UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 24-1856 │ v. │ │ TYLER N. ROSS, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. No. 2:23-cr-20451-1—Jonathan J.C. Grey, District Judge.

Decided and Filed: March 31, 2025

Before: MOORE, GIBBONS, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL ON BRIEF: Mark J. Kriger, LARENE & KRIGER, P.L.C., Detroit, Michigan, Douglas A. Berman, Dublin, Ohio, for Appellant. Mahogane D. Reed, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

_________________

OPINION _________________

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Tyler Ross pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States based on his involvement in a scheme to provide mortgage lenders with inflated income information about properties owned by his real-estate-investment firm. Ross argues that the district court erred when it applied a sentencing enhancement for defendants who “derived more than $1,000,000 in gross receipts from one or more financial institutions as a result of the[ir] offense.” U.S. Sent’g No. 24-1856 United States v. Ross Page 2

Guidelines Manual § 2B1.1(b)(17)(A) (U.S. Sent. Comm’n 2023). Because the government showed by a preponderance of the evidence that Ross’s conduct met the enhancement’s requirements, and because Ross’s contrary interpretations of the enhancement are inconsistent with the Sentencing Guideline’s text, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Ross waived his right to an indictment and pleaded guilty to an information that charged him with one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 for his participation in a scheme to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1014, which makes it a crime to make a false statement to a mortgage lending business for the purpose of influencing the action of that business in connection with a loan. R. 12 (Plea at 1–3) (Page ID #23–25). At all relevant times, Ross served as a manager and co-CEO of ROCO Real Estate LLC and ROCO Management LLC (collectively, “ROCO”). Id. at 4 (Page ID #26). “ROCO operated as a commercial real estate investment firm engaged in the business of purchasing, managing, and selling multi-family residential properties, such as apartment complexes, . . . for itself and its private investors who invested in specific ROCO Properties.” Id. at 4–5 (Page ID #26–27). Ross admitted that, in the course of operating ROCO, he “and his co-conspirators agreed to, and did, submit, and cause to be submitted, false financial documents to mortgage lending businesses for underperforming ROCO Properties, making the properties appear to be more profitable than they were.” Id. at 5 (Page ID #27). The purpose of this scheme was to “[m]ake it appear in financial documents submitted as part of ongoing reporting requirements for existing