United States of America v. George L. Liakos

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-3467
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
George L. Liakos
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of Nebraska - Lincoln
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Submitted: June 10, 2024
Filed: August 19, 2024
[Unpublished]
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
George Liakos pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 1344. He had overstated his farm’s inventory and failed to report its outstanding
loans and accounts payable when seeking loans from Great Western Bank, resulting
in the bank loaning Liakos millions of dollars that he could not repay. When
Liakos’s fraud was discovered, he owed Great Western Bank $12,114,650.44.

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The loans were secured by Liakos’s farm and personal property. Great
Western Bank quickly moved to seize and sell this collateral. However, Liakos’s
farm, by far the most valuable collateral, was already subject to a $3,403,984.32 lien
held by Prudential Insurance. To quiet title to the farm and obtain a higher price in
a foreclosure sale, Great Western Bank paid Prudential $500,000 plus the note’s
value, $3,903,984.32 in total, to purchase the superior lien. At the subsequent
foreclosure sale, Liakos’s farm sold for $5,788,908, but he was credited for
restitution purposes with $6,325,000, the fair market value of the land as determined
by an appraisal. In total, Liakos was credited with $10,959,599.33, leaving a
shortfall of $5,059,035.43. At sentencing, the district court1 ordered Liakos to pay
the $5,059,035.43 shortfall in restitution to Great Western Bank. The district court
also sentenced Liakos to 36 months’ imprisonment and 5 years’ supervised release.
Liakos appeals the restitution order.2
Liakos argues that the district court clearly erred in its restitution calculation
and awarded a windfall to Great Western Bank because it improperly included the
amount that Great Western Bank spent to purchase the Prudential lien in the
restitution order and improperly valued the collateral Great Western Bank seized and
sold.
1 The Honorable John M. Gerrard, United States District Judge for the District
of Nebraska.
2 Liakos also appeals his terms of imprisonment and supervised release, but
these arguments are foreclosed by his appeal waiver, in which Liakos waived his
right to appeal except as to the amount of restitution ordered and whether his counsel
was ineffective. “So long as there is no miscarriage of justice, we will enforce a
defendant’s [appeal] waiver if the appeal falls within the scope of the waiver and the
defendant entered into the waiver and the plea agreement knowingly and
voluntarily.” United States v. Seizys, 864 F.3d 930, 931 (8th Cir. 2017). Appealing
the sentence is within the scope of the waiver, and the record establishes that Liakos
agreed to the waiver knowingly and voluntarily—the Government described the
contours of the appeal waiver, the district court explained Liakos’s right to appeal,
and Liakos confirmed that he understood the contours of the agreement, including
which arguments he was preserving and which he was waiving. See id. at 932.

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“We review the district court’s restitution calculation de novo as to legal
conclusions and for clear error as to factual findings.” United States v. Matheny, 42
F.4th 837, 845 (8th Cir. 2022). “Once the district court has identified a victim, it
must determine the full amount of each victim’s losses, based on the amount of
actual loss caused by the defendant’s offense.” United States v. Karie, 976 F.3d
800, 805 (8th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). “The government bears
the burden of proving the amount of restitution based on a preponderance of the
evidence.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “Restitution may be ordered only
for the loss caused by the specific conduct that is the basis of the offense of
conviction,” Matheny, 42 F.4th at 845 (internal quotation marks omitted), and
“[a]nything a victim would have had to pay, regardless of the defendants’ actions,
cannot be a loss caused by the fraud,” Karie, 976 F.3d at 805 (internal quotation
marks omitted). But “[w]hen determining restitution, the district court need make
only a reasonable estimate of the loss, and we accord particular deference to the loss
determination because of the district court’s unique ability to assess the evidence
and estimate the loss.” United States v. Carpenter, 841 F.3d 1057, 1060 (8th Cir.
2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).
We first address whether the district court clearly erred by including the
amount that Great Western Bank spent to purchase the Prudential lien in the
restitution order. The commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines provides that the
amount of restitution owed to the victim includes any “reasonably foreseeable
pecuniary harm that resulted from the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(A).
Liakos asserts that the purchase price for the Prudential lien should not be included
in the restitution amount because it was unreasonable for Great Western Bank to
purchase Prudential’s superior lien. According to Liakos, there would have been
“little or no difference in the outcome” had Great Western Bank not done so. But if
Great Western Bank had not eliminated Prudential’s superior lien, it would have
been vulnerable to various future losses. For instance, once Prudential decided to
exercise its rights as senior lien holder, it would have little incentive, beyond its
obligations under state law, to try to recover more than the first lien amount. In
addition, Great Western Bank’s inability to pass clean title may have reduced the

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farm’s sale value further or put off prospective purchasers altogether. In light of
Prudential’s lack of incentive to seek more than just its own lien amount and Great
Western Bank’s inability to pass clean title, we conclude that the district court did
not clearly err by concluding that it was commercially reasonable for Great Western
Bank to pay the value of the note in addition to the premium for Prudential’s superior
lien. See United States v. Statman, 604 F.3d 529, 537-38 (8th Cir. 2010) (affirming
a district court’s restitution amount that included foreclosure expenses).
We next address Liakos’s contention that the district court improperly valued
his farm. Although the farm sold for $5,788,908 and Liakos was credited for
restitution purposes with $6,325,000, Liakos asserts that the farm was actually worth
something more like eight to eleven million dollars. But Liakos failed to present any
evidence supporting this assertion, and the district court determined that Liakos’s
“opinion as to the value of his collateral is not supported by any type of commercially
reasonable methodology for appraising property, and therefore is not credible for
these evidentiary purposes.” This was not clear error. See Alexander, 679 F.3d at
730 (affirming restitution order where defendant “may be correct that the foreclosure
sale may not have provided an optimal outcome” but had “failed to cite any authority
to support [her] contention that the foreclosure sale was commercially
unreasonable”).
Affirmed.
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