[00:00:20] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:00:20] Speaker 04:
Our second case this morning is 24-6026, United States versus Coulter.

[00:00:50] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor, and may it please the Court.

[00:00:52] Speaker 01:
My name is John Bolin of the firm of Bolin and Schall, appearing on behalf of defendant Jermaine Coulter Sr.

[00:01:00] Speaker 01:
The government failed to meet its burden of preponderance of the evidence in this case for restitution under the TVPRA, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

[00:01:13] Speaker 01:
For two reasons.

[00:01:15] Speaker 01:
First, because it failed to meet the but for causation requirement that this court pointed out is required under the TVPRA in the Anthony line of cases discussed in the brief.

[00:01:32] Speaker 01:
And secondly, even if there was but for causation here, there was no basis by which the district court could shorten

[00:01:42] Speaker 01:
the time frame for certain restitution from the lifetime restitution that was discussed by the expert, Dr. Massar, in this case, to only 10 years.

[00:01:54] Speaker 01:
There's simply no basis for that decision.

[00:02:00] Speaker 00:
Let's go to issue number two first.

[00:02:03] Speaker 00:
How closely does the district court have to tether its time frame to the testimony?

[00:02:11] Speaker 00:
Isn't that the business that the district court's in?

[00:02:13] Speaker 00:
It listens to the testimony and it says, you know what?

[00:02:16] Speaker 00:
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but I don't buy the idea that it's a lifetime worth of restitution here.

[00:02:24] Speaker 00:
And looking at this evidence, it seems to me that there would be 10 years worth.

[00:02:30] Speaker 00:
And he has some reasons why.

[00:02:33] Speaker 00:
goes with numbers that relate to two years of counseling, three years of this, cut some things out because they were pre-existing.

[00:02:42] Speaker 00:
I mean, doesn't the district court have some leeway to, you know, at some point you've got to make a judgment call.

[00:02:53] Speaker 00:
Why didn't the district court have the ability to do that?

[00:02:55] Speaker 01:
There's no question that the district court was entitled to believe some evidence, discount other evidence, and make its own determination based on the evidence as to what restitution would be appropriate in the case.

[00:03:07] Speaker 01:
But there aren't any reasons in the record why the district court could choose 10 years of restitution

[00:03:14] Speaker 01:
for these categories of treatments as opposed to a lifetime.

[00:03:21] Speaker 01:
This was the subject of expert testimony.

[00:03:23] Speaker 01:
The district court is not a psychologist, and it doesn't know how long these types of interventions would need to be applied in order to resolve the troubles of these victims.

[00:03:41] Speaker 01:
And so once Dr. Massar had testified,

[00:03:44] Speaker 01:
that these victims would need a lifetime of therapy and medications.

[00:03:51] Speaker 01:
And then Dr. Massar later testified that that was actually overly speculative.

[00:03:58] Speaker 01:
There was nothing in the record for the district court to rely on to say that any lesser time frame would not be overly speculative.

[00:04:07] Speaker 01:
Nobody asked Dr. Massar, OK, would 15 years, are you certain that that would be enough?

[00:04:13] Speaker 01:
10 years.

[00:04:15] Speaker 01:
None of that evidence was before the court.

[00:04:17] Speaker 01:
So if the court was going to conclude that Dr. Massard's testimony about a lifetime could not be trusted, there's nothing else that the court could rely on as to that piece.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
Now there's no doubt that the court made decisions on other factors within the restitution decision that it did have authority to do so.

[00:04:38] Speaker 01:
Judge Carson might be

[00:04:39] Speaker 01:
referring to the decision that certain ADHD medications were not appropriate because that ADHD diagnosis pre-existed the criminal acts at issue here.

[00:04:52] Speaker 01:
That's the kind of decision that the court has a basis for in the evidence.

[00:04:57] Speaker 01:
But going from a lifetime of therapy and medications down to 10 years, there's simply no basis for that in the evidence.

[00:05:05] Speaker 02:
Did I read your challenge though to be that the

[00:05:08] Speaker 02:
victims here were not eligible for any restitution at all.

[00:05:12] Speaker 02:
In other words, your argument was restitution should be zero.

[00:05:15] Speaker 02:
Is that right?

[00:05:15] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor, that's the primary argument.

[00:05:18] Speaker 02:
Okay, and then you also wrote in your opening brief that no party had the opportunity to object to the district court making the decision and exercising discretion to say that 10 years is more appropriate.

