UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-4171 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. ALEXIS AQUIRRE-VELASQUEZ, a/k/a Wilfer Antonio Cruz-Contreras, a/k/a Wilfer Antonio Contreras, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Greenville. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (4:17-cr-00029-D-1) Submitted: October 29, 2018 Decided: November 14, 2018 Before NIEMEYER and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Jaclyn L. DiLauro, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, G. Norman Acker, III, First Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Alexis Aquirre-Velasquez pled guilty without a plea agreement to being found in the United States after having previously been excluded, deported, and removed, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (2012). He was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment, followed by one year of supervised release. He appeals, challenging his sentence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. Aquirre-Velasquez was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in February 2013 and subsequently removed to his native Mexico. At some point, he returned to the United States and, in July 2016, was arrested in North Carolina and charged with four counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor. He was sentenced in state court to 20-33 months’ imprisonment on each count, to run consecutively. In his state court proceedings, Aquirre-Velasquez was identified by a name other than the name he had used in the 2013 federal proceedings. In March 2017, while in state custody, Aquirre-Velasquez’s identity was discovered after his fingerprints were taken and analyzed by federal agents. He was then charged, in June 2017, with violating 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). Aquirre-Velasquez’s total offense level of 15 was calculated as follows: (1) a base offense level of 8, see U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) § 2L1.2(a) (2016); (2) a 10-level addition because he committed a non-immigration offense resulting in a sentence of five or more years’ imprisonment, USSG § 2L1.2(b)(3)(A); (3) less 3 levels for acceptance of responsibility. Based on a criminal history category of III, Aquirre-Velasquez’s advisory Guidelines range was 24-30 months’ imprisonment. However, because the statutory 2 maximum is 24 months, this became his Guidelines range. The district court imposed the 24-month sentence but declined to run the sentence concurrently with Aquirre- Velasquez’s state sentence. He appeals, raising three claims: (1) the district court’s application of the 2016 edition of the Sentencing Guidelines Manual constituted an ex post facto violation; (2) the district court erred by adding two points to his criminal history score pursuant to USSG § 4A1.1(d); and, (3) the district court abused its discretion by refusing to impose his sentence concurrently with his state court sentence. We review Aquirre-Velasquez’s sentence for reasonableness under a deferential ...
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