UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 20-5454 │ v. │ │ ABRAHAM A. AUGUSTIN, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee of Chattanooga. No. 1:09-cr-00187-1—Travis Randall McDonough, District Judge.

Decided and Filed: October 20, 2021

Before: ROGERS, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ON BRIEF: J. Nicholas Bostic, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. Samuel R. Fitzpatrick, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. _________________

OPINION _________________

THAPAR, Circuit Judge. In a drug deal gone wrong, Abraham Augustin kidnapped the middleman at gunpoint and—after he was rescued—tried to hire a hitman to murder him and two other witnesses. A jury convicted Augustin of eight charges. More than a decade later, Augustin sought postconviction relief, arguing that one of his convictions was unlawful under a recent Supreme Court decision. The district court agreed. So it corrected the error by vacating that No. 20-5454 United States v. Augustin Page 2

conviction and the relevant part of Augustin’s sentence. On appeal, Augustin contends that the district court should have gone further and resentenced him entirely. We disagree and affirm.

I.

In 2009, Abraham Augustin was looking to buy cocaine. He asked a man named Robert Jordan, whom he’d met at a local nightclub a week or two before. Jordan didn’t deal cocaine, but he agreed to “find somebody” who did. R. 122, Pg. ID 854. So he contacted another man, “Hoss,” who offered to sell Augustin six ounces of cocaine for $5,100. The trio met at a local gas station and sealed the deal.

But later that night, Hoss called Jordan. There was a problem: Augustin had shorted him $900. To set things straight, Jordan reached out to Augustin, who agreed to meet “first thing in the morning” to “pay up.” Id. at 858. When Jordan arrived at the meeting place, Augustin was already there with his friend, Lorrance Dais. Dais sat in the driver’s seat of Augustin’s car. Augustin told Jordan to get into the passenger’s seat while he got in the back. Once they were all inside, Augustin and Dais both “pulled out guns.” Id. at 860. They told Jordan that “the dope was fake” and that he was being kidnapped. Id. at 862.

From there, Augustin and Dais blindfolded Jordan and bound him with zip ties. Augustin then drove to a field in the “middle of nowhere.” Id. at 866. After Augustin parked the car, he and Dais ordered Jordan to get out and removed his blindfold. Augustin then gave Jordan his phone and said, “I’m going to give you a chance.” Id. at 934. He demanded that Jordan get them the $4,200, the real cocaine, or access to Hoss.

Not knowing where else to turn, Jordan called his mother. He told her that he’d been kidnapped. But he didn’t tell her t