[00:05:30] Speaker 02:
But why is that?

[00:05:31] Speaker 02:
Because as I read the record, it seemed to me the district court

[00:05:34] Speaker 02:
engaged in robust proceedings to try to determine the restitution amount, and that your client's position was, well, the answer is zero, but didn't really, by doing that, didn't sort of afford himself the opportunity to make any arguments for anything other than zero.

[00:05:52] Speaker 02:
But I just, I'm not tracking why your arguments air that the parties weren't afforded an adequate opportunity to argue for an amount.

[00:05:59] Speaker 01:
Well, so certainly the defendant was afforded an adequate opportunity to argue that but-for causation wasn't met and that restitution should be zero.

[00:06:11] Speaker 01:
But nobody had ever argued for therapy and medications to be anything other than lifetime.

[00:06:17] Speaker 01:
So the choices on the table for the court were lifetime or zero.

[00:06:23] Speaker 01:
And so there was no indication that the court might just come up with a time frame itself

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
without any expert witness testimony about a different time frame that it would impose as restitution in the case.

[00:06:38] Speaker 01:
And that's why I think the government has not challenged our argument that we didn't have an opportunity below to make any argumentation on that 10-year time frame.

[00:06:50] Speaker 04:
Was it the recommendation 10 years for group therapy?

[00:06:54] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor, and that was for one specific diagnosis of PTSD.

[00:06:59] Speaker 04:
And that recommendation came from whom?

[00:07:02] Speaker 01:
That was from Dr. Massar as well.

[00:07:05] Speaker 04:
Why wouldn't the restitution

[00:07:09] Speaker 04:
the 10-year restitution order really be rationally tethered to the group therapy that it imposed.

[00:07:18] Speaker 04:
It just seems like the district court was making a package deal there when it decided to approve the 10 years of therapy.

[00:07:26] Speaker 01:
Perhaps that is why the district court made its decision.

[00:07:30] Speaker 01:
But I don't think that it was justified based on the evidence that 10 years of group therapy was for a specific diagnosis of PTSD.

[00:07:39] Speaker 01:
And the doctor, Dr. Massard, did testify that as to PTSD that it should be resolved within 10 years.

[00:07:47] Speaker 01:
But the other diagnoses, the other mental health issues that the victims would suffer would require lifetime therapy and medications.

[00:07:56] Speaker 01:
And that's the decision that the district court discounted and did not go with.

[00:08:05] Speaker 00:
So is your issue basically then almost limited to the mood medication?

[00:08:11] Speaker 00:
Because everything else seems to have a tie to Dr. Messer's testimony.

[00:08:18] Speaker 01:
It's the ongoing individual therapy, which is weekly, and on the court's

[00:08:27] Speaker 01:
A little charts which are presented at the attachments to our opening brief pages 32 and 35.

[00:08:33] Speaker 01:
That's $60,000 for each of the victims and it's called ongoing individual therapy, right?

[00:08:39] Speaker 00:
But if you look at the detail of the original recommendation for dough number two at least the original recommendation 61 years at $50 a week at $150 an hour and

[00:08:53] Speaker 00:
The district court said, no, I think eight years is going to be appropriate on that for 50 weeks a year, 150 an hour.

[00:09:01] Speaker 00:
Is it the eight years that you quibble with there?

[00:09:04] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:09:05] Speaker 01:
That's the 10-year decision in that line item.

[00:09:08] Speaker 01:
And then also the medications, as Judge Carson mentioned, which was $50,000 in the court's line item at attachment page 32.

[00:09:17] Speaker 01:
for DOE 1 and $40,000 at attachment page 35 for DOE 2.

[00:09:23] Speaker 01:
And then also the psychiatrist, which is eight years, $3,200.

[00:09:31] Speaker 01:
Those are the specific line items that we would say there wasn't a basis for in the record for the district court's decision.

[00:09:40] Speaker 02:
Council, can I ask you about eligibility again?

[00:09:42] Speaker 02:
And Dr. Massar, my understanding, is the same expert the government called in the Anthony cases as well.

[00:09:49] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:09:49] Speaker 02:
And your argument is that the government has not met its burden to satisfy Anthony II's but for causation standard.

[00:09:56] Speaker 02:
But didn't Dr. Massar's evidence here take Anthony II into account?

[00:10:02] Speaker 02:
And didn't he testify that those one and two or two and three

[00:10:10] Speaker 02:
that they did suffer specific harms that was directly related to Mr. Coulter, which was different than Anthony, where there were multiple defendants.

