Defendant's Sentencing Memorandum — United States v. Tiffany Bowlin (S.D. W. Va.)

Record facts

U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia · No. 2:22-cr-00205 · Doc. 29 · 2023-04-28 · Docket on CourtListener

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA 
 
CHARLESTON DIVISION 
 
 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Criminal No. 2:22-00205 
 
TIFFANY BOWLIN 
 
 
DEFENDANT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM 
 
The defendant, Tiffany Bowlin, by counsel, Assistant Federal Public Defender 
Rachel E. Zimarowski, submits this memorandum for the Court’s consideration at 
her upcoming sentencing hearing.   
I. 
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) Factors for Consideration 
With a criminal history category of I and an adjusted offense level of 9, the 
advisory guideline range set forth in the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”) 
recommends a term of imprisonment between four and ten months with Zone B 
sentencing options. PSR ¶¶ 64-65. Ms. Bowlin respectfully requests the Court impose 
a within-Guidelines sentence of probation and relies upon the following 18 U.S.C. 
§ 3553(a) factors in support of a non-custodial sentence.   
1. The nature and circumstances of the offense.  
 
Tiffany is a hardworking single mother raising two children—now 15 and 7 
years old—on her own, without the benefit of paternal involvement or financial 
support. She was forced to drop out of high school when she became pregnant with 
her eldest child, but she preserved. She earned a GED, taught herself about 
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computers, and secured a career in technical support that has lasted more than a 
decade. She was successful enough that, before the pandemic began, her then-
employer promoted her to a recruiter position that came with additional hours and a 
higher hourly wage. As COVID-19 began to spread, however, everything changed. 
Her employer decided that it no longer needed a recruiter and rescinded her 
promotion.  
Tiffany was devastated. She was counting on her new salary to support her 
family, and her employer’s decision to demote her back to her original position 
(instead of terminating her outright) made her ineligible for pandemic unemployment 
assistance. She was stuck with an unsustainable salary, no alternative job prospects, 
and a support system—including both of her children’s schools—that essentially 
evaporated overnight. It was against this backdrop that she began seeing ads on 
social media promising “free money” and loan qualification in “less than 30 seconds.”1 
Soon, it seemed like almost everyone she knew had managed to secure a “free” loan.2 
 
1 See, e.g., Are PPP Loan Companies Legit? PPP Loans Are Being Aggressively (And I 
Suspect 
Deceptively) 
Marketed, 
Medium 
(Mar. 
23, 
2021), 
available 
at 
https://medium.com/web-design-web-developer-magazine/are-ppploan-companies-
legit-ppp-loans-are-being-aggressively-and-i-suspect-deceptively-marketed-
2fa99e7ec6fb (last visited April 27, 2023).  
 
2 Congress and the SBA removed controls and safeguards from the PPP loan program 
in order to flood the economy with money as quickly as possible. See Hannibal Ware, 
Independent Auditor’s Report on SBA’s FY 2021 Financial Statements, Report 22–05 
(November 15, 2021) (concluding that the SBA “did not adequately design and 
implement controls to ensure PPP loans guarantees approved [were in existence and 
accurate.]”); see also Nick Schwellenbach, Neil Gordon, Sean Moulton, and Leslie 
Garvey, The Great Pandemic Swindle: Feds Botched Review of Billions in Suspect 
PPP Loans, Project on Government Oversight (October 6, 2022), available at 
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Buoyed by these social media success stories, Tiffany decided to jump on the 
bandwagon. With the clumsiest of frauds—she claimed to own a hair salon with 
reported earnings of $106,000 in tax year 2020, which even the most rudimentary of 
loan verification procedures would have proven false in an instant—she ultimately 
obtained a $20,833 loan and forgiveness for the same. She used most of the money to 
pay bills and provide for herself and her family.3 She is deeply ashamed of herself, 
and she accepts full responsibility for her criminal conduct.  
2. The history and characteristics of the defendant.   
a. Lack of Criminal History  
   With zero criminal history points, Ms. Bowlin is in a rare category of federal 
offenders. Recidivism data analyzed by the Sentencing Commission suggests that 
offenders with zero criminal history points have considerably lower recidivism rates 
 
