In United States v. George, --- F.3d ---, No. 18-50268 (9th Cir. 2020), the Court affirmed the defendant’s sentence for several fraud offenses.
The Court held that U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(2)(C), which provides
for a six-level enhancement if the offense “resulted in substantial financial
hardship to 25 or more victims,” requires the sentencing court to determine
whether the victims suffered a loss that was significant in light of their
individual financial circumstances. In other words, "substantial financial hardship" is relative to the resources of the individual victim.
Under this standard, the Court affirmed the district court’s application of the
enhancement. It held the district court
was not required to identify specific victims by name even if it had been asked
to do so, and that it was sufficient for the government to produce evidence for
enough of the victims to allow the sentencing court reasonably to infer a
pattern.
The panel further held the “resulted in” language imposes a
causation requirement, which “embraces two distinct concepts: but-for causation
and proximate causation.” The Court
found both were met.