[00:10:18] Speaker 02:
I think there may have been seven on that indictment who had engaged in similar conduct.

[00:10:21] Speaker 02:
Here, there were two, but didn't Dr. Massar specifically point to your client as causing the harm for these two individuals?

[00:10:29] Speaker 02:
And doesn't that meet the but-for causation standard?

[00:10:32] Speaker 01:
No, Your Honor, I don't believe it does.

[00:10:34] Speaker 01:
Dr. Massar did say that the conduct of the defendant was a cause of the mental health issues of Doze 1 and 2.

[00:10:44] Speaker 01:
But Dr. Massar failed to differentiate other causes of those issues from the defendant's conduct at issue in the case.

[00:10:54] Speaker 01:
And that's one of the key components of the Anthony cases is differentiating between different harms.

[00:11:00] Speaker 01:
because for causation, the court is required to take away causes and then assess whether or the expert witness's testimony is required to take away causes and then assess whether the result still obtains with the remaining causes.

[00:11:18] Speaker 01:
And that's the part of Dr. Massard's testimony that was deficient here.

[00:11:21] Speaker 00:
I mean, he sort of did that, didn't he?

[00:11:22] Speaker 00:
Because he said, yeah, I acknowledge that there was existing trauma here,

[00:11:29] Speaker 00:
Coulter exacerbated what was already existing.

[00:11:34] Speaker 00:
I mean, isn't that separating them out saying, yes, there was existing, I'm talking about exacerbation?

[00:11:41] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, I don't believe that's enough because he did not reach the ultimate conclusion that only the exacerbation would have caused all of the mental health issues and therefore caused all the restitution that Dr. Massar was recommending.

[00:11:56] Speaker 00:
Would there be any situation in your mind where if somebody already had some existing mental trauma that an exacerbation could then be the subject of restitution?

[00:12:07] Speaker 00:
I mean, how someone ever going to, I mean, it sounds from your argument like that could never happen.

[00:12:14] Speaker 01:
Certainly, I'm sure that there's a world in which an expert witness can differentiate between the different harms.

[00:12:21] Speaker 01:
It's just that Dr. Massar admitted that he didn't even try to do that here.

[00:12:25] Speaker 01:
He said that he didn't attempt to differentiate between the prior trauma that the victims had suffered

[00:12:37] Speaker 01:
and compare that to what happened in the conduct at issue in the case.

[00:12:43] Speaker 01:
And that's what I think is deficient here under the court's Anthony cases.

[00:12:51] Speaker 01:
If there are no further questions at this time, I'll reserve the remainder of my time for a rebuttal.

[00:12:56] Speaker 01:
You may counsel, thank you.

[00:12:57] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:12:59] Speaker 04:
Let's hear from the government.

[00:13:17] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:13:18] Speaker 03:
May it please the Court.

[00:13:20] Speaker 03:
Assistant United States Attorney Jackson Eldridge on behalf of the United States.

[00:13:25] Speaker 03:
Front and center in this case is this Court's decisions in Anthony 1 and Anthony 2.

[00:13:30] Speaker 03:
The factual circumstance in this case is much different than what the Court found error in Anthony, in the Anthony decisions.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
A jury found Mr. Coulter guilty of engaging in sex trafficking as to Doe's 1 and 2 and engaging in a separate count of sex trafficking as to Doe 1.

[00:13:48] Speaker 03:
There's no dispute in this case that these are egregious crimes that caused severe harm to both Doe I and Doe II.

[00:13:55] Speaker 03:
There's also no dispute that Doe I and Doe II are experiencing severe trauma as a direct result of what happened by Mr. Coulter, by his direct actions and what he did in sex trafficking them.

[00:14:08] Speaker 03:
That is very different than what this court analyzed in the Anthony decisions.

[00:14:13] Speaker 03:
Mr. Anthony was a John.

[00:14:15] Speaker 03:
He abused the victim, Anthony, for an evening.

[00:14:21] Speaker 03:
And the expert report submitted by the government in the Anthony cases addressed harms that were caused by multiple sex traffickers and multiple Johns over a course of conduct.

[00:14:33] Speaker 03:
And what this court found as error in those cases was that the government's experts did not differentiate between the harms that were presented to the court for the purpose of receiving restitution.

[00:14:44] Speaker 03:
So in those cases, the analysis was not contained to a single defendant or to a single course of conduct, as it is for Mr. Coulter.

