United States v. Smith.
No. 25-7019. 7/20/2026. E.D.Okla. Judge McHugh. Sexual Assault—Falsifying a Record With Intent to Impede or Influence a Federal Investigation—Manual Deactivation of Dashcam and Bodycam—Motion for Continuance—US Sentencing Guidelines Factors—Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence.
July 20, 2026
Smith was a police officer. During his first solo shift, he pulled over a vehicle for a traffic violation around 5 a.m. and activated his body camera and dashboard camera to record the stop. Smith ordered the driver, K.H., and his girlfriend, J.G., to get out of the car, and issued a traffic ticket to J.G. Smith began asking them personal questions, including about K.H.’s employment as a dancer in a gentlemen’s club. Smith asked for permission to search J.G.’s car. J.G. initially denied consent, and Smith told him he would have to wait for a K-9 unit to check the vehicle if J.G. did not agree to a search. J.G. and K.H. then consented to a car search. Smith searched K.H.’s purse and found one marijuana cigarette. At that point, Smith stopped the search and ordered J.G. to return to his car. Smith then returned to his patrol vehicle and pressed the “stop record” button on his dashcam, unaware that his dashcam had a “Record-After-the-Fact” function that kept the camera recording, albeit without sound. Smith also deactivated his bodycam. Smith then ordered K.H. to go sit in his patrol vehicle, where he sexually assaulted her. Smith was charged in count 1 with sexually assaulting K.H. Counts 2 and 3 alleged he falsified a record with intent to impede or influence a federal investigation, in violation of 18 USC § 1519, by deactivating his bodycam (count 2) and dashcam (count 3) during the traffic stop. The case was tried about seven months later, after the district court granted two requests for a continuance, denied Smith’s third request for a continuance, and denied Smith’s motions to dismiss the indictment and for judgment of acquittal. Smith was found guilty on all three counts and given concurrent sentences of 480 months on the sexual assault count and 240 months on the § 1519 counts.
On appeal, Smith argued that the district court erred by denying his motion for a continuance. The factors guiding review of a district court’s denial of a continuance are (1) the diligence of the party seeking the continuance; (2) the likelihood that granting the continuance would have accomplished the stated purpose; (3) inconvenience to the opposing party, witnesses, and the court; and (4) the need for the continuance and harm resulting from its denial. The last factor is the most important. First, the record shows that Smith was not diligent in conveying to the district court that he was seeking private counsel and in requesting a continuance on this basis. Second, additional time would have allowed Smith’s counsel more time to review discovery and prepare a defense. Third, the court explained that rescheduling a trial at short notice would significantly inconvenience the court, given its “unprecedented caseload,” so it would consider doing so “in only the most compelling situations.” Lastly, Smith did not meet his burden of showing that he was materially prejudiced by the district court’s denial of his request for a continuance. With only the second factor weighing in Smith’s favor, the Tenth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Smith’s motion for a continuance.
Smith also contended that his manual deactivation of his bodycam and dashcam did not fall within the scope of § 1519 because that statute’s plain language does not prohibit “passive behavior such as failing to record criminal conduct.” He thus maintained that the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss counts 2 and 3 of the indictment as well as his motion for a judgment of acquittal. Section 1519 prohibits altering, destroying, or falsifying any record with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence a US agency’s investigation. Smith contended that he did not alter or falsify any records of the traffic stop because he didn’t delete footage from his cameras or tamper with an existing recording of the sexual assault. But an individual can violate § 1519 without removing or destroying any existing documentation of a fact. The Tenth Circuit concluded that a defendant can falsify a record by preventing documentation of information about current or future conduct in the record as well as by preventing documentation of events that occurred before the record was created. It thus held that a police officer’s knowing deactivation of their recording devices with the intent to prevent disclosure of the truth constitutes falsification of the records created by those devices, even if the records never existed in a complete format because of the officer’s actions. Here, by affirmatively activating and then deactivating his bodycam and dashcam, Smith violated § 1519 by knowingly preventing material information about the traffic stop from appearing in the official records of the stop. A reasonable jury could find that he thereby knowingly altered and falsified records of the stop and did so with the intent to obstruct or influence any investigation into the sexual assault that occurred during the stop. The district court thus did not err by denying Smith’s motions to dismiss the indictment and for a judgment of acquittal.
Smith further asserted that his sentence is not substantively reasonable because a 10-year sentence would have adequately satisfied the 18 USC § 3553(a) factors. However, his argument requests reweighing the district court’s balancing of these factors, which is impermissible. Smith thus failed to show that his 480-month sentence is not substantively reasonable.
The conviction and sentence were affirmed.