https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2022/10/the-great-pandemic-swindle-feds-
botched-review-of-billions-in-suspect-ppp-loans. As a result, private loan servicers 
were able to reap millions in profits—the more loans they issued, the more processing 
fees they received—by focusing their budgets on advertisements to drive up 
applications while spending next to nothing on fraud detection and prevention. See 
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, We Are Not the Fraud Police: How 
Fintechs Facilitated Fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program, Staff Report 
(December 2022); Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler, Biggest Fraud in a Generation: 
The Looting of the COVID Relief Plan Known as PPP, NBC News (March 28, 2022), 
available 
at 
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-
generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664.  
 
3 Notably, nearly three-quarters of PPP funds “flowed to the top fifth of household 
income.” See David Autor et al., The $800 Billion Paycheck Protection Program: Where 
Did the Money Go and Why Did It Go There?, Journal of Economic Perspectives 
(Spring 
2022), 
available 
at 
 
https://blueprintcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2022/01/jep.36.2.55.pdf.  
  
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than all other categories of offenders. See U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Recidivism of Federal 
Offenders Released in 2010 (2021).  
b. Family Responsibilities 
Tiffany is the custodial parent and primary caregiver for her two young 
children. The academic research is uniform: “Incarceration of a parent normally 
causes major negative economic, social, and psychological consequences to the child, 
and may have life-long [adverse] repercussions.” United States v. G.L., 305 F.R.D. 47, 
50 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) (collecting literature). If Tiffany is given a custodial sentence, her 
children are likely to “suffer developmental harm . . . in the form of behavioral and 
educational difficulties” as a result of her absence, Sarah Abramowicz, Beyond Family 
Law, 63 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 293, 321 (2012), along with a heightened risk of 
“diminished life chances and criminal involvement.” Bruce Western & Becky Pettit, 
Incarceration and Social Inequality, Daedalus, Summer 2010, at 16. 
c. Education and Employment 
Tiffany’s educational accomplishments and unbroken employment history 
demonstrate her ability and willingness to satisfy her restitution obligation. If she 
receives a custodial sentence, her resulting unemployment would unnecessarily 
hinder her ability to repay the SBA.   
3. The need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities among 
defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of 
similar conduct. 
 
To date, the undersigned is aware of two other defendants in this district who 
have been sentenced for similar conduct. Malik Breckenridge fraudulently obtained 
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$41,666 in PPP loans—more than double Tiffany’s loss amount—and received five 
years of probation. See United States v. Malik Breckenridge, Case No. 2:22-cr-00084 
(S.D. W.Va. Nov. 17, 2022) (Berger, J.). Alexis Ransom, too, nearly doubled Tiffany’s 
loss amount and received five years of probation. See United States v. Alexis Ransom, 
2:22-cr-00122 (S.D. W.Va. Feb. 7, 2023) (Faber, J.).  
The Court should also consider that Tiffany’s willingness to enter into one of 
this district’s first plea agreements re: PPP fraud has placed her at a disadvantage 
relative to more recent prosecutions. In cases with nearly identical facts, the 
government has adopted a new policy of permitting defendants to plead guilty to 
receipt of stolen property in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2315 instead of wire fraud in 
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. See United States v. Aalik Wilsher, No. 2:23-cr-00051 
(Goodwin, J.) ($20,459 loss amount); United States v. Tamir Pratt, No. 2:23-cr-00038 
(Goodwin, J.) ($20,832 loss amount). Because the receipt of stolen property offense 
carries a 10 year (as opposed to 20 year) maximum sentence, these defendants begin 
at a lower base offense level under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 and face an advisory guideline 
range of zero to six months in Zone A of the sentencing table. Tiffany deserves the 
same consideration.  
Along these same lines, the Court should consider that the Sentencing 
Commission has proposed an amendment to U.S.S.G. § 4C1.1 that would grant 
Tiffany, and other zero-point offenders, an additional two-level reduction in their 
overall offense level. See U.S. Sent. Comm’n, Proposed Amendments to the Sentencing 
Guidelines, 
at 
11 
(April 
5, 
2023), 
available 
at 
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https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/amendment-process/reader-friendly-
amendments/20230405_prelim-RF.pdf 
(last 
visited 
April 
27, 
2023). 
These 
amendments are scheduled to take effect on November 1, 2023. If Tiffany were 
granted the benefit of this amendment—which she surely deserves—her advisory 
guideline range would be, once again, zero to six months in Zone A of the sentencing 
table.  
4. Need for the Sentence to Reflect the Seriousness of the Offense, 
Promote Respect for the Law, and Provide Just Punishment 
 
