US v. Jean Roy

Filing

UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Motion disposition in opinion--denying Motion for leave to file [999585056-2] Originating case number: 8:13-cr-00249-PWG-1 Copies to all parties and the district court/agency. [999693617].. [14-4623]

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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4623

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JEAN CLAUDE ROY, a/k/a Dredd the Don, a/k/a Dreddy,
Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Paul W. Grimm, District Judge. (8:13cr-00249-PWG-1)

Submitted:

October 30, 2015

Decided:

November 5, 2015

Before SHEDD, DUNCAN, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Gary E. Proctor, LAW OFFICES OF GARY E. PROCTOR, LLC, Baltimore,
Maryland, for Appellant.
Rod J. Rosenstein, United States
Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, Sujit Raman, Kristi O’Malley,
Assistant United States Attorneys, Greenbelt, Maryland; Vanita
Gupta, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Mark L.
Gross, Teresa Kwong, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Jean Claude Roy was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to
commit

sex

trafficking

by

force,

fraud,

counts

of

interstate

transportation

for

and

coercion,

three

prostitution,

and

witness and evidence tampering, and was sentenced to a total of
240 months’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Roy argues that 18 U.S.C.

§ 1594(c) (2012) is void for vagueness, that the evidence on the
conspiracy count was insufficient, that the district court erred
by excluding certain evidence pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 412, and
that

his

sentence

unreasonable.

is

procedurally

and

substantively

We affirm.

Because Roy did not move to dismiss the conspiracy count on
the grounds that § 1594(c) was impermissibly vague, we review
this claim for plain error.

To establish plain error, Roy must

show that (1) an error occurred, (2) the error was plain, (3)
the error affected his substantial rights, and (4) “the error
seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation
of judicial proceedings.”

Henderson v. United States, 133 S.

Ct. 1121, 1126-27 (2013) (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted).

An error is plain if, “at the time of appellate

consideration, . . . the settled law of the Supreme Court or
this circuit establishes that an error has occurred.”

United

States v. Ramirez-Castillo, 748 F.3d 205, 215 (4th Cir. 2014)
(internal

quotation

marks

omitted).
2

The

“vagueness

doctrine

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bars enforcement of a statute which either forbids or requires
the

doing

of

an

act

in

terms

so

vague

that

men

of

common

intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as
to its application.”

United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 266

(1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).
unconstitutionally
terms is clear.

vague

if

the

“commonsense

A statute is not
meaning”

of

its

United States v. Powell, 423 U.S. 87, 93 (1975)

(“[S]training to inject doubt as to the meaning of words where
no doubt would be felt by the normal reader is not required by
the ‘void for vagueness’ doctrine.”).
Section
another

to

1594(c)
violate

applies

section

to

1591,”

“[w]hoever
which

in

conspires
turn

with

applies,

in

relevant part, to
[w]hoever knowingly in or affecting interstate or
foreign commerce, . . . recruits, entices, harbors,
transports, provides, obtains, or maintains by any
means a person . . . knowing, or in reckless disregard
of the fact, that means of force, threats of force,
fraud, coercion . . . or any combination of such means
will be used to cause the person to engage in a
commercial sex act.
18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1).

Roy argues that a conspirator cannot,

at the time of the agreement, know that the conspiracy will
successfully coerce a then-unknown victim to engage in a sex
act.

Although we have not previously addressed this issue, the

Ninth Circuit has held that § 1591 “does not require knowledge
in the sense of certainty as to a future act,” but only requires

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“that the defendant know in the sense of being aware of an
established

modus

operandi

that

will

person to engage in prostitution.”

in

the

future

cause

a

United States v. Todd, 627

F.3d 329, 334 (9th Cir. 2010) (noting that it is impossible to
know

future

events

with

certainty).

This

interpretation

comports with the obvious, commonsense interpretation of what
people mean when they speak of “knowing” of a future event.
Moreover,

the

Supreme

Court

has

held

that

a

knowledge

requirement does not raise but “alleviates vagueness concerns.”
McFadden

v.

(rejecting
required

United

argument

States,
that

defendant

controlled

to

substance

135

drug

S.

Ct.

statute

know

that

analogue).

2298,

was

2307

vague

possessed

(2015)

because

substance

Accordingly,

we

find

it
was

that

settled law does not indicate that this statute is vague.
Roy also argues that § 1594 requires a defendant to know
his victim’s background because that background is relevant to
the definition of what acts are coercive.

However, the statute

does not require the conspirators to possess this information
from the outset of the conspiracy, as long as they know that
their modus operandi involves force, threats of force, fraud, or
acts that they will devise to be sufficiently coercive to ensure
compliance.
argument

that

See

Todd,

§ 1594

is

627

F.3d

vague

as

at

334.

applied

Likewise,
to

the

Roy’s

“reckless

disregard” clause of § 1591 fails because a defendant can agree
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to traffic a victim when he has reason to believe that she will
be

coerced

danger.

prostitution,

but

recklessly

disregards

this

Because settled law does not render § 1594(c) void for

vagueness,
failing

into

we

to

find

sua

that

sponte

the

district

dismiss

the

court

did

conspiracy

not

count

err
on

in

this

basis.
Roy next argues that the evidence on the conspiracy count
was insufficient because there was no evidence that anyone was
actually

coerced

into

prostitution

or

that

Roy

and

his

coconspirator expected anyone to be defrauded or coerced into
prostitution.

