United States v. Tiojanco, Eduardo ( 2002 )


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  • In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Seventh Circuit
    No. 01-3170
    United States of America,
    Plaintiff-Appellee,
    v.
    Eduardo Manalo Tiojanco,
    Defendant-Appellant.
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
    No. 01 CR 229-1--Ruben Castillo, Judge.
    Argued January 30, 2002--Decided April 17, 2002
    Before Manion, Diane P. Wood, and Evans,
    Circuit Judges.
    Evans, Circuit Judge. Eduardo Tiojanco
    pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud
    charge (18 U.S.C. sec. 1343) after using
    his position as an accounts receivable
    clerk at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton to
    steal more than a quarter of a million
    dollars in hotel funds. He was able to
    turn this trick because he worked with
    the hotel’s credit card accounts and,
    with access to them, he disguised credit
    card refunds that went to cards he
    controlled as refunds destined for hotel
    guests. He appeals a 2-level upward
    adjustment hereceived under U.S.S.G.
    sec.3B1.1 for abusing a position of
    private trust.
    From 1988 to 1998 Tiojanco worked as a
    clerk in the Palmer House’s accounts
    receivable department, where he was
    responsible for handling telephone calls
    from hotel guests who disputed charges
    made to their credit card accounts. In
    1993, after 5 years on the job, Tiojanco
    decided to augment his salary by ripping
    off the hotel. Using credit card numbers
    issued in the name of an accomplice
    (Antonio Reyes), Tiojanco devised a
    scheme to issue credits to them as if
    they were owed to a hotel guest. He
    "processed the credit" by forwarding to
    his supervisor, the hotel’s comptroller,
    a "rebate slip" listing the amount of the
    credit and the reason for the refund. The
    comptroller, thinking it was a legitimate
    refund to a deserving guest, initialed
    the slip and passed it on to the hotel’s
    night audit division for processing. The
    night audit department performed no
    review function and the comptroller’s
    review was limited--he never spoke
    directly with "complaining" hotel
    customers but instead relied on the
    rebate slips Tiojanco submitted. This
    enabled Tiojanco to process $261,755.25
    in phony refunds to 36 different credit
    card accounts he (and his accomplice)
    controlled.
    The district court found that Tiojanco
    held a "key" position at the Palmer
    House, that he was entrusted with
    valuable credit card information, and
    that his supervisor relied heavily on
    Tiojanco’s work. The court concluded that
    Tiojanco’s job required him to exercise
    "professional discretion" and thus was a
    position of private trust, and that
    Tiojanco had abused that position by
    committing this massive fraud. See
    U.S.S.G. sec.3B1.3 & comment. (n.1).
    Accordingly, the court increased his
    offense level from 15 to 17. Tiojanco’s
    criminal history category was I, so the
    adjustment only resulted in a modest
    change from 18-24 months to 24-30 months
    in his guideline range. The sentence
    Tiojanco received--24 months
    imprisonment--would thus have been
    possible even without the sec.3B1.3
    adjustment.
    A survey of recent cases in which we
    have upheld application of the adjustment
    for abusing a position of private trust
    demonstrates the futility of Tiojanco’s
    argument. The cases fall into two general
    categories; the first includes people
    like doctors, lawyers, and investment
    advisors who have (or hold themselves out
    as having) specialized expertise that
    leaves the average layman ill-equipped to
    monitor their job performance. This
    explains why we have found the adjustment
    properly applied to a psychologist who
    failed to provide treatment to her
    mentally ill patients, see United States
    v. Hoogenboom, 
    209 F.3d 665
    , 667, 671
    (7th Cir. 2000), and a doctor who ordered
    unnecessary tests and contraindicated
    treatments, see United States v. Vivit,
    
    214 F.3d 908
    , 911-13, 923-24 (7th Cir.
    2000)--both of whom nonetheless attempted
    to obtain reimbursement from their
    patients’ insurers--and a lawyer
    representing a debtor in bankruptcy who
    failed to disclose his firm’s connection
    to a senior secured creditor, see United
    States v. Gellene, 
    182 F.3d 578
    , 581,
    596-97 (7th Cir. 1999). Doctors and
    lawyers enjoy significant discretion in
    deciding what course of action is
    appropriate for their patients and
    clients; patients and clients (and their
    insurers) are forced to rely on
    theseprofessional judgments. Similarly,
    clients of investment advisors face a
    discontinuity in expertise but place
    trust in their advisors, granting them
    discretion to invest their funds with the
    understanding that the advisor will act
    in the investor’s best interests. And so
    we have concluded that those who hold
    themselves out as having extensive
    experience trading commodities, see
    United States v. Davuluri, 
    239 F.3d 902
    ,
    904, 908-09 (7th Cir. 2001), or
    securities, see United States v.
    Frykholm, 
    267 F.3d 604
    , 612-13 (7th Cir.
    2001), or as holding a Series 7 license,
    see United States v. Paneras, 
    222 F.3d 406
    , 412-13 (7th Cir. 2000), may occupy
    positions of private trust with respect
    to individual investors, and that those
    who make use of the corporate form of
    doing business assume a fiduciary duty,
    and thus occupy a position of trust, with
    respect to the corporation’s investors,
    see United States v. Bhagavan, 
    116 F.3d 189
    , 193 (7th Cir. 1997); United States
    v. Strang, 
    80 F.3d 1214
    , 1216, 1220 (7th
    Cir. 1996).
