Doxie: Fraud and false tax filing convictions need not be grouped

In U.S. v. Doxie, No. 15-11161 (Jan. 4, 2016), the Court rejected the defendant’s argument that the district court, for sentencing purposes under the Sentencing Guidelines, should have grouped into a single group his convictions for fraud and his convictions for filing false tax returns. The Court noted that grouping is required for “closely related” counts of conviction. Here, Doxie’s fraud, and his failure to report the proceeds of his fraud on his tax return, involved separate conduct, covered by separate Titles of the United States Code, and different victims. Moreover, because the Guideline for fraud did not include a specific enhancement for the tax counts, no double counting resulted from the decision not to group to the sets of convictions. Grouping would have resulted in no additional punishment for Doxie’s tax crimes.