United States v. Boukamp

105 F.4th 717

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff—Appellee, v. Thomas John BOUKAMP, Defendant—Appellant.

No. 22-11035

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit

FILED June 25, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, USDC No. 5:20-CR-165-1, James Wesley Hendrix, U.S. District Judge

Stephen S. Gilstrap (argued), Brian W. McKay, Esq., Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas, Dallas, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Jessica Graf (argued), Jessica Graf Law, P.L.L.C., Lubbock, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before Clement, Southwick, and Ho, Circuit Judges.

Edith Brown Clement, Circuit Judge:

Following a three-day trial at which Thomas John Boukamp represented himself, a jury found Boukamp guilty on sixteen counts, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Because each of the nine issues Boukamp raises on appeal is either meritless, harmless error, or foreclosed by binding precedent, we AFFIRM.

I.

A.

This case concerns a sexual relationship between a 13-year-old girl, M.,¹ and a 19-year-old male, Boukamp, that began online and became in-person when Boukamp picked up M. at her middle school in Texas and drove her back to his house in Michigan. The parties present this relationship in radically different lights. Boukamp describes "an emotionally immature young man and a minor girl bonded over dark, socially unacceptable [sexual] fantasies" who "fell in love" and "hatched a plan—together—to escape their circumstances." The government describes a dangerous sexual predator who found a 13-year-old girl "suffering from depression and a difficult life at home" in an online chatroom, "tortured her psychologically and emotionally, and blackmailed her with explicit photos and videos she sent him . . . until she became resigned to his harassment and agreed to leave her home with him."

For his entire life, Boukamp struggled socially and never really fit in. He did well academically, however, and in the spring of 2020, was a student at Michigan State University. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boukamp was taking classes online and living alone at his family's lake house in Michigan. Shortly after the semester started, however, Boukamp dropped all of his courses and instead spent his time on the online chat services Omegle and Discord—specifically, in chatrooms labeled for those with interests in "death" or "kidnapping."

Around April 2020, Boukamp met M. in an Omegle chatroom about death, and they began chatting daily over Discord for hours at a time. M. told Boukamp that she was thirteen and lived in Lubbock, Texas. She also shared that she was depressed, had a difficult home life, had cut herself, and had a kidnapping and rape fantasy. From the beginning, the conversations between M. and Boukamp were often sexual in nature. As early as April 28, 2020, and continuing over the course of the ensuing months, M. sent Boukamp explicit photos and videos of herself.

The record evidence from this period shows that M. felt trapped. She wrote in her journal that she wished Boukamp was "gone forever." And she told Boukamp via chat that "I just wanna be a 13 year old" and "live a normal [expletive] life," "not hav[e] a guy want to kidnap me" or be "on the [expletive] edge of a mental breakdown," and that "I dread the times I see a notification from you." But despite explaining that she was "not ready to love someone," she recognized that Boukamp could not "accept that" and that he "roll[ed] in self pity . . . and [took] it out on young innocent girls." M. told Boukamp that he was "evil" and a "psychopath" who "traumatized" and "manipulate[d]" her, yet she feared what Boukamp was "capable of" and felt she couldn't "stop talking to [Boukamp] cause [he'd] do something." Indeed, Boukamp had threatened to "torture [M.] psychologically" and that he would "find [M.]" and "kill [her] parents."

At the end of July 2020, M. attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of Tylenol. M. survived, but her stepmother told M. that she hoped M.'s next suicide attempt would be successful. When M. told Boukamp that she had been sent to the hospital because she "tried to [overdose]," Boukamp responded that it was time for "drastic measures," which he explained meant "getting you here [as soon as possible]." M. explained that her parents now knew about Boukamp because they "went through [her] phone" after the suicide attempt, but she reassured Boukamp that, even though she was underage, "the feds aren't after you" and that her parents "aren't going to the police."

