NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued April 17, 2012
Decided May 15, 2012
Before
WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
No. 11‐3678
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appeal from the United States
Plaintiff‐Appellee, District Court for the Eastern
District of Wisconsin.
v.
No. 2:06‐cr‐00149‐RTR‐2
RONALD ALVAREZ,
Defendant‐Appellant. Rudolph T. Randa,
Judge.
O R D E R
After serving a 12‐month prison sentence for selling counterfeit money, Ronald Alvarez
was released and began a 3‐year term of supervised release in March 2009. During the second
year of his supervised release, the probation department submitted a Revocation Hearing
Report, listing six violations of his supervised release; this appeal, however, concerns only
release condition number 2, which required Alvarez to provide truthful and complete
No. 11‐3678 Page 2
information to his probation officer. According to the Revocation Hearing Report, Alvarez
violated that release condition by providing false pay stubs—as verification of his
employment—to his probation officer. Pursuant to the U.S.S.G. § 7B1.1, the probation officer
classified that violation as a Grade B violation. And based on the Grade B violation and a
criminal history category IV, Alvarez’s advisory revocation Guideline range was 12 to 18
months.
On November 18, 2011, the district court conducted a revocation hearing. At the
hearing, Alvarez challenged the violation, denying that he supplied false pay stubs. After
examining the evidence, the district court found that Alvarez had violated that release
condition.
The government recommended a sentence within the 12‐to‐18‐month Guideline range.
The district court, after considering the statutory sentencing factors, sentenced Alvarez to
6 months’ imprisonment with no further supervised release. Alvarez appeals the district
court’s determination that he submitted false stubs.
We review a district court’s decision to revoke a supervised release for an abuse of
discretion. United States v. Dillard,
910 F.2d 461, 464 (7th Cir. 1990). To revoke a term
of supervised release, the court must find by a preponderance of the evidence that the
defendant violated the terms of the supervised release.
18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3); United States v.
Goad,
44 F.3d 580, 585 (7th Cir. 1995). A district judge’s factual findings are reviewed for clear
error. United States v. Berry,
583 F.3d 1032, 1034 (7th Cir. 2009).
Alvarez argues that the government did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence
that he submitted false pay stubs. We disagree. Our review of the record convinces us that the
district court’s finding was supported by a preponderance of evidence. The district court noted
that the questioned pay stubs were different in format from pay stubs that were verified as
authentic; the questioned stubs were handwritten, while the authentic pay stubs were printed
and other differences between the questioned stubs and the authentic stubs included the gross
income and deduction amounts. Finally, the district court noted that the questioned pay stubs
were issued in reverse order.
Besides looking at the facial validity of the pay stubs, the district court also heard
testimony from Alvarez and his probation officer. During the hearing, the probation officer
testified that Alvarez admitted to her that the questioned pay stubs were false and that during
those particular pay periods, he was actually being paid in cash. Alvarez testified that the pay
stubs were not false, but the district court found the probation officer more credible than
Alvarez: “It comes down to a fact this is a credibility issue . . . . I find I have to side with [the
probation officer].” In accepting the probation officer’s testimony over Alvarez’s, the district
No. 11‐3678 Page 3
court noted that Alvarez’s credibility, in part, was undermined by his original conviction of
selling falsely made obligations of the United States.
The district court’s determination that Alvarez submitted false pay stubs to his
probation officer was supported by a preponderance of the evidence, and therefore, it was not
an abuse of discretion to revoke Alvarez’s supervised release.
We AFFIRM the district courtʹs judgment.
