United States of America v. TYLEEYA WILLIAMS a/k/a FreakALeak18

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 25-1237
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
TYLEEYA WILLIAMS
a/k/a Freak_ALeak18,
Appellant
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On Appeal from the U.S. District Court, E.D. Pa.
(D.C. Criminal No. 2:23-cr-00238-001)
District Judge: Honorable Gerald J. Pappert
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Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
March 13, 2026
Before: KRAUSE, MASCOTT, FISHER, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: August 5, 2026)
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OPINION*
FISHER, Circuit Judge.
Tyleeya Williams pleaded guilty to one count of manufacture and attempted
* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7
does not constitute binding precedent.

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manufacture of child pornography,1 two counts of distribution and attempted distribution
of child pornography,2 and one count of possession of child pornography.3 The District
Court sentenced her to an aggregate term of 480 months’ (forty years’) imprisonment
followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Williams appeals the sentence. We will
affirm.4
First, Williams argues that the District Court clearly erred in finding that she failed
to recognize the harm that she caused to all the victims of her crimes. Specifically, she
asserts that the District Court misheard her apology in her allocution and then relied on
that misapprehension in determining the sentence. Indeed, the District Court initially
thought that Williams apologized only to a singular “victim,” but defense counsel quickly
corrected the record.5 The District Court then acknowledged that Williams did “express
remorse,” but it reiterated an overarching concern: Williams spent the bulk of her short
allocution and much of the rest of her argument during sentencing proceedings both
blaming her criminal behavior on drug use and failing to acknowledge the significant
1 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), (e).
2 Id. § 2252(a)(1), (b)(1).
3 Id. § 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2).
4 The District Court exercised jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231 (offenses
against the laws of the United States). We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291
(final decisions of district courts) and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) (review of a sentence). We
review the District Court’s factual determinations for clear error. United States v.
Denmark, 13 F.4th 315, 317 (3d Cir. 2021). We review both the procedural and
substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion. United States v. Tomko,
562 F.3d 558, 567 (3d Cir. 2009).
5 App. 140.

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damage she caused to her many victims.6 The District Court explained that Williams’s
“view needs to change if there’s going to be a true acceptance of responsibility and
remorse as a pathway to . . . being rehabilitated” and that Williams’s drug use—which
occurred repeatedly over several months rather than in an isolated incident—did not
“excuse or mitigate” her behavior.7
Guided by the factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the District Court
explained Williams’s sentence, summarizing in detail Williams’s criminal conduct and
the arguments she offered during sentencing proceedings. The District Court’s
explanation barely relied on the initial misapprehension, and the District Court further
clarified its reasoning after defense counsel corrected the record. Accordingly, after
“reviewing the entire record,” we are not “left with the definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been committed,” so the District Court did not clearly err.8
Second, Williams argues that her sentence is procedurally unreasonable because in
weighing her allocution the District Court failed to adequately consider her cognitive
limitations and failed to adequately assess the risk of an unwarranted sentencing
disparity. But, as in Tomko, “[t]he record makes clear that the sentencing judge listened
6 Id. at 141–42.
7 Id. at 142; see also id. at 125 (“[T]he defendant has no ability to comprehend the
scope and extent of the damage and, therefore, no ability to truly apologize for it.”); id. at
125–26 (describing the scope of Williams’s criminal behavior).
8 United States v. Napolitan, 762 F.3d 297, 307 (3d Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).

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to each argument” and gave “rational and meaningful consideration [to] the factors
enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).”9
As to cognitive limitations, the District Court noted that it read and considered the
presentence investigation report and the report of Williams’s expert at least three times
each. Those reports detailed Williams’s “upbringing” and the “substance abuse, mental
illness, [and] mental and emotional health issues” that resulted.10 The expert report
specifically included a conclusion that Williams’s level of intellectual functioning was
low, though not so low as to fall into the intellectual disability range. The District Court
also stated that it gave “great weight” to the issues defense counsel raised.11 Those issues
included Williams’s “mental health,”12 the “possibility that . . . Williams was autistic,”13
a possible “cognitive brain injury”14 from an earlier car accident, a lack of schooling, and,
given Williams’s relatively young age, her not yet fully developed brain.15 After
“read[ing] everything . . . and listen[ing] to everybody,” the District Court announced the
40-year prison sentence, which was a downward departure from the statutory maximum
9 Tomko, 562 F.3d at 568 (internal quotations and citations omitted). The
Government argues that Williams forfeited her procedural reasonableness arguments by
not raising them in the District Court and, therefore, that plain-error review should apply.
Appellee’s Br. 36–37. We need not address this issue because Williams’s arguments fail
even when reviewed for abuse of discretion.
10 App. 128.
11 Id. at 129.
12 Id. at 84.
13 Id.
14 Id. at 85.
15 Id. at 89.

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of 90 years—and what would have been, absent the statutory maximum, a Sentencing
Guidelines range of life in prison.16 Because a review of “the record makes clear that the
sentencing judge considered the evidence and arguments,” no procedural error
occurred.17
As to the risk of an unwarranted sentencing disparity, Williams asserts that the
District Court disregarded “two apparently analogous cases” where the defendants were
sentenced to between twenty and twenty-five years in prison.18 But the record reveals that
the District Court considered both cases and that in both cases the facts relevant to
sentencing were distinguishable from the facts here. In one case, the defendant had better
prognoses for rehabilitation and recidivism; in the other, the defendant had a lower
Guidelines range. Williams “bears the ‘burden of demonstrating similarity by showing
that other defendants’ circumstances exactly paralleled [hers], and a court should not
consider sentences imposed on defendants in other cases in the absence of such a
showing by a party.’”19 Williams did not satisfy her burden.
Third, Williams argues that the sentence is substantively unreasonable because the
District Court placed “untenable adverse weight” on Williams’s short allocution.20 But,
16 App. 122.
17 Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 359 (2007).
18 Appellant’s Br. 31.
19 United States v. Lacerda, 958 F.3d 196, 215 (3d Cir. 2020) (quoting United
States v. Iglesias, 535 F.3d 150, 161 n.7 (3d Cir. 2008)).
20 Appellant’s Br 33.

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as explained above, the District Court weighed the full scope of Williams’s criminal
conduct and the arguments she offered throughout her sentencing proceedings—not just
her allocution. In fact, the District Court credited many of her arguments, resulting in a
below-Guidelines sentence. We “must give due deference to the district court’s decision
that the § 3553(a) factors, on a whole, justify the” sentence.21 Williams has failed to show
that “no reasonable sentencing court would have imposed the same sentence . . . for the
reasons the district court provided” here.22
For these reasons, we will affirm.
21 Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007).
22 Tomko, 562 F.3d at 568.

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