consecutive to the prior 111-month term	Beltramea: court failed to explain why sentence was consecutive and thus did not consider §3553(a) or U.S.S.G. §5G1.3(d)	Government: court expressly stated it considered §3553(a), discussed factors, and no objection was made at sentencing	No procedural error; court considered §3553(a) and was not required to give separate statement for consecutive sentence
Whether the 24-month consecutive sentence is substantively unreasonable	Beltramea: prior sentence and restitution sufficed; he took steps before forfeiture; health and other mitigating factors warrant less or concurrent sentence	Government: sentence is within the properly calculated Guidelines range and thus presumptively reasonable	Sentence is substantively reasonable; 24 months (low-end Guidelines) not rebutted on appeal

United States v. Bryant, 606 F.3d 912 (8th Cir. 2010) (standards for procedural review of sentences and review of consecutive/concurrent decisions)
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) (sentencing procedural error categories and requirement to explain chosen sentence)
United States v. Williamson, 782 F.3d 397 (8th Cir. 2015) (failure to object at sentencing limits procedural challenges to explanation adequacy)
United States v. Herra–Herra, 860 F.3d 1128 (8th Cir. 2017) (within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable on appeal)
United States v. Beltramea, 785 F.3d 287 (8th Cir. 2015) (earlier appeal addressing convictions, sentence, and forfeiture)
United States v. Beltramea, 849 F.3d 753 (8th Cir. 2017) (subsequent appeal resolving forfeiture nexus issue)