United States v. Howard

Between August 2015 and May 2016, defendant Ryan Howard stole various pieces of laboratory equipment from Oklahoma State University (“OSU”) and transported them to his apartment in Texas. The equipment included thermocyclers, pipettors, chromatography machines, and centrifuges. While attempting to steal another chromatography machine in 2016, Howard was arrested and police officers executed a search warrant on his vehicle, recovering a set of bolt cutters and various pieces of laboratory equipment. In June 2016, investigators executed a search warrant on Howard’s residence in Texas, discovering many of the items Howard had stolen from OSU as well as equipment stolen from Northeastern Oklahoma State University. Investigators recovered most of the stolen items and returned them to the respective universities. Defendant entered a guilty plea on three counts of transportation of stolen property. During sentencing, Howard objected to the recommended restitution award for the second count, ordered under 18 U.S.C. 3663A. This appeal centered on whether the court correctly used the replacement cost as the restitution value and correctly determined the value of the returned property to be zero. The Tenth Circuit held that it did and affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Howard" on Justia Law