By late August, the tenor of the conversations between M. and Boukamp had changed. M. stated that she became more open to Boukamp's advances because she "just didn't care anymore, so [she] just started . . . accepting what was going to happen." She even told Boukamp that she was "in love with [him] in some twisted way." They began planning for Boukamp to come to Lubbock and take M. away with him, eventually deciding that Boukamp would pick M. up at her middle school on November 13, 2020. M. would be Boukamp's "sex slave" and "housewife," and he would get her pregnant.

The day before their planned meeting, M. was scheduled to have her braces removed. But, when her family's car broke down, she was unable to make the appointment. This made M. extremely upset. Nonetheless, the next morning—November 13, 2020—M. was "super-excited, extra happy, bubbly, and singing to herself." That afternoon, she walked out of her middle school and got into Boukamp's car, leaving behind a fictitious runaway note saying that she had gone to California for a better life. Boukamp removed the SIM card from M.'s phone to avoid being tracked, and the two began the drive back to his house in Michigan.

The first night together, Boukamp forced M. to give him oral sex in the car while parked behind a gas station. Once in Michigan, M. and Boukamp had vaginal sex multiple times a day. Boukamp also sexually penetrated M. with objects—including a turkey baster that had garlic and water inside, the ceramic handle of a knife, and a spoon—and strangled and hit her. M. described her sexual encounters with Boukamp as both loving and violent. During their time at the lake house, Boukamp used pliers to remove M.'s braces. M. had previously written to Boukamp about wanting to "rip them off" herself and that they would "have to take [the braces] off like [as soon as possible]" once they were together.

Law enforcement eventually tracked M. to Michigan. On November 22, 2020, FBI agents and Michigan State Police went to the lake house and ordered the occupants to come outside over a loudspeaker. Boukamp and M. complied, and Boukamp was taken into custody. A subsequent search found 32 images and 11 videos (worth 825 images) of child pornography on Boukamp's phone, including several images of children other than M.

B.

Boukamp was indicted in the Northern District of Texas on sixteen criminal charges: one count of transporting a minor to engage in criminal sexual conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) (Count One); one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) (Count Two); one count of enticement/attempted enticement of a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) (Count Three); two counts of receipt of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(2) and (b) (Counts Four and Six); one count of cyber stalking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A(2) and (b)(4) (Count Five); and ten counts of production/attempted production of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (Counts Seven through Sixteen). His attorney, David Guinn, Jr., requested a competency hearing pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4241(a).

Guinn said that, in his thirty years of practice, he had "never had a client more difficult to communicate with rationally about the nature of the case, the reality of legal proceedings and law as well as the potential consequences or who was so unable to rationally evaluate his situation or make decisions." Guinn explained that, although Boukamp was clearly intelligent, he "had very fixed views and was unable to accept or process the views of others." Specifically, Guinn found that Boukamp was fixated on the idea that if he could just meet with the judge, M., M.'s father, and the prosecutor, the case would be dropped because he would be able to explain how he and M. were soulmates, that they would get married, and that he would give her a better life.

Four mental-health professionals evaluated Boukamp, and each testified at the May 3, 2022 competency hearing. First, Natalie Montfort and Michelle Garcia—clinical psychologists who specialize in autism—evaluated Boukamp on three separate occasions in June and July 2021. Based on psychological testing, Montfort and Garcia diagnosed Boukamp with autism. They explained that Boukamp likely exhibited signs of autism from a young age but that, as is common in autistic children who succeed academically, the symptoms were written off as quirkiness. Montfort and Garcia expressed concern that Boukamp's autism—particularly his "rigid thinking style" and "trouble refocusing obsessive thoughts"—would interfere with his ability to "understand and engage thoughtfully in the legal process." For example, they noted that Boukamp "wants to go to trial to see [M.], not because it is the best option for his case." They therefore recommended that Boukamp be evaluated by a forensic psychologist.²

Lacie Biber—a forensic psychologist for the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas—interviewed Boukamp in December 2021 and January 2022. Although she did not independently evaluate Boukamp for autism, she agreed with Montfort and Garcia's diagnosis, noting that Boukamp presented with characteristics of the disorder, "including rigid and inflexible thinking." However, Biber found that this rigidity "did not appear to permeate all areas of [Boukamp's] thinking" si...