United States v. Mitzi Bickers

── United States v. Mitzi Bickers ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: April 24, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 25-12200 Document: 26-1 Date Filed: 04/24/2026 Page: 1 of 6 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-12200 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus MITZI BICKERS, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:18-cr-00098-SCJ-LTW-1 ____________________ Before NEWSOM, BRASHER, and WILSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Defendant-Appellant Mitzi Bickers appeals her 144-month sentence and order of restitution for one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, three counts of money laundering, and one count USCA11 Case: 25-12200 Document: 26-1 Date Filed: 04/24/2026 Page: 2 of 6 2 Opinion of the Court 25-12200 of filing a false tax return. At trial, the government presented evi- dence showing that Bickers participated in a years-long scheme to accept bribes from contractors in exchange for her assistance in se- curing them lucrative contracts with the City of Atlanta. This ap- peal returns to us after we previously vacated Bickers’s wire fraud convictions in her initial appeal and ordered a limited remand for resentencing. See United States v. Bickers, No. 22-13174, 2024 WL 3819993, at *1 (11th Cir. Aug. 14, 2024) (per curiam). In this subsequent appeal, Bickers argues that her sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the district court used fi- nancial losses attributed to Count II of her indictment, 1 of which she was acquitted, to calculate her guidelines range. Bickers then argues that the district court erred in including losses attributed to Count II of the indictment in her restitution order. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. I. Bickers argues that her 144-month sentence was procedur- ally unreasonable because the district court considered the bribe amounts related to Count II, of which Bickers was acquitted at trial, in calculating her guideline range. We review the procedural rea- sonableness of a defendant’s sentence for an abuse of discretion. 1 Count II charged Bickers with conspiracy to commit bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. This Count alleged that after leaving her employment with the City of Atlanta in May of 2013, Bickers continued to receive payments from Elvin Mitchell and Charles Richards, Jr. in exchange for Bickers’s assis- tance in obtaining lucrative City of Atlanta contracts by bribing public officials. USCA11 Case: 25-12200 Document: 26-1 Date Filed: 04/24/2026 Page: 3 of 6 25-12200 Opinion of the Court 3 United States v. Gomez, 955 F.3d 1250, 1255 (11th Cir. 2020) (per cu- riam). We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence un- der a deferential abuse of discretion standard. United States v. Oudomsine, 57 F.4th 1262, 1266 (11th Cir. 2023). A district court abuses its discretion when, among other ways, it “miscalulat[es] the Guidelines range.” Gomez, 955 F.3d at 1255. In United States v.