RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 21a0162p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 19-3919 │ v. │ │ SUSAN M. PIOCH, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Toledo. No. 3:14-cr-00403-1—James G. Carr, District Judge. Decided and Filed: July 19, 2021 Before: SILER, MOORE, and DONALD, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ON BRIEF: John F. Potts, LAW OFFICE OF JOHN F. POTTS, Toledo, Ohio, for Appellant. Suzana K. Koch, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee. _________________ OPINION _________________ KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. This case requires us to interpret the serpentine language of 28 U.S.C. § 3011(a), which entitles the United States to recover a surcharge from Susan Pioch of 10% of . . . something. The Government wants to apply the 10% surcharge to the two-million-plus dollars of debt that Pioch owes on a judgment in a criminal case. Pioch insists that the Government can apply the 10% surcharge to just $367,681.47, which No. 19-3919 United States v. Pioch Page 2 is the amount involved in a garnishment of two of her financial accounts in partial satisfaction of the judgment’s outstanding balance. We conclude that the Government can apply the 10% surcharge to the two-million-plus- dollars outstanding on the judgment. First, under § 3011(a), when the Government initiates an action or proceeding under Federal Debt Collection Procedures Act subchapter B or C to recover debt owed to the United States, the United States is entitled to recover a surcharge of 10% of the outstanding debt. Second, the debt must be paid off before the United States may collect the § 3011(a) surcharge. Finally, the § 3011(a) surcharge is an amount to be added to, not subtracted from, the judgment. We thus VACATE and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. BACKGROUND Susan Pioch and two codefendants were convicted of crimes arising from their scheme to defraud the multimillion-dollar estate of an elderly widower. See United States v. Mallory, 902 F.3d 584, 588–89 (6th Cir. 2018). A third person was convicted and sentenced in Arizona. See id. at 590. The district court sentenced Pioch to 111 months of imprisonment and imposed on Pioch a special assessment of $3,700 and restitution of $2,037,783.30. R. 380 (Judgment at 3, 7) (Page ID #6116, 6120). Pioch shares joint-and-several liability with her codefendants for $1,990,342.76 of the restitution, which is to be paid to James McLaughlin, the sole living heir of the defrauded victim, pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), Pub. L. No. 104-132, Title II, Subtitle A, § 206(a), 110 Stat. 1227, 1235 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3664(i)). R. 380 (Judgment at 7–9) (Page ID #6120–22) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3664(i)); R. 426 (4/19/18 Response at 2) (Page ID #6424). Pioch personally owes the remaining $47,440.54 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). R. 380 …
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