Filed: Sep. 29, 2014
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: Case: 14-11114 Date Filed: 09/29/2014 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 14-11114 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:08-cr-20482-DLG-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus RAMON VALDOQUIN, Defendant-Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida _ (September 29, 2014) Before WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 14-11114 Date Fil
Summary: Case: 14-11114 Date Filed: 09/29/2014 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 14-11114 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:08-cr-20482-DLG-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus RAMON VALDOQUIN, Defendant-Appellant. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida _ (September 29, 2014) Before WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 14-11114 Date File..
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Case: 14-11114 Date Filed: 09/29/2014 Page: 1 of 9
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-11114
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 1:08-cr-20482-DLG-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RAMON VALDOQUIN,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(September 29, 2014)
Before WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Case: 14-11114 Date Filed: 09/29/2014 Page: 2 of 9
Ramon Valdoquin appeals the denial of his motion to modify three special
conditions of his second term of supervised release. Valdoquin argues that the
district court failed to adequately explain the reasons for its decision and that it
should have modified the conditions of supervised release that limited Valdoquin’s
contact with minors other than his child and his use of a computer and the Internet.
We affirm.
Valdoquin pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and received a
sentence of five years in prison and ten years of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 2252(a)(4)(B). Special conditions of Valdoquin’s supervised release prohibited
him from having personal, mail, telephone, or computer contact with children or
minors under the age of 18; possessing or using a computer that contained an
internal, external, or wireless modem without prior approval of the district court; or
possessing or using any computer unless it was used “in connection with
authorized employment” and approved by the district court. Valdoquin moved to
modify the condition prohibiting any contact with minors to allow him to interact
with his three-year-old daughter. The district court granted Valdoquin’s motion.
Valdoquin did not appeal his sentence.
On July 8, 2013, Valdoquin was released from prison, and a month later a
probation officer learned that Valdoquin had been frequenting a bookstore and the
public library in Coral Gables, Florida. Valdoquin’s former wife and daughter
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lived in Coral Gables, but Valdoquin lived in another city. On August 23, 2013,
the probation officer learned from employees of the library that Valdoquin had
requested assistance to download photos from a USB flash drive and had
purchased a week-long pass to the Miami Children’s Museum, and the officer
reviewed video recordings made by surveillance cameras in the library that showed
Valdoquin checking out a laptop computer to take home and entering the
children’s section of the library in the presence of children. When the probation
officer questioned Valdoquin about his activities, he denied visiting the library or
obtaining a laptop computer, but later he admitted to visiting the children’s section
ostensibly to find books for his daughter. On August 26, 2013, the probation
officer intercepted Valdoquin entering the library. The probation officer searched
Valdoquin’s backpack and seized two USB flash drives; a pass to the Miami
Children’s Museum; a children’s magazine; a mouse for a computer; and a sheet of
paper on which was written the names of websites, a user ID, and passwords.
On August 27, 2013, the probation officer petitioned to revoke Valdoquin’s
supervised release on seven grounds. The petition charged that Valdoquin
possessed a laptop computer without authorization; the computer had a modem; he
failed to have software installed on the computer to monitor its use; he used the
computer without permission from his probation officer or the district court; he
visited the children’s section of a public library in the presence of several minors;
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he incorporated a business without notifying his probation officer; and he
registered his business on the website godaddy.com without permission from his
probation officer or the district court. Valdoquin admitted to the seven violations.
On October 30, 2013, the district court held a revocation hearing and
discussed with the parties how to accommodate Valdoquin’s need to use a
computer for business purposes. Valdoquin’s probation officer suggested that he
use a computer at WorkForce One that contained software that monitored its use,
but the probation officer was unable to provide definite information about the
monitoring at WorkForce One. Valdoquin requested permission to obtain an email
address and to open a business, and he agreed to provide his probation officer with
the password for the email and with a plan for his business. The district court ruled
that Valdoquin could not access a computer until he and the probation officer
submitted “in writing” a plan explaining “what the controls are, what the
monitoring system is, the email address, et cetera.”
The district court revoked Valdoquin’s supervised release and sentenced him
to six months of imprisonment and ten years of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 3583(e)(3), (h). The district court imposed the same conditions on Valdoquin’s
supervised release and required that “the probation office . . . work with
[Valdoquin] to come up with a plan which would allow [him] to seek or obtain
employment” and would “contain monitoring mechanisms and other safety
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procedures to ensure that [he] [was] not associating with children.” Valdoquin did
not object to or appeal his sentence.
On February 10, 2014, Valdoquin moved pro se to modify the conditions of
his supervised release that limited his contact with minors and that limited his
access to a computer and to the Internet. Valdoquin argued that he should be
permitted to “associate with children . . . [of] family members, . . . [and] children in
the presence of an adult who [have] been approved by the probation officer” as
long as, “[w]ith the exception of brief, unanticipated, and incidental contacts, . . .
