USA v. Alan D. Mendelsohn

FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
APRIL 24, 2012
JOHN LEY
CLERK
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 11-12569
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 0:09-cr-60257-WJZ-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
ALAN D. MENDELSOHN,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(April 24, 2012)
Before CARNES, BARKETT and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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Alan D. Mendelsohn appeals his forty-eight-month sentence imposed after
he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, file false tax
returns, and make false statements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. On appeal,
Mendelsohn argues that the district court erroneously applied two separate
sentence enhancements and that his sentence is substantively unreasonable.
Mendelsohn first claims that the district court miscalculated the Guideline
range in enhancing his sentence. However, we need not address whether the
district court misapplied the enhancements because the district court stated that it
would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the result of its Guidelines
calculation. See United States v. Keene, 470 F. 3d 1347, 1348 (11th Cir. 2006).
Mendelsohn also argues that his sentence is unreasonable because the
district court imposed a sentence that was more than two-and-a-half times greater
than the applicable Guideline range 1 based on erroneous factual findings.
Specifically, Mendelsohn claims that the district court erroneously interpreted
payments that he made to an employee of a Florida legislator as bribes. However,
the district court did not clearly err because Mendelsohn pled guilty to making
payments to a Florida legislator through one of the legislator’s employees in order
1 When a district court states that its Guidelines calculation would not have altered its
sentencing decision, we evaluate the reasonableness of the resulting sentence using the advisory
range argued by the defendant. See Keene, 470 F.3d at 1349.
2

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to enable the legislator to avoid paying taxes, and Mendelsohn admitted that the
purpose of the payments was to obtain political influence. See Blohm v. Comm’r,
994 F.2d 1542, 1554 (11th Cir. 1993) (“A guilty plea is an admission of all the
elements of a formal criminal charge.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Mendelsohn also claims that his sentence is unreasonable because it is based
on questioning by the district court during Mendelsohn’s allocution that
Mendelsohn contends was improper. However, the questions were intended to
assist the district court’s evaluation of the factors listed under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)
and Mendelsohn’s arguments in favor of mitigation, and we find no error in these
questions.
Finally, Mendelsohn contends that he lacked sufficient notice that the district
court would increase his sentence based on the corrupting influence of
Mendelsohn’s activities on Florida’s political system. We find no merit in this
contention because the charges in the information, the pre-sentence investigation
report, and the factual basis for Mendelsohn’s plea all provided Mendelsohn with
notice by referring to the harm caused to Florida’s political institutions by his
misuse of political action committees and his payments to the Florida legislator.
AFFIRMED
3

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