The proposed sentence of probation would adequately reflect the seriousness 
of Tiffany’s conduct and provide just punishment for her offense. As the Supreme 
Court has recognized, a sentence of probation is “a substantial restriction of freedom.”  
Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 48 (2007).  Tiffany will be closely monitored by the 
Probation Office for the entirety of her probationary term, and she is very aware that 
if she were to violate any term of probation, the Court could re-sentence her to a term 
of imprisonment within, or above, her suggested guideline range.   
Furthermore, the instant felony conviction—and its attendant negative 
consequences—will be with Tiffany for the rest of her life. She has permanently lost 
many important civil rights, and she will be limited in terms of her future 
employment, housing, and educational opportunities. Indeed, she will have to fight 
to overcome the substantial barrier of being labeled as a felon, and a fraud, for the 
remainder of her working life. See, e.g., James B. Jacobs, The Eternal Criminal 
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Record 275–300 (Harvard Univ. Press 2015) (describing the many ways in which a 
criminal record impedes obtaining employment).  
5. Need for the Sentence to Afford Adequate Deterrence and Protect 
the Public.   
 
As noted above, Tiffany has zero criminal history points, which demonstrates 
that she poses a low risk of reengaging in criminal conduct or otherwise posing a 
threat to anyone in her community in the future. For such offenders, Congress has 
recognized that it is “generally appropriate[]” to “impose a sentence other than 
imprisonment.” 28 U.S.C. § 994(j); see also U.S.S.G. § 5C1.1 cmt. n.4 (directing that 
sentencing courts “should consider imposing a sentence other than a sentence of 
imprisonment” for nonviolent first offenders).  
Tiffany’s life has been forever altered, and for nothing. She has to repay every 
cent of the money, and all she has to show for it is the permanent stigma of being a 
felon and object of public shame. She is well and truly deterred, as anyone would be 
when faced with such consequences. A sentence of incarceration is unnecessary to 
achieve any additional deterrence in this case.  See, e.g., Michael Tonry, Purposes and 
Functions of Sentencing, 34 Crime and Justice: A Review of Research 28-29 (2006) 
(“[E]very major survey of the evidence” has concluded that “increases in severity of 
punishments do not yield significant (if any) marginal deterrent effects.”). 
 
 
 
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II. 
Conclusion 
For the foregoing reasons, Tiffany submits that a probationary sentence is 
sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to achieve the statutory sentencing 
purposes of 18 U.S.C § 3553(a). 
III. 
Time Needed for Sentencing 
Tiffany does not anticipate calling any witnesses to testify at the upcoming 
sentencing hearing and believes the hearing will last approximately half an hour.  
 
Date: April 27, 2023. 
 
 
 
 
Respectfully submitted, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TIFFANY BOWLIN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
By Counsel 
 
WESLEY PAGE 
FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER 
 
s/ Rachel E. Zimarowski______________                                
Rachel E. Zimarowski, WV Bar No. 11415 
Assistant Federal Public Defender 
300 Virginia Street, East, Room 3400 
Charleston, West Virginia  25301 
Telephone: (304) 347-3350 
Facsimile:   (304) 347-3356 
 
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