United States of America v. Barry R. Schotz

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 4, 2024 *
Decided April 5, 2024
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 23-2675
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
BARRY R. SCHOTZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 05 CR 440
Harry D. Leinenweber,
Judge.
O R D E R
For his frivolous challenges to his wire-fraud conviction and sentence, we
sanctioned Barry Schotz in 2009 with a $5,000 fine and a filing bar that blocks both “civil
suits” and “collateral attacks” until he pays, which he has not done. Schotz v. United
States, No. 09-2055 (7th Cir. Apr. 24, 2009). One part of Schotz’s underlying sentence,
meanwhile, was a restitution judgment of over $3 million, due immediately but still
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 23-2675 Page 2
mostly unpaid. To recover some of that restitution, administrators began withholding
and offsetting 15% of Schotz’s monthly Social Security benefits under the Treasury
Offset Program. See 31 U.S.C. § 3716(a), (c)(3)(A)(i); Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U.S. 586, 589
(2010) (describing program). Last year, Schotz asked the sentencing court to make these
administrators stop. The court, seeing no authority to grant this relief, denied Schotz’s
motion. Then, in a renewed motion, Schotz insisted that administrators had deprived
him of due process by not giving him written notice of his rights to contest the offset
within the executive branch. (The United States disputes this.) In an oral ruling, the
district court denied this motion because, among other things, it was “the same” as the
first one. We affirm.
We start with Schotz’s notice of appeal. The district court’s oral ruling denying
Schotz’s latest post-sentencing motion is final and appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291
because it disposed of all issues in the motion and the district court is finished with the
case. See United States v. Simon, 952 F.3d 848, 851–52 (7th Cir. 2020) (citing Autotech
Techs. LP v. Integral Rsch. & Dev. Corp., 499 F.3d 737, 745 (7th Cir. 2007)). That leaves the
filing bar. Schotz’s notice of appeal did not make clear whether his request for relief was
in substance a civil complaint against federal administrators (barred by our sanction
order), a collateral attack on the original restitution judgment (also barred), or an
attempt to modify the restitution judgment’s payment schedule based on changes in
Schotz’s financial circumstances (likely outside the bar). See 18 U.S.C. § 3664(k); cf. In Re
Thomas, 91 F.4th 1240, 1241–1242 (7th Cir. 2024) (ruling that a motion for compassionate
release falls outside bar on collateral attacks). So, we docketed the appeal.
But now that we have Schotz’s appellate brief, we see no way for him to proceed.
Schotz would locate the district court’s authority to oversee the government’s debt
collection in the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701, et seq., which, among
other things, permits civil suits to enjoin certain actions of federal agencies.
See, e.g., Harrington v. Berryhill, 906 F.3d 561, 568 (7th Cir. 2018) (opining, in dispute over
legal fees and eligibility for Social Security benefits, that a separate APA suit “is the
proper vehicle” for challenging administrative offset against benefits). Yet a civil suit for
an injunction would run into Schotz’s filing bar. The district court could not have
entertained his request as a civil complaint, and we would not entertain an appeal from
that court’s refusal to do so.
Still, the D.C. Circuit has held that a sentencing court sometimes has ancillary
jurisdiction to review an administrative offset as a kind of adjunct to the criminal case—
but only if the offset is inconsistent with the court’s own restitution judgment.

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No. 23-2675 Page 3
United States v. Hughes, 813 F.3d 1007, 1008–10 (D.C. Cir. 2016). In Hughes, the
sentencing judgment set a payment schedule of $50 per month. The government’s
$10,000 offset of Hughes’s lump-sum tax refund violated that schedule and thus
“thwart[ed] the proper execution of the collection of restitution.” Id. at 1010. The
sentencing court, said Hughes, could intervene to protect its own judgment. Id. But even
if we accepted Hughes’s view of a sentencing court’s jurisdiction, we see no room to
exercise it here: Schotz’s restitution judgment required immediate payment; the bulk
remains unpaid; and Schotz does not argue that the offset is otherwise inconsistent with
the restitution judgment.
We agree with the district court that it lacked authority to make administrators
cancel the offsets to Schotz’s Social Security payments. We thus do not reach the merits
of Schotz’s argument about the written notice. And we warn Schotz that if he persists in
submitting motions like this one, the district court (or we) may supplement his other
filing bar with a sanction more directly targeted at the new abuse. See In re Thomas,
91 F.4th at 1243. The decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

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