    A second category of positions of trust
    exists in organizational settings, where
    businesses or similar entities charge
    particular employees with deciding, on a
    case-by-case basis, whether a particular
    expenditure or transfer of company funds
    or other valuables is necessary or
    beneficial to the organization. Some
    employees have unfettered authority to
    spend company money; others provide
    initial authorization that for reasons of
    efficiency is subject only to nominal
    review. In the latter case, supervisors
    defer to lower-level decisionmakers, who
    generally have first-hand knowledge of
    the relevant facts through personal
    observation, customer interaction, or
    document review. Thus, we have held that
    the position-of-trust adjustment was
    properly applied to an assistant manager
    of a bank branch who had authority to
    transfer large amounts of funds without
    supervisory approval, see United States
    v. Anderson, 
    259 F.3d 853
    , 863 (7th Cir.
    2001), and a bank vice president whose
    duties as compliance officer included
    insuring that all loan documents and
    accounts--including those accounts he
    personally administered--were in order,
    see United States v. Sonsalla, 
    241 F.3d 904
    , 909-10 (7th Cir. 2001), as well as a
    postal service employee responsible for
    certifying that construction contractors
    had properly completed their work, in
    effect recommending that they be paid,
    see United States v. Emerson, 
    128 F.3d 557
    , 559-60, 562-63 (7th Cir. 1997), a
    staff accountant charged with determining
    a corporation’s sales and use tax
    liabilities and requesting checks to pay
    them, see United States v. Hernandez, 
    231 F.3d 1087
    , 1088-91 (7th Cir. 2000), and a
    shopping center comptroller responsible
    for initially approving payment invoices
    before submitting them to a general
    manager for final approval, see United
    States v. Deal, 
    147 F.3d 562
     (7th Cir.
    1998).
    What makes all of the jobs in both of
    these categories similar, though our
    cases have not always stated it
    explicitly, is that they involve the type
    of complex, situation-specific
    decisionmaking that is given considerable
    deference precisely because it cannot be
    dictated entirely by, or monitored
    against, established protocol. All of
    these individuals are charged with
    exercising their judgment in the best in
    terest of another person or entity; this
    is the essence of the "professional or
    managerial discretion" to which
    theguideline refers. See U.S.S.G.
    sec.3B1.3, comment. (n.1) (a "position of
    public or private trust [is]
    characterized by professional or
    managerial discretion (i.e., substantial
    discretionary judgment that is ordinarily
    given considerable deference)," such as a
    doctor, bank executive, or an attorney
    serving as a guardian).
    We think Tiojanco fits comfortably
    within the class of discretionary
    decisionmakers covered by the guideline
    and are unpersuaded by his argument that
    he is more like the "ordinary bank teller
    or hotel clerk" who is exempted from the
    adjustment. See U.S.S.G. sec.3B1.3,
    comment. (n.1) ("adjustment does not
    apply in the case of an embezzlement or
    theft by an ordinary bank teller or hotel
    clerk"). Certainly he was a "clerk" who
    worked in a "hotel," but the Palmer House
    obviously contemplated that he would have
    primary responsibility for issuing well
    over $50,000 in customer refunds each
    year; otherwise, the average of $50,000
    Tiojanco tacked on for himself and his
    accomplices in each of the 5 years he
    carried out his fraud could not have gone
    unnoticed. This is not the type of
    responsibility granted to a typical hotel
    desk clerk.
    Tiojanco also suggests he could not have
    occupied a position of trust because he
    was a "low-level" employee earning a
    modest salary ($26,000 to $27,000) and
    has no professional degree or even formal
    training in accounting. But as we have
    explained before, a defendant’s
    "educational or other credentials . . .
    are of little significance in assessing
    whether the position he occupied was one
    of trust." Deal, 
    147 F.3d at 563
    ; see
    also Frykholm, 
    267 F.3d at 612
     (whether
    defendant was licensed broker does
    nothing to answer the position of trust
    question). Practical experience and a
    long track record with the company are
    other factors that lead employers to
    entrust employees with responsibilities
    that might otherwise go to someone with
    more formal education (and thus a higher
    salary). See Deal, 
    147 F.3d at 563
    . This
    is precisely what happened to Tiojanco,
    who was promoted to the Palmer House’s
    accounting department after 5 years’ work
    as a "storeroom clerk."
    Tiojanco’s final assertion--that the
    district court clearly erred in finding
    that his job required him to
    exerciseprofessional discretion--fails to
    account for the entirely reasonable
    inference that listening to customers’
    stories and then determining the validity
    of their complaints required him to
    exercise judgment in evaluating the
    complaining customers’ credibility. See
    Anderson, 
    259 F.3d at 862
     (district
    court’s factual finding that defendant
    occupied a position of trust is reviewed
    for clear error); United States v.
    Zaragoza, 
    123 F.3d 472
    , 482 (7th Cir.
    1997) (relying on reasonable inference
    that defendant’s job involved "managerial
    discretion"). Tiojanco points to no
    evidence undermining this inference, but
    even if he did, he would fail to
    establish that the district court’s
    inference was clear error. See United
    States v. Bailey, 
    227 F.3d 792
    , 800 (7th
    Cir. 2000) ("Where two permissible
    interpretations of the evidence are
    possible, a factfinder’s choice of one is
    not clearly erroneous.").
    AFFIRMED.