Adam Power was arrested in March 2023 after law enforcement discovered that thirteen Snapchat accounts linked to his IP address had distributed or received child pornography. Power had created at least fourteen social media accounts with female usernames to message minor boys, persuading them to send nude photos and videos while impersonating a girl. He knew many of his victims from his roles as a church choir director, substitute teacher, and day camp employee. In January 2024, a federal grand jury indicted Power on thirty-four counts, including receipt and distribution of child pornography, sexual exploitation of a child, and possession of child pornography. In May 2024, Power entered an open guilty plea to all counts without a plea agreement. During the plea hearing, the district court confirmed Power's competence and understanding of the charges, though the court missed reciting the factual basis for some counts before asking Power to reaffirm the government's presentation. The district court found the pleas supported by an independent basis in fact. At sentencing, the Presentence Investigation Report calculated a Guidelines range of life imprisonment, which converted to a statutory aggregate of 740 years because no single count authorized a life sentence. The government requested 100 years, while the defense sought a sentence near the 15-year mandatory minimum, citing Power's lack of criminal history and acceptance of responsibility. The district court sentenced Power to sixty years, characterizing the crimes as heinous and noting that Power's positions of authority were instrumentalities of the crime rather than mitigating factors.
The Seventh Circuit addressed two primary issues: the validity of the guilty pleas and the substantive reasonableness of the sentence. Regarding the guilty pleas, Power argued the district court lacked a sufficient factual basis for eight counts under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(3). Because Power did not object below, the court reviewed for plain error, requiring a showing that the error was clear, affected substantial rights, and seriously impacted the fairness of the proceedings. The court focused on the substantial rights prong, asking whether there was a reasonable probability that Power would have gone to trial but for the alleged error. The court found no such probability, noting that even if Power had been acquitted on the eight challenged counts, he would still have faced a Guidelines range of 560 years for the remaining counts—a de facto life sentence. The court reasoned that it would be unreasonable to assume Power would have risked trial when the sentencing exposure remained effectively the same. Furthermore, the record showed Power had accepted responsibility for all counts, a factor his counsel emphasized at sentencing to argue for leniency. Regarding the sentence, the court applied an abuse of discretion standard, noting the nearly irrebuttable presumption of reasonableness for below-Guidelines sentences. Power argued the sentence was unreasonable because it was a de facto life sentence and because the district court relied on outdated enhancements. The court rejected the life sentence argument because Power failed to present empirical data on life expectancy to the district court. On the enhancements, the court explained that removing them would not have changed the Guidelines range; the offense level would have dropped from 47 to 42, but the non-grouped counts would have triggered an additional two-level increase, resulting in a total level of 44. Since the Guidelines cap the offense level at 43 for such cases, the resulting range would still be 740 years. Finally, the court dismissed the disparity argument, stating that a below-Guidelines sentence cannot constitute an unwarranted disparity.
The decision affirms the district court's judgment, leaving Power's sixty-year sentence in place. It reinforces the standard for plain error review in guilty plea factual basis challenges, emphasizing that defendants must show a realistic chance of a different outcome at trial to prove prejudice. The ruling clarifies that below-Guidelines sentences are presumed reasonable and that defendants cannot challenge them based on empirical life expectancy data unless that data was presented to the sentencing court. It also confirms that minor variations in Guidelines calculations that do not alter the statutory aggregate range do not render a sentence unreasonable.