PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 20-4604

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

GLENDA TAYLOR-SANDERS,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 21-4136

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

GLENDA TAYLOR-SANDERS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, Jr., District Judge. (3:19-cr-00147-RJC-DCK-1)

Argued: September 22, 2023 Decided: December 12, 2023

Before WYNN, QUATTLEBAUM, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4136 Doc: 88 Filed: 12/12/2023 Pg: 2 of 15

Dismissed by published opinion. Judge Wynn wrote the opinion, in which Judge Quattlebaum and Judge Heytens joined.

ARGUED: David Quentin Burgess, DAVID BURGESS LAW, PC, Charlotte, South Carolina, for Appellant. Julia Kay Wood, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Dena J. King, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

2 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4136 Doc: 88 Filed: 12/12/2023 Pg: 3 of 15

WYNN, Circuit Judge:

When a criminal defendant’s valid guilty plea includes a waiver of the right to

appeal, this Court generally enforces the waiver by dismissing any subsequent appeal that

raises issues within the scope of the waiver. E.g., United States v. Adams, 814 F.3d 178,

182 (4th Cir. 2016); United States v. Cohen, 459 F.3d 490, 497 (4th Cir. 2006). But we

have established narrow exceptions to that rule. For example, even if an appeal waiver is

valid and applicable, we will review a claim that a district court’s sentence or restitution

order exceeded the court’s statutory authority. Cohen, 459 F.3d at 497–98.

Defendant Glenda Taylor-Sanders challenges several aspects of the sentence and

restitution order that the district court entered following her guilty plea. Each of these

challenges falls squarely within the scope of Taylor-Sanders’s valid appeal waiver, and

none qualifies for an exception that would permit our review. Accordingly, we dismiss

Taylor-Sanders’s appeal in its entirety.

I.

From February 2017 through May 2019, Taylor-Sanders took advantage of her role

as a licensed insurance agent to defraud several trucking companies and the insurance

finance company BankDirect Capital Finance. She defrauded the trucking companies by

misappropriating funds that the companies provided her to pay for their insurance policy

premiums. And she defrauded BankDirect Capital Finance by obtaining loans under the

guise of nonexistent insurance policies. Instead of using the funds she obtained to pay

insurance policy premiums or to pay back BankDirect Capital Finance for the legitimate

3 USCA4 Appeal: 21-4136 Doc: 88 Filed: 12/12/2023 Pg: 4 of 15

loans it made to the trucking companies, Taylor-Sanders spent the funds on personal

expenditures including cars, football tickets, and mortgage payments.

Predictably, some of the trucking companies’ insurance policies lapsed because

Taylor-Sanders did not pay the

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