The district court could have been clearer. At times, it proclaimed that the proper “net” amount owed was $106,744. In some tension with that, it expressed elsewhere that the restitution amount was “subject to credits already received … with a current accounting balance for restitution shown at $63,221.”
Lack of clarity notwithstanding, we see no direct conflict between those statements and the written judgment. The court stated, several times, that the “correct” or “net” amount owed in restitution was $106,744—the amount it imposed in its written judgment. Nonetheless, because the oral pronouncement was ambiguous, “we look to the sentencing court’s intent to determine the sentence.” United States v. Romero-Medrano, 899 F.3d 356, 363 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting Tang, 718 F.3d at 487).
The record confirms that the court intended to order restitution of $106,744. The presentence investigation report, which the court adopted, divides Tanner’s fraud into two distinct line items: fraudulent loans and fraudulent grants. The “total outstanding loan balance … [was] $63,221,” and the “outstanding balance for fraudulently obtained grants [was] $43,523,” making “$106,744” the “total restitution due.”
That net amount was reduced from the gross total of $117,395, which was “based on fraudulent loans totaling $63,977 and fraudulent grants totaling $53,418.” To get to the “outstanding” balance, the presentence investigation report subtracted “any amounts already paid back to the government.” Thus, the restitution of $106,744 was the proper total—the “credits” to which the court referred in its oral pronouncement had already been applied. The court acknowledged as much when it said that Tanner’s “previous payments ha[d] been subtracted,” before it arrived at $106,744 as “the correct restitution amount.”
There is nothing in the record to indicate that the court intended to
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