In U.S. v. Lozano, No. 06-11136 (July 9, 2007), the Court affirmed the sentences of defendants convicted of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods in violation 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 2320(a).
At sentencing, the defendants contested the attribution of the loss amount, claiming that the correct loss computation should have reflected the value of the counterfeit items in the market in which those goods were sold, Latin America, not the retail price in the United States. The sentencing court stated that even if the loss calculation were erroneous, it would still have imposed the same 72-month sentence using its discretion under § 3553(a).
The Court found that the use of the value in the United States was not clearly erroneous.
The Court added that the sentence would still have been reasonable even if the calculation were erroneous because the variance above the otherwise applicable 21-27 month range was not unreasonable, in view of the "expansive, expensive, and extensive" nature of defendants’ scheme.
