25-272-cr (L) United States v. Boone

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 19th day of December, two thousand twenty-five.

PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, BARRINGTON D. PARKER, RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., Circuit Judges. ------------------------------------------------------------------ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v. No. 25-272-cr (L), 25-544-cr (CON)

LAWRENCE BOONE,

Defendant-Appellant. ------------------------------------------------------------------ FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: MELISSA A. TUOHEY, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY

FOR APPELLEE: THOMAS R. SUTCLIFFE, Assistant United States Attorney, for John A. Sarcone III, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY

Appeal from an amended judgment of the United States District Court for

the Northern District of New York (Brenda K. Sannes, Chief Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the amended judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED.

Lawrence Boone appeals from an amended judgment of conviction

entered on March 4, 2025 in the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (Sannes, C.J.) sentencing him principally to 168 months’

imprisonment and ordering him to pay $66,500 in restitution. Boone’s conviction

follows his guilty plea to seven counts of receiving, distributing, and possessing

child pornography.

2 On this appeal, Boone argues that his sentence is substantively

unreasonable and the restitution awards imposed by the District Court are

excessive. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and the

record of prior proceedings, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our

decision to affirm.

I. Term of Imprisonment

“[S]ubstantive reasonableness reduces to a single question: whether the

[d]istrict [court] abused [its] discretion in determining that the [18 U.S.C.]

§ 3553(a) factors supported the sentence imposed.” United States v. Jones,

(2d Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). Citing United States v.

Dorvee,

(2d Cir. 2010), Boone argues that his 168-month sentence is

substantively unreasonable because it was derived from the District Court’s

mechanical application of sentencing enhancements under § 2G2.2 of the United

States Sentencing Guidelines, see U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2, that are inherent to Boone’s

crimes of conviction. But Dorvee does not require district courts “to disregard”

the § 2G2.2 enhancements for such crimes. United States v. Lawrence,

(2d Cir. 2025) (quotation marks omitted). And here, contrary to Boone’s

claim, the District Court appears to have applied § 2G2.2 and § 3553(a) with

3 “great care” rather than indiscriminately, Dorvee,

, to determine

that the applicable Guidelines range was “greater than necessary to comply with

the purposes of sentencing,” App’x 100.

Boone next argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because

the District Court failed to impose a sentence that “provide[d]” for his

“specialized mental health treatment” in “the most effective manner.”

Appellant’s Br. 29 (quoting

(a)(2)(D)). We reject this argument as

well. Section 3553(a) does not require a sentencing court to provide a defendant

with a particular form of treatment; it requires only that the court “consider”

various factors, such as the defendant’s need for “educational or vocational

training, medical care, or other correctional treatment.”

(a).

Here, the District Court considered Boone’s need for mental health treatment

when it imposed a below-Guidelines sentence, see App’x 98–100, and the court

further “recommend[ed to the Bureau of Prisons] that [Boone] participate in

mental health . . . treatment” while serving his sentence, App’x 101; see App’x

112. The District Court then also weighed the “serious nature of [Boone’s]

offense” and the need for adequate deterrence before imposing its sentence.

App’x 100–01. No more was required.

4 For these reasons, we conclude that Boone’s sentence was not

substantively unreasonable.

II. Restitution

Boone next challenges the District Court’s eight restitution awards to

victims that exceed the $3,000 statutory minimum for mandatory restitution. See

(b)(2)(B). “We review an order of restitution deferentially, and

we will reverse only for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Aumais,

(2d Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted). Boone claims that the District

Court abused its discretion by failing to ensure that the awards “reflect[ his]

relative role in the causal process that underlies the victim[s’] losses.”

(b)(2)(B).

We conclude that the District Court acted within its discretion by imposing

the eight restitution awards. As relevant to Boone’s specific challenge, after

calculating the correct “amount of [each] victim’s losses,” the District Court

specifically determined “the relative causal significance of [Boone’s] conduct in

producing those losses” based on the number of images and videos Boone

possessed of each victim and the number of prior defendants contributing to

each victim’s losses. Paroline v. United States,

(2014). It then

5 ensured that each victim’s aggregate recovery did not exceed the victim’s total

losses. See id.;

(b)(2)(A)–(C). The District Court proceeded to

impose eight restitution awards, ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. These awards

are not too “severe” in view of Boone’s contribution to the victims’ losses as a

possessor of child pornography. Paroline, 572 U.S. at 458–59.

In challenging these awards, Boone asserts that the Government failed to

provide estimates for every Paroline factor 1 and that the challenged restitution

awards are unsupported by the factors. But Paroline does not “prescribe a precise

algorithm” that requires district courts to consider every factor.

at 459–60,

462. Here, the District Court adequately analyzed the most relevant factors in

1 In Paroline, the Supreme Court explained that the “factors that bear on the relative causal significance of the defendant’s conduct in producing [the victim’s] losses . . . could include”:

[1] [T]he number of past criminal defendants found to have contributed to the victim’s general losses; [2] reasonable predictions of the number of future offenders likely to be caught and convicted for crimes contributing to the victim’s general losses; [3] any available and reasonably reliable estimate of the broader number of offenders involved (most of whom will, of course, never be caught or convicted); [4] whether the defendant reproduced or distributed images of the victim; [5] whether the defendant had any connection to the initial production of the images; [6] how many images of the victim the defendant possessed; and [7] other facts relevant to the defendant’s relative causal role.

Paroline,

.

6 this case, namely, the number of images or videos Boone possessed and whether

he produced, reproduced, or distributed those images. And although the

restitution awards do not correspond linearly to the number of images and

videos Boone possessed of each victim or the total losses each victim suffered,

the victims for which Boone possessed more than one video and the victim with

the greatest total losses received the largest restitution awards. See App’x 161. In

any case, imposing restitution “cannot be a precise mathematical inquiry.”

Paroline,

.

CONCLUSION

We have considered Boone’s remaining arguments and conclude that they

are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the amended judgment of the

District Court is AFFIRMED.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

7