Nos. 21-1915 21-1917 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

JUAN DANIEL SIERRA-JIMÉNEZ,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Gelpí, Montecalvo, and Rikelman, Circuit Judges.

Raúl S. Mariani Franco on brief for appellant. W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, and Julia M. Meconiates, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.

February 23, 2024 GELPÍ, Circuit Judge. Defendant Juan Sierra-Jiménez ("Sierra") pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). The district court sentenced him to fifty-eight-months' imprisonment, as well as to a consecutive eighteen-month sentence for his related supervised release violations. In this consolidated sentencing appeal, Sierra challenges the procedural reasonableness of his fifty-eight-month sentence and asserts that the government breached the plea agreement with respect to his eighteen-month sentence. Having discerned no error, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We briefly begin with a review of the relevant facts leading to the indictment for the new criminal conduct. Because this appeal follows a guilty plea, we draw the facts from the plea agreement, the presentence investigation report ("PSR"), the change-of-plea colloquy, and the sentencing transcript. See United States v. Spinks, 63 F.4th 95, 97 (1st Cir. 2023) (quoting United States v. Ubiles-Rosario, 867 F.3d 277, 280 n.2 (1st Cir. 2017)).

While on supervised released for an earlier federal firearm offense, Sierra failed to meet with his probation officer to whom he also lied about where he had been. As a result, on or about March 22, 2021, the probation officer sought and obtained an arrest warrant. Upon his arrest, Sierra was found with a Glock 22

- 2 - pistol, modified to fire automatically as a machine gun. Agents found the gun loaded with thirteen rounds in a magazine and one round in the chamber, an additional loaded twenty-two-round magazine containing twenty rounds, and approximately five grams of what appeared to be heroin. Sierra was transported to a detention center for processing and admitted thereat that the gun and other items belonged to him. He was subsequentially indicted for possessing a machine gun and being a felon in possession of a firearm. 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 922(o), 924(a)(2). Sierra pled guilty to the latter count by way of plea agreement.

The plea agreement proposed an advisory guideline range calculation consisting of a base offense level of twenty for the firearm count, see U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(4), and a three-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, see U.S.S.G. §§ 3E1.1(a)-(b), for a total offense level of seventeen, which in turn provides a sentencing range of thirty-seven to forty-six months, taking into account his criminal history. Both parties agreed to recommend a sentence at the lower end of the advisory guideline range. As for the supervised release violation, the parties agreed to recommend a concurrent sentence. The plea agreement contained a stipulation of facts which provided that during his arrest, Sierra was found with a gun, modified