[00:14:53] Speaker 03:
In the Anthony decisions, the government's experts considered, as part of his request for restitution, a collective harm caused by multiple people.

[00:15:04] Speaker 03:
And that's what this court found as an error.

[00:15:06] Speaker 03:
The situation in Coulter is much different.

[00:15:08] Speaker 03:
Mr. Coulter is solely responsible for the harms that are caused to DOE 1 and DOE 2.

[00:15:14] Speaker 00:
Well, he's solely responsible for some harms caused to them, but they're hard to determine what the harms, the level of the harms, because they were pre-existing traumas.

[00:15:29] Speaker 00:
Isn't that the rub?

[00:15:33] Speaker 03:
In the record for this case, there is some discussion about prior traumas that existed prior to the sex trafficking and are different from the sex trafficking.

[00:15:42] Speaker 03:
I think it's important to emphasize, and this came up during the defendant's opening argument, that Dr. Misser found that the trauma that he was analyzing was not just that Mr. Coulter was not just a cause, he was the cause.

[00:15:57] Speaker 03:
In his report, Dr. Misser concluded, and this is discussed in the government's brief,

[00:16:03] Speaker 03:
Looking at Doe 1, for example, that she suffered from PTSD.

[00:16:06] Speaker 03:
That was not a pre-existing condition prior to the sex trafficking.

[00:16:11] Speaker 03:
There's ample evidence in the record that Doe 1 discusses that she suffers from sleeplessness.

[00:16:18] Speaker 03:
She has extreme anxiety and fear.

[00:16:21] Speaker 03:
She has flashbacks to the sex trafficking when she goes by hotels.

[00:16:24] Speaker 03:
She's afraid for her life to even leave the house.

[00:16:29] Speaker 03:
She wears a wig in public because she is extremely afraid of being identified by Mr. Coulter or his associates and they may come to harm her.

[00:16:37] Speaker 03:
That is the psychological trauma that she is suffering and that's what Dr. Misser was analyzing.

[00:16:42] Speaker 02:
Can you help us?

[00:16:43] Speaker 02:
I know Dr. Misser's report and testimonies in the record, but in the briefs,

[00:16:48] Speaker 02:
Neither party says with any specific reference to the record about the statements that seem to be pretty important here from Dr. Misser because your opposing counsel just said that his testimony was that Mr. Coulter's conduct was a cause of the harm and you just said it was the cause of the harm.

[00:17:06] Speaker 02:
Those are different and they may make all the difference in the case but neither party presented us record citations for those.

[00:17:11] Speaker 02:
Do you happen to have those?

[00:17:12] Speaker 03:
Yes, so in page five of the government's brief, page four and five, in the background facts of the statement of the case, the government discusses Dr. Miser's expert reports.

[00:17:21] Speaker 03:
And specifically on page five, the government cites to volume two of the record, page 251 through page 253, where Mr.

[00:17:34] Speaker 03:
states that Del 1 suffered from PTSD, severe depression, and dysthymia.

[00:17:41] Speaker 03:
These quote unquote conditions, excuse me, quote, these conditions were not pre-existing before her sex trafficking were therefore caused by it, end quote.

[00:17:48] Speaker 02:
So the direct quote, was that in his testimony as well about the cause?

[00:17:52] Speaker 03:
That particular quote comes from his expert report.

[00:17:55] Speaker 03:
But he testified to that as well in his testimony.

[00:17:58] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:18:00] Speaker 03:
Speaking of testimony, in the government's brief too, we discussed some of the statements from his testimony to evidentiary hearing that the court held in this case.

[00:18:12] Speaker 03:
And the language I believe that he used was that

[00:18:16] Speaker 03:
There was a direct nexus between the sex trafficking by Mr. Coulter and the conclusions that he was presenting to the court in support of restitution.

[00:18:23] Speaker 03:
So this was something that obviously he was thinking about in the course of his analysis.

[00:18:30] Speaker 03:
He was aware of the prior trauma.

[00:18:32] Speaker 03:
For Doe 1, for example, there was some evidence presented that she had sought psychiatric treatment based on being molested by a family member at an early age in her life.

[00:18:43] Speaker 03:
He factored that into his analysis.

[00:18:45] Speaker 03:
I mean the PTSD I think is a really good example of this.

[00:18:48] Speaker 03:
The PTSD is very specific to the sex trafficking.

[00:18:53] Speaker 03:
She did not report symptoms of PTSD related to any other further incident.

