Rihanna Buddi pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Her underlying conviction was for lewd and lascivious battery under Florida state law. The Presentence Report classified her as a Tier II offender, which triggered a base offense level of 14 and a supervised release Guidelines range of five years. Buddi objected to this classification, arguing her Florida conviction should only warrant Tier I status because it lacked the specific knowledge of the victim's age required by the federal comparator statute. The district court overruled her objection, sentenced her to 24 months in prison, and imposed twenty years of supervised release, stating the Guidelines range was five years to life. Buddi appealed, challenging both her Tier II classification and the length of her supervised release term.
The court addressed two primary issues. First, regarding SORNA classification, the court applied the categorical approach, comparing the elements of Florida's lewd and lascivious battery to the federal Tier II comparator, 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) (coercion and enticement). The court analyzed whether § 2422(b) requires knowledge of the victim's age. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, the court interpreted the adverb 'knowingly' in § 2422(b) as modifying the entire action, including the object of the persuasion. The court reasoned that 'knowingly' applies to each element of the crime, meaning the government must prove the defendant knew the victim was under 18. This interpretation distinguishes § 2422(b) from the child sex trafficking statute (§ 2423(a)), where the victim's age is not the crucial element separating innocent from wrongful conduct. Because Florida's statute does not require knowledge of the victim's age, it is not 'comparable to or more severe than' the federal offense. Consequently, Buddi is a Tier I offender, not Tier II. Second, regarding the supervised release sentence, the court found procedural unreasonableness. The district court explicitly stated that the advisory Guidelines range for supervised release was 'five years to life,' which is the statutory maximum, not the correct advisory range of five years flat. The court found this error was clear and affected Buddi's substantial rights, as the twenty-year sentence was four times the correct Guidelines recommendation. The district court failed to explain this massive deviation from the Guidelines, and the error tainted the sentencing process.
The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's SORNA classification ruling and vacated Buddi's twenty-year supervised release sentence. The case is remanded for resentencing consistent with the opinion, which requires reclassifying Buddi as a Tier I offender and calculating a new supervised release term based on the correct five-year Guidelines range. This decision clarifies that coercion and enticement under § 2422(b) requires proof of knowledge regarding the victim's age, potentially affecting similar cases in the Sixth Circuit and influencing the interpretation of SORNA tier classifications for state offenses with strict liability age elements.
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