United States v. Elseddig Musa
United States v. Elseddig Musa
Opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 19 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 19-10046 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:15-cr-01265-DLR-1 v. ELSEDDIG ELMARIOUD MUSA, dba MEMORANDUM* Arizona One Medical Transportation, LLC., Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Douglas L. Rayes, District Judge, Presiding Submitted December 17, 2019** Phoenix, Arizona Before: GRABER, HURWITZ, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Elseddig Musa was convicted of 35 counts of healthcare fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1347) and four counts of aggravated identity theft (18 U.S.C. § 1028A). The district court found him responsible for approximately $1.2 million of loss to the
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (“AHCCCS”).
The district court premised its original loss calculation on “unmatched claims”—claims for reimbursement for transportation for which there was no corresponding medical billing to AHCCCS. See United States v. Musa, 742 F. App’x 265
1. The district court did not clearly err in finding that the value of unmatched claims was the most reliable method to estimate the loss attributable to Musa’s crimes. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(C); United States v. Walter-Eze, 869 F.3d 891, 913 (9th Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 1196 (2019). Testimony at
the sentencing hearing supported the district court’s conclusion that potentially legitimate unmatched claims made up a small number of the total unmatched claims.
2. The district court also did not clearly err in finding that calculating loss using Musa’s schedules and trip reports was a less reliable estimation of loss. The government’s expert testified that those records were both incomplete and inconsistent. Moreover, even if loss were calculated in this way, the government’s expert testified that it would have resulted in a loss of more than $1 million, which would have resulted in the same guidelines sentence that use of unmatched claims to calculate loss produced. See United States v. Ali, 620 F.3d 1062, 1074 (9th Cir. 2010).
AFFIRMED.
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