[00:18:58] Speaker 03:
In her mind she said that when she would go to sleep she would have nightmares of being sexually abused by Mr. Coulter.

[00:19:04] Speaker 03:
She would have nightmares of being sex trafficked by Mr. Coulter.

[00:19:07] Speaker 03:
And so I think that there is a very clear nexus and I think that the but for cause

[00:19:11] Speaker 03:
Because I should say it's clearly met when you look at the facts in that context.

[00:19:16] Speaker 02:
Can I ask about the amount of the restitution award?

[00:19:20] Speaker 02:
It seems that district court here, and I can imagine a lot of district courts, may struggle with the statutory language about projected losses, those that are reasonably projected, because obviously you're trying to predict any financial needs in the future.

[00:19:40] Speaker 02:
How should a sentencing court be thinking about determining what are the proper amounts for eligibility for loss into the future when the government's evidence seems to say, you know, for life and, you know, obviously, none of us really can predict our own futures, but when you're looking out, I think in this report, 59 years and some, the district court said, well, that's too speculative.

[00:19:59] Speaker 02:
How should the district court be thinking about projecting these reasonably projected losses into the future?

[00:20:05] Speaker 03:
The TVPRA is somewhat unique as opposed to other types of restitution.

[00:20:10] Speaker 03:
Most types of criminal restitution are backward looking.

[00:20:14] Speaker 03:
You can see how much money was stolen, how much harm was caused in the past.

[00:20:19] Speaker 03:
But here we have a direct statutory mandate that we must look forward and the court must compute costs that are reasonably projected to be incurred in the future, including medical services relating to physical, psychiatric, and psychological care.

[00:20:34] Speaker 03:
That is a requirement that the court must do.

[00:20:37] Speaker 03:
And so it does present challenges, but the court

[00:20:41] Speaker 03:
It's within the scope of what the court is required to do in these types of cases for sex trafficking cases.

[00:20:47] Speaker 03:
And I think that the way that the burden is met is by presenting expert evidence, by calling witnesses like Dr. Misser, who is a licensed clinical psychologist, who has a lot of experience in dealing with these types of cases.

[00:21:00] Speaker 03:
And he was able to present his learned opinion to the court about, for these types of cases, what is going to be required in the future to address the harms.

[00:21:09] Speaker 03:
And he broke it down into several categories, broke it down into medication that would be required, psychiatric services, and psychological services.

[00:21:18] Speaker 00:
But the court departed from his recommendation, and we don't know why.

[00:21:23] Speaker 03:
I would agree that the district court did not articulate in its order the specific reasons why it chose 10 years for certain categories.

[00:21:34] Speaker 03:
You know, as noted in our brief, for three of the categories, the court granted them in full.

[00:21:38] Speaker 03:
They were either 10 years or less of recommended services.

[00:21:41] Speaker 03:
For those other three categories that were recommended for a lifetime, those were limited down to 10 years.

[00:21:46] Speaker 03:
And there's not a specific articulation by the court for that.

[00:21:49] Speaker 03:
I would add though that

[00:21:51] Speaker 03:
Dr. Misser, in his expert reports, discusses the length of his recommended lengths of services in some detail.

[00:22:00] Speaker 03:
And there's also a fairly extended discussion at the evidentiary hearing about why did he choose certain times over other times.

[00:22:07] Speaker 03:
And so I think the district court in fashioning its award was certainly aware of those facts, and that was part of the record that it considered when it gave its order of restitution.

[00:22:15] Speaker 00:
Yeah, but that's really hard for us to review.

[00:22:17] Speaker 00:
I mean, that makes us speculate as to what he

[00:22:21] Speaker 00:
what the district court relied on.

[00:22:24] Speaker 03:
I think this goes to Judge Federico's question about the difficulties of applying the TVPRA and looking at future estimated costs.

[00:22:34] Speaker 03:
What the district court did say is that it found good basis, good factual basis in the record presented before it to award medical services and medical costs up to 10 years, but that beyond 10 years, it did not feel in its discretion that there was enough in the factual record to support that.

[00:22:53] Speaker 03:
So that is part of the record.

[00:22:54] Speaker 00:
And I think that yeah, I mean, but then I mean it's that's that's evidence that the hundred that that lifetime is too long But it's not evidence that ten years is good.

[00:23:06] Speaker 00:
It's not

[00:23:07] Speaker 00:
It's not an explanation of why, it's an explanation of why he rejected a lifetime, not why he relied on 10 years total.

