United States of America v. Michael Chapman

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued January 30, 2024
Decided February 15, 2024
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1731
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
MICHAEL CHAPMAN,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 21-CR-245
William C. Griesbach,
Judge.
O R D E R
Michael Chapman pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possessing with
intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing
methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846. In calculating the range of
imprisonment under the Sentencing Guidelines, the district court added two offense
levels, finding that Chapman was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of the
conspiracy among him and his two co-defendants. See U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c). Chapman
appealed, arguing that the court erred in applying the adjustment. Because Chapman
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 23-1731 Page 2
supervised at least one of his co-defendants, the adjustment was appropriate. We
affirm.
The investigation into Chapman began in September 2021 after postal inspectors
with the United States Postal Service intercepted a suspicious package sent from “Ali
Edwards” in California to Kelsee Haas-Parker at her residence in Wisconsin.
Investigators from the Brown County, Wisconsin Drug Task Force obtained a warrant
and opened the package, which contained approximately ten pounds of
methamphetamine. Investigators then effected a controlled delivery of the package to
Haas-Parker and arrested her.
Haas-Parker informed the investigators that Chapman had sent her the
September 2021 package; her cell phone also contained detailed messages between her
and Chapman about what she should do with it. He directed Haas-Parker to meet him
at a Dollar General store in Green Bay with the package. There, he would instruct her to
give the package to him at a different location. Haas-Parker’s arrest occurred before that
exchange could take place.
Haas-Parker’s phone also contained messages revealing that she and Chapman
had moved drugs a few months earlier in June 2021. Haas-Parker told investigators that
Chapman had flown to California and mailed her a package, which he was supposed to
pick up upon his return to Wisconsin. However, after getting stuck in Chicago,
Chapman directed Haas-Parker to deliver it to a residence in Green Bay. Although
Chapman initially told Haas-Parker that the package contained food, she figured out
that it contained drugs. She later met up with Chapman, who paid her $250. Haas-
Parker told officers that she believed that Chapman would pay her the same amount for
delivering the second package.
Investigators then researched the Green Bay residence to which Haas-Parker had
delivered the package. It belonged to Holly Tease, and postal records revealed that
another package, weighing 25 pounds, was mailed from California to Tease’s address
by “Ali Edwards” in July 2021. Investigators contacted Tease at her residence, and she
admitted that Chapman had sent a package to her house and retrieved it from her porch
after its delivery. Tease also later admitted that a woman (presumed to be Haas-Parker)
delivered a package to her house, and Chapman’s cousin retrieved it. Tease stated that
Chapman did not pay her for her involvement. She also informed officers that she often
purchased marijuana from Chapman and presumed that the two packages contained

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No. 23-1731 Page 3
marijuana. Tease also told officers that Chapman had told her before her arrest to lie to
the police.
Chapman, Haas-Parker, and Tease were charged with conspiring to distribute
and possessing with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance
containing methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846. Haas-Parker
and Tease each pleaded guilty to a lesser offense and were sentenced to three years’
probation. See 21 U.S.C. § 843(b).
Chapman pleaded guilty to the indictment pursuant to a plea agreement. The
agreement provided that the government would seek a two-level sentencing adjustment
for Chapman’s role in the offense as an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor.
See U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c). As relevant to this case, the § 3B1.1 adjustment would render
Chapman, who had no disqualifying prior convictions, nevertheless ineligible for
“safety valve” consideration. Therefore, the district court would be prevented from
sentencing him below the applicable mandatory minimum of ten years’ imprisonment.
See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(4); 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A).
Neither party objected to the Presentence Investigation Report’s factual
statements. At the sentencing hearing, the court adopted them, but Chapman argued
that the § 3B1.1 adjustment did not apply to those limited facts. Chapman argued that
his interactions with his co-defendants were limited to using their addresses for
mailings, plus asking Haas-Parker to drop off a package for him. He also obtained a
report from a sentencing consultant, who opined that the adjustment was inapplicable
because Chapman was not a large-scale trafficker, his co-defendants were friends who
made extra money by allowing Chapman to use their addresses, and the conspiracy
was relatively short-term. The government argued that Chapman’s decision-making
authority, recruitment of accomplices, and larger share of the profits relative to his co-
defendants were factors supporting the adjustment. The court noted the women’s
modest role in the scheme, stating that “there really wasn’t a whole lot of participation
except to use an address” to deliver the packages.
Applying the adjustment, the court also recognized that Chapman “involved two
women … and had them receive the packages and then place the packages or make
them available for him.” Because Haas-Parker and Tease “played the role that
[Chapman] directed them to play,” the court reasoned that Chapman was an organizer,
leader, manager, or supervisor. Sentencing Chapman to the mandatory minimum of ten
years’ imprisonment, the court remarked that it lacked the authority to impose a lesser
sentence. This appeal followed.

