United States v. Samantha Sykes, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 24586

Sykes pled guilty to one count of bank fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344) and was sentenced to 57 months.
PSR applied two enhancements: foreseeable loss of $653,417 (14 levels) and sophisticated means (2 levels).
Scheme involved five recruiters and forty-seven nominees, opening ~336 accounts across eight banks.
Total scheme loss inflated accounts by $653,417; $506,507 actually withdrawn.
Sykes argued for foreseeing only $196,400 (or $184,400) loss and challenged the sophisticated means claim; she also raised family circumstances for mitigation.
District court upheld foreseeing the entire loss and sophisticated means, and rejected a below-guidelines sentence due to family circumstances.
Judgment affirmed at bottom of advisory guidelines range.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether loss foreseeability supports the 14-level enhancement	Sykes argues only direct loss ($196,400) is foreseeable	Court should limit loss to her involvement and direct results	Yes for foreseeing entire loss; record supports full loss as foreseeable
Whether offense involved sophisticated means	Sykes contends no sophisticated means by her	Sophisticated means shown by coordination and fake entities	Yes; scheme’s complexity and coordination justify enhancement
Whether district court properly weighed extraordinary family circumstances	Family caregiving supports below-guidelines sentence	Not sufficient to warrant non-custodial sentence	Yes; court considered and weighed arguments; within-guidelines sentence affirmed
Whether the district court properly applied § 1B1.3 and related foreseeability framework	Foreseeability should be limited by defendant’s agreement scope	All reasonably foreseeable conduct in furtherance of jointly undertaken activity is relevant	Yes; foreseeability properly applied to include reasonably foreseeable acts of co-conspirators

United States v. Wright, 651 F.3d 764 (7th Cir. 2011) (guidelines interpretation and factual review standards)
United States v. Salem, 597 F.3d 877 (7th Cir. 2010) (loss calculation under § 2B1.1 when considering relevant conduct)
United States v. Adeniji, 221 F.3d 1020 (7th Cir. 2000) (foreseeability of losses among co-conspirators in joint activity)
United States v. Wang, 707 F.3d 911 (7th Cir. 2013) (foreseeability and participation in conspiracies beyond direct involvement)
United States v. Tauil-Hernandez, 88 F.3d 576 (8th Cir. 1996) (foreseeability in jointly undertaken criminal activity)
United States v. Green, 648 F.3d 569 (7th Cir. 2011) (sophisticated means standard and review)
United States v. Knox, 624 F.3d 865 (7th Cir. 2010) (sophisticated means in complex schemes)
United States v. Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746 (7th Cir. 2008) (mitigation and consideration of family circumstances)
United States v. Castaldi, 547 F.3d 699 (7th Cir. 2008) (brief explanation suffices for within-guidelines sentence)
United States v. Diekemper, 604 F.3d 345 (7th Cir. 2010) (requirement to consider mitigation arguments)