[00:23:15] Speaker 03:
And the statutory language does say unreasonably projected.

[00:23:18] Speaker 03:
And so I think that that does require the district court to use its reason and make reasonable decisions based on the court's own experience with these types of cases.

[00:23:29] Speaker 03:
I also think there's also a case law that restitution in this area and others doesn't have to be calculated with mathematical precision.

[00:23:36] Speaker 03:
I do think that there is some room for the district court to apply its discretion and fashion the word that it feels that it's appropriate under the circumstances.

[00:23:45] Speaker 03:
The United States, in the proceedings below, did recommend that the court adopt restitution for that full period.

[00:23:51] Speaker 03:
And I think that that is still supported by the record.

[00:23:55] Speaker 03:
The government's not appealing that decision here.

[00:23:58] Speaker 03:
But if this court were to find that there was enough evidence for a lifetime of medical services and treatment, there wouldn't be a basis to reverse the court blow on that.

[00:24:11] Speaker 03:
The defendant's request that the court award zero dollars, I think, is certainly not an outcome that's supported by the record in this case.

[00:24:19] Speaker 03:
Certainly as to those three categories, but I think even for the three categories that were lifetime recommendations that were limited back, there is, I don't think it's accurate to say that there is nothing in the record that could possibly support those numbers.

[00:24:43] Speaker 03:
You have the district court below in both in finding an award.

[00:24:52] Speaker 03:
The district court below found that the government had proven by preponderance the evidence that the but for causation standard was met and used its discretion to fashion an award that was in compliance with the TVPRA statutory mandate.

[00:25:08] Speaker 03:
At this time, the government would ask that this court affirm the district court's order and I'm happy to answer any further questions of the panel.

[00:25:17] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Council.

[00:25:34] Speaker 01:
The government spent a lot of time talking about DOE 1's PTSD symptoms and the fears that DOE 1 had based on this diagnosis of PTSD.

[00:25:44] Speaker 01:
The government is correct that Dr. Massar said the PTSD was new, that that was due solely to the acts of defendant.

[00:25:53] Speaker 01:
However, that was not the only

[00:25:55] Speaker 01:
mental health issue with which DOE 1 was diagnosed.

[00:26:00] Speaker 01:
And in addition, DOE 2 was not diagnosed in that same way.

[00:26:04] Speaker 01:
There was no mention during the government's argument about that because there isn't a record for that.

[00:26:09] Speaker 01:
And so even if the group therapy, which was directed solely at PTSD, is substantiated by that testimony, the rest of the services recommended by Dr. Massar are not.

[00:26:25] Speaker 01:
And, but more importantly for the but-for causation argument, even if there were some new diagnoses based on defendant's acts, Dr. Massar failed to differentiate PTSD from other diagnoses such as major depression and anxiety of DO1

[00:26:48] Speaker 01:
And or do too and that's the requirement of the Anthony cases that dr. Massar field to meet so based on that but for causation was not established in this case.

[00:26:59] Speaker 00:
I also want to mention let me let me throw this out at you real fast and I don't mean to take up your all your time, but at least as to one of the victims.

[00:27:09] Speaker 00:
He says, beneath that major depression too, in my opinion, her symptoms indicate a longer-standing but subtler mood condition, dysthymia, which carries with it feelings of lower self-esteem and ongoing worthlessness and hopelessness.

[00:27:23] Speaker 00:
In my opinion, based on her victim impact statement comments, these conditions were not pre-existing before her sex trafficking and therefore caused by it.

[00:27:33] Speaker 00:
So he did make some pretty strong statements about these conditions being caused by the trafficking.

[00:27:39] Speaker 01:
PTSD and dysthemia.

[00:27:42] Speaker 01:
Your honor, I believe that he was saying they were a cause.

[00:27:45] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:27:46] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:27:47] Speaker 00:
I think he said he would have said those were the cause because he said they were not pre-existing.

[00:27:56] Speaker 01:
Yes, your honor.

[00:27:57] Speaker 01:
Fair enough.

[00:28:00] Speaker 01:
But again, there were other mental health issues that he failed to differentiate and explain why this treatment was justified solely by defendant's acts and not by other factors.

[00:28:14] Speaker 01:
With that, defendant would ask that the court vacate the order and remand for an entry of order of no restitution.

[00:28:20] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:28:21] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:28:21] Speaker 04:
Excuse in the case is submitted.