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No. 23-1731 Page 4
On appeal, Chapman argues that the district court erred in applying the
§ 3B1.1(c) adjustment. When considering such a challenge, “we review the district
court’s factual determinations for clear error, and we review whether those facts
support the enhancement de novo.” United States v. House, 883 F.3d 720, 723 (7th Cir.
2018). Here, the district court made no factual findings beyond accepting the statements
in the PSR, to which neither side objected, and on appeal, they continue to rely on the
same shared understanding of the factual basis for the adjustment. The dispute is about
whether those agreed facts support the application of the adjustment, and so our review
is de novo. Id.
The relevant guideline prescribes a two-level increase to a defendant’s offense
level if he was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of criminal activity that
involved fewer than five participants. See U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c). Although, in larger
criminal enterprises, organizers and leaders are considered more culpable, and
therefore subject to a greater adjustment, than “mere” managers or supervisors, in
smaller groups “the distinction between organization and leadership, and that of
management or supervision, is of less significance” because “clearly delineated
divisions of responsibility” are less likely. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1 cmt. n.4.
Because Chapman need only have been a manager or supervisor, we consider
whether he meets that lower threshold. The guideline sets out several factors, including
the exercise of decision-making authority, that, although not dispositive, are relevant to
the defendant’s role in the offense. See id.; House, 883 F.3d at 724. We have taken a
practical approach to this inquiry, House, 883 F.3d at 724, though we require that the
defendant have engaged in “affirmative acts” of supervising or managing “that indicate
his greater relative culpability in the offense than others involved,” United States v.
Colon, 919 F.3d 510, 518 (7th Cir. 2019). A defendant generally qualifies for an upward
adjustment if he “[told] people what to do and determine[d] whether they [did] it.”
United States v. Figueroa, 682 F.3d 694, 697 (7th Cir. 2012).
Despite Chapman’s argument that he did not exert sufficient control or authority
over Haas-Parker and Tease to be considered a manager or supervisor of their activity,
the facts he admitted are sufficient for him to qualify as to one or both co-defendants.
His role as to Tease is the closer call, but he meets the requirements for the adjustment.
As the government notes, Tease’s involvement was more limited and passive than
Haas-Parker’s, and therefore required little active supervision. But Tease accepted two
packages at Chapman’s direction—one delivered by mail that Chapman retrieved from

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No. 23-1731 Page 5
her porch and a second one delivered by Haas-Parker that Chapman’s cousin picked
up. Tease did not deliver any packages for Chapman, but he did recruit her into the
conspiracy: She would not have been involved but for Chapman’s affirmative requests
for her assistance. And Tease admitted that she was willing to accept packages from
Chapman that she knew contained drugs. Chapman’s plea agreement also contains the
admission that Tease’s phone contained “messages involving drug transactions over
several months.”
The government also points out that Chapman “directed”—in the words of the
PSR—Tease to lie for him if contacted by the police. We do not rest our decision on the
particular verb used in the PSR, and we note that, in itself, enlisting help to cover up a
crime does not necessarily support the adjustment. See United States v. McGee, 985 F.3d
559, 564 n.4 (7th Cir. 2021). But telling a co-defendant what to do with respect to joint
criminal activity—as Chapman did with Tease—does. See United States v. Oliver,
873 F.3d 601, 612 (7th Cir. 2017).
The guideline even more clearly applies to Chapman with respect to his
relationship to Haas-Parker. Chapman was her manager or supervisor the two times
she picked up packages of methamphetamine for him, and his supervision of Haas-
Parker is sufficient to justify the adjustment on its own. See United States v. Lovies,
16 F.4th 493, 506 (7th Cir. 2021). The first time that Chapman shipped a package
containing drugs to Haas-Parker’s address, he told her to deliver the package upon its
arrival to a specific address, and she did. See Figueroa, 682 F.3d at 697. The second time,
Chapman directed her to obtain the package from the post office and meet him at a
specified Dollar General store, where he was going to instruct her on where to meet
again to exchange the package.
Chapman primarily relies on our decision in Colon to argue that he did not exert
sufficient control over his co-defendants to apply the adjustment, but the facts of that
case are distinguishable. In that case, Colon, a middleman in a drug-trafficking
operation, purchased drugs wholesale from an out-of-state supplier. Colon, 919 F.3d at
513. The supplier dispatched couriers to deliver shipments of drugs to Colon, who
resold the drugs to local dealers. Id. We determined that instances in which Colon
directed the couriers on the details of deliveries or requested the couriers to drive him
to deliver drugs to a local dealer did not make him an organizer, leader, manager, or
supervisor. Id. at 517, 519. These instances were “more consistent with a supplier
accommodating the needs of his customer than an organizer controlling a drug
operation.” Id. at 519.

