United States v. Matheny

42 F.4th 837

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Bradley Jon MATHENY, Defendant - Appellant

No. 21-3712

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: June 17, 2022

Filed: July 28, 2022

Counsel who represented the appellant was Brian Dean Johnson of Cedar Rapids, IA.

Counsel who represented the appellee was Timothy Vavricek, AUSA, of Cedar Rapids, IA.

Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Bradley Matheny was convicted on seven counts of forging or counterfeiting postage meter stamps in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 501 and three counts of smuggling in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 554. The district court sentenced Matheny to 36 months' imprisonment and ordered him to pay $256,441.78 in restitution to the United States Postal Service ("USPS"). Matheny appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, the district court's estimate of the face value of the counterfeit stamps for purposes of calculating his advisory sentencing guidelines range, the amount of restitution ordered, and the substantive reasonableness of his prison sentence. We vacate and remand on the restitution issue but otherwise affirm Matheny's convictions and sentence.

I.

Matheny operated an online business buying and reselling items on eBay. He used the USPS to ship items to customers. Through eBay's web site, Matheny would input his package specifications, prepay postage, and receive a digital shipping label that he would print on adhesive paper. The top of the label indicated whether he had paid for first-class or priority shipping; the bottom of the label included a barcode and tracking number.

During the summer of 2015, a Cedar Rapids post-office manager noticed that Matheny was regularly dropping off packages at the back dock after 8:00 p.m., which was the "critical entry time" when the office staff "need[ed] to get the packages in so that [they could] process them properly for their next location." The manager asked Matheny "if he could possibly bring his mail in earlier," noting that the office was "doing him a courtesy by letting him come to the back dock" in the first place. Matheny replied, "Well, I can't do that. Do I have to take my business somewhere else?" The manager relented and assured Matheny that the office "appreciate[d his] business."

After that conversation, Matheny began dropping off his packages progressively later, "until routinely he was coming in about a quarter to 9:00." As a result, the staff "didn't have ... time to scrutinize the packages." They would simply sort the packages for priority or first-class delivery according to the designation of shipping class at the top of the label.

In the fall of 2015, a mail handler approached the manager with "some parcels that she said didn't look right"—"the postage didn't seem to match up with the service they were getting." After investigating the packages himself, the manager referred the matter to Inspector Ron Jewell of the Postal Inspection Service.

Inspector Jewell intercepted and examined every piece of mail that Matheny sent over a one-month period and discovered several irregularities. Some packages had been "underweighted"; that is, the recorded weight on the label, which determined the postage fee, was less than the actual weight of the package. Other packages exhibited recorded weights that been altered. In some cases, a package had both been underweighted and had its recorded weight altered. For example, one 13.1-ounce package featured a recorded weight of 3 ounces that had been modified to 8 ounces, with a red "DO NOT BEND" stamp partially obscuring the alteration. Still other packages featured labels with a priority shipping designation on the top half but a first-class barcode and tracking number on the bottom half. Subpoenaed eBay records indicated that Matheny routinely purchased two shipping labels for a single order, one priority and the other first class, and then voided the more expensive priority purchase for which he received a full refund.

In May 2017, postal inspectors executing a search warrant at Matheny's residence discovered a box full of clippings of first-class labels without barcodes and tracking numbers. At that point, Inspector Jewell realized that Matheny had been covering the bottom halves of priority labels with the bottom halves of first-class labels, thereby producing a hybrid label with a priority shipping designation at the top and a first-class barcode and tracking number at the bottom. The priority shipping designation would ensure priority delivery times, and the first-class barcode and tracking number would ensure that the package was scanned and tracked to its destination. Meanwhile, the covered priority barcode would not be scanned, enabling Matheny to collect a refund on the priority stamp that he had purchased but apparently never used. The result would be faster priority delivery times at less expensive first-class rates.

To confirm his theory, Inspector Jewell zoomed in on the photographs that he had taken of the hybrid labels. Sure enough, he "could see a little crease line across the top of the barcode" indicating that "First-Class barcodes had been laid over the actual Priority barcode." Inspector Jewell was able to match each of the first-class label clippings discovered at Matheny's residence with a first-class barcode and tracking number that Matheny had used with a priority shipping designation.

Meanwhile, law enforcement also noticed irregularities in Matheny's international sales. Matheny had opted not to use eBay's Global Shipping Program so that he could purchase international shipping labels and complete customs forms on his own. For several of his international sales, Matheny reduced customs taxes by underrepresenting the value of the item sold and designating it as a "gift," rather than "merchandise," on the customs form.

Postal inspectors eventually confronted Matheny, and he confessed to altering the recorded weights on some labels. Later, a grand jury charged Matheny with eight counts of forging or counterfeiting postage meter stamps in violation of 18 U.S.C § 501, three counts of smuggling in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 554, and four additional counts not at issue in this appeal. Matheny pleaded not guilty and waived his right to trial by jury. At the close of the bench trial, Matheny moved for a judgment of acquittal. The district court denied the motion and found Matheny guilty on seven counts of forging or counterfeiting postage meter stamps and three counts of smuggling. The district court acquitted Matheny on the remaining counts.

At sentencing, the district court found that the face value of the counterfeit stamps exceeded $250,000, triggering a twelve-level enhancement to Matheny's base offense level. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2B1.1(b)(1)(G), 2B5.1(b)(1). The advisory sentencing guidelines range after application of the enhancement was 51 to 63 months' imprisonment. The district court varied downward to a sentence of 36 months' imprisonment. It also ordered Matheny to pay $256,441.78 in restitution to the USPS. This sum included the loss due to Matheny's splicing and alteration of shipping labels as well as the loss due to Matheny's underweighting of packages.

Matheny appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, the district court's face-value calculation, the amount of restitution ordered, and the substantive reasonableness of his prison sentence.

II.

We begin with Matheny's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. A defendant may request either a new trial or a judgment of acquittal due to insufficient evidence, and the two requests are governed by different standards. See, e.g. , United States v. Ruzicka , 988 F.3d 997, 1007 (8th Cir. 2021). Matheny does not specify which remedy he seeks on appeal. But given that he did not request a new trial before the district court and his appellate brief recites the standards governing our review of the denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal, we construe his sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge as a request for a judgment of acquittal. As we explain below, construing the challenge as a request for a new trial would not alter our conclusion.

We review the denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal due to insufficient evidence de novo . Id. A defendant is entitled to a judgment of acquittal due to insufficient evidence only if no reasonable factfinder could find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See id.

Seven of Matheny's convictions were based on 18 U.S.C. § 501, which criminalizes "mak[ing] ... or knowingly us[ing]" any "forged or counterfeited ... postage meter stamp." On two of the seven counts, the Government claimed that Matheny violated § 501 by making or knowingly using a shipping label with an altered recorded weight. Cf. 18 U.S.C. § 513(c)(2) (defining "forged" documents in a related context to include any document "that purports to be genuine but is not because it has been falsely altered"). On the other five, the Government claimed that Matheny violated § 501 by making or knowingly using a hybrid shipping label featuring a priority shipping designation but a first-class barcode and tracking number. Cf. id. (defining "forged" documents to include to any document "that purports to be genuine but is not because it ... is a combination of parts of two or more genuine documents"). Matheny presents two arguments as to why the evidence was insufficient to support some or all of his § 501 convictions.

First, as to all seven counts, Matheny argues that there was insufficient evidence that he committed the conduct alleged. We disagree. The evidence indicated that the labels' recorded weights had been altered on the packages at issue in two of the counts and that hybrid labels had been used on the packages at issue in the remaining five counts. Matheny speculates that someone else might have made the forgeries. But...