United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit No. 18-1541 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. MARCOS CASTANEDA, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 3:17-cr-00038-jdp-1 — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge.

ARGUED OCTOBER 2, 2018 — DECIDED OCTOBER 19, 2018

Before BAUER, KANNE, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. BAUER, Circuit Judge. Marcos Castaneda pleaded guilty to transporting methamphetamine as part of a 20-person con- spiracy. Though the district court sentenced his coconspira- tors based on findings that they distributed mixtures contain- ing methamphetamine, it sentenced Castaneda based on his handling of a smaller quantity of “Ice,” or especially pure (at least 80%) methamphetamine. Pound for pound, the Sentenc- ing Guidelines recommend punishing Ice-related crimes 2 No. 18-1541 more severely than crimes involving less-pure methampheta- mine. The court also denied Castaneda a Guidelines reduc- tion for acceptance of responsibility, given his unwillingness to admit to the apparent scope of his involvement in the con- spiracy. Castaneda challenges both rulings. We affirm his 20- year prison sentence.

I. Background

Castaneda supplied methamphetamine as part of a con- spiracy run by Joseph Kujawa. According to Kujawa, Cas- taneda transported 15 to 20 pounds per month of pure meth- amphetamine from California to Minnesota for one year, providing 5 pounds per month directly to Kujawa. Other co- conspirators, bank statements, and flight and rental-car rec- ords corroborate Kujawa’s story. In February 2016, one pound of methamphetamine was seized from coconspirator Jamie Pankow; testing revealed that it was 100% pure.

Castaneda admits that he personally transported six pounds of methamphetamine, but he maintained at sentenc- ing that he otherwise transported only marijuana. He insisted, at odds with Kujawa’s statements, that he did not know that any packages he delivered contained methamphetamine un- til, near the end of his involvement, a coconspirator accused him of tampering with them. In total, Castaneda testified that he transported just six one-pound packages of methampheta- mine and delivered all of them to someone other than Kujawa.

Castaneda was the twentieth and final conspirator to be sentenced. The district court expressly pinned his coconspira- tors’ offense levels on their involvement with various No. 18-1541 3 quantities of a mixture or substance containing methamphet- amine, but Castaneda’s sentencing went differently. For his base offense level, the court entertained his insistence that he personally transported no more than six pounds of metham- phetamine—but found that this conduct involved nearly three kilograms of Ice, rather than a mere mixture or sub- stance containing methamphetamine. This was more than the 1.5 kilograms of Ice necessary for a level of 36. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(2).

At the same time, the court found that Castaneda did not qualify for a downward adjustment for accepting responsibil- ity under § 3E1.1, precisely because he asserted that he trans- ported methamphetamine only occasionally—an assertion that the court determined was implausible in light of the other evidence.

After further adjustments, the court concluded that Cas- taneda had a total offense level of 39, which, with a criminal history category of II, resulted in a Guidelines range of 292 to 356 months’ imprisonment. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 5, Pt. A. The court then noted that Castaneda’s conduct was “more or less in parity” with Kujawa’s, but that Kujawa had accepted re- sponsibility and cooperated with the governmen