[he did] not associate with children (other than his daughter . . .)” or have “contact
with unsupervised minors in a private setting.” Valdoquin argued that, with some
monitoring, he was entitled to use email, to access government websites related to
his new business venture in the import-expert business, and to use the Internet to
view things like “music videos on You Tube.” Valdoquin proposed that the
district court modify the conditions of his supervised release in five ways: 1) to
allow him “to possess and /or use a computer and . . . the Internet” as long as the
“computer, or [any] other electronic communication or data storage device[],
including a cell phone, [is not used] to access child pornography or to
communicate with any individual or group for the purpose of promoting sexual
relations with children or accessing child pornography”; 2) to require him to
“consent to the installation of any hardware/software to monitor any computer or
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other electronic communication or data storage devices” and to “pay the
monitoring costs, not to exceed $30 a month”; 3) to require him to “consent to
periodic unannounced examinations by the probation officer of any computers, cell
phones or other electronic communication or data storage devices that [he] has
access to”; 4) to require him to “consent to the seizure and removal of hardware
and data storage media for further analysis by the probation officer, based upon
reasonable suspicion of unlawful conduct”; and 5) to require him to disclose
“accurate information about his entire computer system (hardware/software) and
other electronic communication or data storage devices or media to include all
passwords used and the name of the Internet Service Provider(s).”
The district court denied Valdoquin’s motion to modify. The district court
stated in its order that it reached a decision after “having reviewed the issues at
hand and being otherwise fully advised in the premises . . . [and after considering]
the Defendant’s prior violations of conditions of supervised release.”
The district court provided a reasoned basis for its decision. “[T]he district
court [is not required] to state on the record that it has explicitly considered each of
the [sentencing] factors or to discuss each of [those] factors,” United States v.
Scott,
426 F.3d 1324, 1329 (11th Cir. 2005), “so long as the record reflects the
court’s consideration of many of those factors,” United States v. Ghertler,
605 F.3d
1256, 1262 (11th Cir. 2010). See United States v. Dorman,
488 F.3d 936, 944 (11th
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Cir. 2007). The district court was “fully advised in” and familiar with Valdoquin’s
case from having sentenced him for his child pornography offense and for his
violation of his supervised release. The order denying the motion reflects that the
district court had “reviewed the issues at hand” in Valdoquin’s motion and had
considered the nature of his offense and his history and characteristics; his refusal
to comply with the conditions of his supervised release; the need to deter him from
committing future similar offenses; and the need to protect children from further
similar crimes. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D).
The district court did not abuse its discretion when it refused to modify the
limitations on Valdoquin’s contact with minors. Valdoquin defied that special
condition of his supervised release by traveling to a city other than his residence
and visiting the children’s section of a public library. Although Valdoquin told his
probation officer that he visited the children’s section to obtain books for his child,
the next day, Valdoquin had in his possession a child’s magazine and a pass to a
children’s museum in another city. The district court reasonably could have found
Valdoquin’s explanation suspicious and his acquisitions worrisome, and the district
court could reasonably have determined that allowing Valdoquin greater contact
with children other than his own would not afford adequate protection for them and
was necessary to promote his rehabilitation. See United States v. Moran,
573 F.3d
1132, 1140 (11th Cir. 2009); United States v. Zinn,
321 F.3d 1084, 1086–88 (11th
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Cir. 2003); United States v. Taylor,
338 F.3d 1280, 1286 (11th Cir. 2003). Those
concerns are sufficiently compelling to limit Valdoquin’s access to minors other
than his child.
We also cannot say that the district court abused its discretion when it
refused to modify the limitations on Valdoquin’s access to a computer and to the
Internet. Valdoquin downloaded approximately 400 images of child pornography,
including material that depicted sadistic or masochistic conduct, approximately
200 of which involved children between the ages of 4 and 11 and others that
involved minors who were at least 12 years old. A few weeks after Valdoquin was
released from prison, he accessed the Internet, obtained a laptop computer from a
public library, and then lied to a probation officer about violating the conditions of
his supervised release. In the light of that misconduct, the district court reasonably
refused to approve Valdoquin’s proposed modifications to the conditions of his
supervised release, which would have significantly lifted restrictions on his use of
a computer and the Internet. See
Zinn, 321 F.3d at 1092–93;
Taylor, 338 F.3d at
1285.
The limitations on Valdoquin’s use of a computer and the Internet are not
overly broad. He retains the right to use a computer with access to the Internet if
he obtains permission from the district court. See
Zinn, 321 F.3d at 1093;
Taylor,
338 F.3d at 1285. Valdoquin complains about having to obtain permission to use
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the Internet from the district court instead of a probation officer, but Valdoquin
cites no authority suggesting that it is unduly onerous to obtain permission from
the district court. The limitations are “necessary and reasonable condition[s] of
supervised release.”
Zinn, 321 F.3d at 1093; see also
Moran, 573 F.3d at 1140–41.
We AFFIRM the denial of Valdoquin’s motion to modify the conditions of
his supervised release.
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