United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-2366 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PEJMAN KAMKARIAN, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 4:19-cr-40014-SMY-1 — Staci M. Yandle, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED AUGUST 1, 2023 — DECIDED AUGUST 23, 2023 ____________________

Before WOOD, HAMILTON, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Pejman Kamkarian pled guilty, without a plea agreement, to pos- sessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) and (b)(2). He later moved to withdraw that plea, arguing that he had not been competent to plead guilty. The district court wisely ordered a further psychological eval- uation, which found that defendant had been competent to plead, and held an evidentiary hearing where defendant 2 No. 22-2366 testified. After careful consideration of the unusual evidence in the case, the court found that defendant’s testimony at the hearing was not credible, that he had been competent to plead guilty, and that he had done so knowingly and voluntarily. We affirm. The district court’s factual findings are not clearly erroneous, and the court certainly did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to withdraw the guilty plea. I. Factual and Procedural Background In 2017, an FBI agent investigating a file-sharing network received child pornography from a computer with an IP ad- dress belonging to defendant. FBI agents executed a search warrant at defendant’s home. They seized digital devices, in- cluding two laptop computers. The computers contained twelve videos and more than 46,000 images of child pornog- raphy. Defendant Kamkarian was indicted in 2019. He initially pled not guilty and was released on bond. The court set con- ditions for pretrial release, including monitoring and restrict- ing his use of electronics. The court also required defendant to participate in mental-health treatment. Defendant attended counseling but he refused to submit to a psychiatric evalua- tion. Later, however, defendant mentioned to probation offic- ers the possibility of suicide and self-harm. The U.S. Probation Office took steps to have defendant admitted to a hospital for ten days. Five days into that hospital stay, defendant was trans- ported to the district court and changed his plea to guilty. He did not have a plea agreement with the government. At the change-of-plea hearing, defendant stipulated to the evidence the government would offer to convict him. The court then No. 22-2366 3 placed him under oath and proceeded with the required de- tailed plea colloquy and review of his trial rights. The court confirmed that defendant could read, write, and understand the English language; that he was able to think clearly and understand the proceedings; that he was fully satisfied with his counsel’s advice; that no one had forced him to plead guilty; and that he was doing so freely and voluntarily. When the court asked how he pled, defendant asked to speak with his lawyer, and the parties briefly went off record. Back on the record a few minutes later, he pled guilty, and—critically— the court accepted his plea. During the change-of-plea hearing, the government asked the court to order that defendant return to the hospital for more mental-health monitoring, saying that he was “deterio- rating.” Then, a few months later, the government petitioned to revoke defendant’s pretrial release. The government as- serted that defendant had violated the terms