Background
While incarcerated in South Carolina, Glenn Daeward Boyd posed as a young woman on a dating app and exchanged sexually explicit messages with B.G., a 22-year-old Michigan man. After claiming that the fictitious woman was 15, Boyd impersonated her grandparents and threatened to contact police and expose the messages to B.G.’s family unless B.G. sent money. Boyd then sent screenshots to members of B.G.’s family and publicly accused him of being a pedophile. B.G. died by suicide later that day.
A jury convicted Boyd of attempted Hobbs Act extortion, stalking with intent to harass and intimidate, and five counts of wire fraud. The district court used U.S.S.G. § 2B3.2, governing extortion by force or threat of injury or serious damage, and applied enhancements for discharge of a firearm and permanent or life-threatening bodily injury based on B.G.’s suicide. After an upward variance and a consecutive sentence on the stalking count, the court imposed a total sentence of 272 months. Boyd appealed the sentence.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s selection of § 2B3.2 rather than the lower-base-level blackmail guideline in § 2B3.3. Boyd created the compromising situation used to extort B.G. and threatened serious damage to his family relationships, reputation, and employment. Section 2B3.2 did not require a threat of physical violence.
The court reversed the firearm-discharge and bodily-injury enhancements. Under controlling circuit precedent and the relevant-conduct rule in § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A), B.G.’s suicide could support those enhancements only if Boyd induced or willfully caused the relevant conduct. Boyd did not direct or encourage B.G. to use a firearm or harm himself, did not know that he had a gun, and pursued an extortion scheme focused on money and public humiliation. Because the enhancements increased Boyd’s offense level by 11 points and the error was not harmless, the court remanded for resentencing without them.
The panel did not decide whether the ultimate 272-month term was substantively reasonable because resentencing could change it. It nevertheless rejected Boyd’s asserted substantive-reasonableness defects, concluding that consecutive sentences for grouped offenses were permissible and that the district court adequately relied on Boyd’s criminal history, dangerousness, and the need for deterrence. Judge Murphy concurred, emphasizing that the decision did not prevent the district court from considering B.G.’s suicide when selecting a sentence on remand.
Key Takeaways
- Section 2B3.2 can govern an extortion scheme involving threats of severe reputational, familial, or economic damage even without a threat of physical violence.
- A victim’s firearm use and bodily injury cannot support these enhancements under § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A) absent evidence that the defendant induced or willfully caused that conduct.
- On remand, the district court must resentence Boyd without the firearm-discharge and permanent-or-life-threatening-injury enhancements, but the opinion does not bar consideration of the suicide under the statutory sentencing factors.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes between harmful consequences that may inform a court’s discretionary sentencing judgment and conduct attributable to a defendant for calculating a Guidelines enhancement. Even where an offense precedes a victim’s suicide, factual causation or foreseeability alone does not satisfy § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A)’s requirement that the defendant induce or willfully cause the relevant act.
The opinion also confirms that § 2B3.2 reaches serious nonphysical threats and that grouped convictions may receive consecutive sentences when the district court sufficiently explains its reasoning.