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Chapman’s role with respect to Haas-Parker and Tease, however, is not
comparable to one between a middleman and courier. He personally involved them in
the drug trafficking scheme and was their only connection to that activity. By contrast,
Colon’s supplier employed the couriers who brought drugs to Colon to distribute, and
even when Colon organized the logistics of an exchange, they were working for the
supplier, not Colon. And in that case, we noted the need for care in applying a
leadership enhancement to middlemen in “cases involving large-scale drug dealers,” id.
at 519, which is not the scenario before us now. But even without these factual
distinctions, this case falls within the legal baseline we articulated: “[T]he district court
must identify instances where the defendant orchestrated or oversaw the drug
operation and those involved in it.” Id.
The district court did so here. Chapman’s step-by-step directing of a drug
delivery correlates with the facts of United States v. Anderson, 988 F.3d 420, 423 (7th Cir.
2021), in which Anderson, a drug supplier, arranged for her uncle to supply a local
drug dealer on her behalf while she vacationed elsewhere. Anderson arranged the
logistics of the deal and maintained phone contact with the dealer throughout the
pickup, providing him with step-by-step instructions. Id. at 428. We determined that the
§ 3B1.1(c) adjustment was appropriate, even for that single transaction, because
“Anderson … coordinated the entire delivery,” and her uncle and the dealer “exercised
very little discretion over the manner in which the offense unfolded.” Id. Similarly here,
Chapman acted as a manager or supervisor when he coordinated both deliveries, gave
Haas-Parker step-by-step instructions about where to deliver the packages, and left her
with little discretion. Id.; see Figueroa, 682 F.3d at 697. He also checked up on whether
she had done it. See Figueroa, 682 F.3d at 697.
Chapman next argues that the record equally supports the conclusion that he
merely made isolated requests to two longtime friends to have packages mailed to their
addresses. But this argument is unpersuasive because the adjustment can apply even if
the criminal acts were one-time transactions. See Lovies, 16 F.4th at 507. Furthermore,
Haas-Parker and Tease were not independently engaged in criminal activities “divisible
from the series of crimes at issue.” Id. To the contrary, regardless of what they knew,
Chapman recruited them to assist him in his scheme to ship drugs from California to
Wisconsin for sale. And having a personal friendship with Haas-Parker and Tease does
not foreclose Chapman from being their manager or supervisor. See United States v.
Howell, 527 F.3d 646, 651 (7th Cir. 2008).

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Finally, Chapman argues that the district court should not have applied the
§ 3B1.1 adjustment because Haas-Parker and Tease, participants in criminal activity
with Chapman, were convicted of less serious offenses. Chapman concludes that his co-
defendants’ lesser sentences account for his relative responsibility in the offense,
making an adjustment for him unnecessary. Chapman asserts that the commentary for
§ 3B1.2, the guideline that provides for mitigating role adjustments, supports his
argument. An application note there explains that a reduction for a mitigating role
ordinarily is not warranted for a defendant who is convicted of an offense less serious
than his actual conduct: That defendant “is not substantially less culpable than a
defendant whose only conduct involved the less serious offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2 cmt.
n.3.
According to Chapman, this principle should apply to the § 3B1.1 adjustment.
But the commentary to § 3B1.1 defines a participant in criminal activity as “a person
who is criminally responsible for the commission of the offense, but need not have been
convicted.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1 cmt. n. 1; see also United States v. Fluker, 698 F.3d 988, 1002
(7th Cir. 2012) (explaining that a “participant” is someone who could have been charged
as an accessory). No authority suggests that Haas-Parker’s and Tease’s convictions for
lesser offenses affect whether Chapman can be considered their manager or supervisor.
And to the extent that Chapman is arguing that the adjustment created an unwarranted
sentencing disparity with his co-defendants, the court’s imposition of a within-
Guidelines sentence accounts for those concerns because the Guidelines promote
uniformity. See United States v. Sanchez, 989 F.3d 523, 540–41 (7th Cir. 2021). Nor would
any disparity be “unwarranted” because the co-defendants were not similarly situated:
They were convicted of less serious offenses and were much less involved in trafficking
methamphetamine than Chapman. See United States v. Bartlett, 567 F.3d 901, 909 (7th Cir.
2009) (affirming court’s rationale that disparity was “justified by material differences in
the offenders’ conduct and acceptance of responsibility”); United States v. Statham,
581 F.3d 548, 556 (7th Cir. 2009).
AFFIRMED

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