USA v. Sharon Collins

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-10743
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
SHARON COLLINS,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cr-00200-TFM-B-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10743
Before WILLIAM PRYOR , Chief Judge, and B RASHER and ABUDU, Cir-
cuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Sharon Collins appeals her sentence of 60 months of impris-
onment imposed after she pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud.
18 U.S.C. § 1343. Collins argues that she was entitled to notice that
she would receive a sentence above the advisory guideline range
because the district court erroneously described its upward depar-
ture as a variance. Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(h). Alternatively, she argues
that if the district court varied instead of departed, the upward var-
iance renders her sentence unreasonable. We affirm.
The district court correctly described its sentence as a vari-
ance, so Collins was not entitled to notice. See Irizarry v. United
States, 553 U.S. 708, 713–14, 716 (2008). The district court stated
that Collins’s advisory guideline sentencing range of 33 to 41
months failed to adequately account for the seriousness of her
crime and the fact that the victim of her extensive fraudulent
scheme was a church that employed her as its financial secretary.
After the district court stated that it correctly calculated Collins’s
advisory guideline range, it determined that a sentence of 60
months of imprisonment was appropriate based on her serious
criminal conduct of stealing $209,000 from the church and the need
for deterrence. Because its reasoning relied on the statutory sen-
tencing factors, and not a guidelines departure provision, the dis-
trict court imposed an upward variance as reflected in its written
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23-10743 Opinion of the Court 3
statement of reasons, and Collins was not entitled to notice, Fed.
R. Crim. P. 32(h). See United States v. Hall, 965 F.3d 1281, 1295, 1297
(11th Cir. 2020).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing
Collins to 60 months of imprisonment. The district court varied
upward from the advisory guideline range based on the “disturb-
ing” nature of her conduct and the harm to the victims that went
“beyond dollars and cents.” The district court explained that “over
and over and over again” Collins had wronged an entity and people
whose purpose was to serve the community. In the light of these
circumstances, the district court reasonably determined that a sen-
tence 19 months above the recommended range was necessary to
address the nature and circumstances of Collins’s offense, her his-
tory and characteristics, and the seriousness of her offense and to
promote respect for the law, impose a just punishment, deter sim-
ilar future crimes, and protect the public. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a); see
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007). Collins’s sentence, which is
well below the maximum statutory sentence of 20 years of impris-
onment, is reasonable.
We AFFIRM Collins’s convictions and sentence.
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