“We review a district court’s denial of a motion

for judgment of acquittal de novo,” and will sustain the jury’s
verdict “if there is substantial evidence, taking the view most
favorable to the government, to support it.”
Reed,

780

F.3d

260,

269

(4th

Cir.

2015)

United States v.

(internal

quotation

marks omitted).
In

this

coconspirator
and

that

used

Roy

prostitutes.
intimidated

case,

there

fraudulent

engaged
Indeed,

her

was

into

in
one

ample

promises

to

threatening
victim,

continuing

evidence

to

recruit

behavior

K.M.,
work

that

prostitutes
towards

testified
for

Roy’s

him

that
when

the
Roy
he

mistreated another prostitute who left and he stated that the

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next person who left would not be able to leave so easily. 1
Further,

the

jury

could

easily

have

found

that

coconspirator expected these tactics to succeed.

Roy

and

his

Accordingly,

we conclude that the evidence, taken in the light most favorable
to the Government, was sufficient to support Roy’s conspiracy
conviction.
Roy also argues that the district court erred by excluding
evidence of a coconspirator’s later sexual conduct pursuant to
Fed. R. Evid. 412.

Any error was harmless because the minimal

impeachment value that this evidence provided could not possibly
have affected the verdict.

United States v. Johnson, 617 F.3d

286, 292 (4th Cir. 2010).
Finally, Roy argues that his sentence was procedurally and
substantively unreasonable.

Roy first claims that the district

court failed to adequately explain his sentence.

Most of his

arguments on this point concern the substance of the court’s
reasoning, not the adequacy of its explanation.

Moreover, the

court discussed in great detail how Roy’s conduct removed him
1

Although the jury ultimately acquitted Roy of the
substantive § 1591 counts, this acquittal does not require us to
disregard these victims’ testimony in determining whether the
evidence was sufficient to support the conspiracy count.
See
United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 305 (4th Cir.) (“[I]t
is well-settled that a defendant cannot challenge his conviction
merely because it is inconsistent with a jury's verdict of
acquittal
on
another
count.”
(internal
quotation
marks
omitted)), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 421 (2014).

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from the heartland of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines and
how

these

factors.

facts

informed

its

application

of

the

§ 3553(a)

Accordingly, we find that the district court provided

“an ‘individualized assessment’ based on the particular facts of
the case before it [and] . . . a rationale tailored to the
particular

case

at

hand

appellate review.’”

and

adequate

to

permit

‘meaningful

United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 330

(4th Cir. 2009) (footnote and citation omitted) (quoting Gall v.
United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50 (2007)).
As to Roy’s assertions of error in the district court’s
Guidelines calculation, “rather than review the merits of each
of [Roy’s] challenges, we may proceed directly to an assumed
error harmlessness inquiry.”

United States v. Gomez-Jimenez,

750 F.3d 370, 382 (4th Cir.) (internal quotation marks omitted),
cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 305 (2014).

“A Guidelines error is

considered harmless if . . . (1) the district court would have
reached the same result even if it had decided the [G]uidelines
issue the other way, and (2) the sentence would be reasonable
even

if

the

[G]uidelines

defendant’s favor.”
Because

the

issue

had

been

decided

in

the

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
district

court

stated

that

it

would

have

imposed an identical sentence as a variance if the Guidelines
range

were

different,

inquiry is satisfied.

the

first

prong

of

the

harmlessness

Our review of substantive reasonableness
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examines “the totality of the circumstances to see whether the
sentencing court abused its discretion in concluding that the
sentence

it

§ 3553(a).”

chose

satisfied

the

standards

set

forth

in

Id.

The district court correctly noted that Roy coerced and
emotionally manipulated his victims, taking advantage of their
emotional

vulnerability,

youth,

and

desperation. 2

The

court

cited Roy’s use of a gun when recruiting one of his prostitutes,
his sexual assault of two of them, and his humiliation of anyone
who disobeyed him as proof that he was different from a typical
defendant subject to the same Guidelines.
that

the

need

to

protect

the

public

The court also found
from

coercive

sex

trafficking was great, and that Roy’s prior murder charge had
not made him respect the law, but that he instead used that
charge to threaten his victims.
We conclude that the totality of the circumstances supports
a

finding

that

Roy’s

conduct

and

the

circumstances

of

the

offenses far exceed those of a typical defendant subject to the
2

To the extent Roy argues that the district court erred by
relying on conduct of which he was acquitted, this argument is
foreclosed by our precedent.
United States v. Jinwright, 683
F.3d 471, 484 (4th Cir. 2012) (holding that acquittal does not
preclude consideration of underlying facts at sentencing).
See
generally United States v. Rivers, 595 F.3d 558, 564 n.3 (4th
Cir. 2010) (“A panel of this court cannot overrule, explicitly
or implicitly, the precedent set by a prior panel of this
court.” (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted)).

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Guidelines he proposes.
court

did

not

abuse

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Accordingly, we find that the district
its

discretion

in

its

sentencing

determinations, that Roy’s sentence is substantively reasonable,
and

that

any

error

in

the

district

court’s

Guidelines

calculations is harmless.
We affirm the judgment of the district court.
Roy’s motion for leave to file a pro se brief.

We deny
See United

States v. Penniegraft, 641 F.3d 566, 569 n.1 (4th Cir. 2011).
We

dispense

contentions

with
are

oral

argument

adequately

because

presented

in

the

facts

and

the

materials

legal
before

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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