538 (quoting United States v. Kratt, 579 F.3d 558, 562 (6th Cir.2009)). In other words, when Congress caps a defendant’s maximum sentence for the underlying offense at something radically less than the maximum sentence for money laundering, we may infer that Congress did not intend the “important limitation” on the penalty for the underlying offense to be “eviscerated” by the penalty for a money laundering conviction. Santos, 553 U.S. at 527, 128 S.Ct. 2020. By contrast, where a defendant’s underlying mail and wire-fraud convictions carried a statutory maximum sentence of thirty years, Congress’s choice of penalty would not be “eviscerated” by the ten-year statutory maximum sentence for money laundering. See Bush, 626 F.3d at 538; see also Phillips, 704 F.3d at 766 n. 11 (9th Cir.2012) (<HOLDING>). Third, we generally consider the money used
holding that santoss concern regarding the evisceration of congresss choice of a low statutory maximum penalty for an underlying offense did not apply where the underlying offenses carried maximum sentences of twenty years and the money laundering offense carried a lower maximum sentence of ten years holding statutory maximum for prior conviction is the potential maximum sentence defined by the applicable state criminal statute not the maximum sentence which could have been imposed against the particular defendant  according to the states sentencing guidelines holding that sentences of five years in prison followed by ten years probation were illegal sentences that exceeded the statutory maximum of five years for a thirddegree felony holding that statutory maximum is twenty years when drug quantity is not charged as element of offense and found by jury beyond a reasonable doubt holding that for purposes of apprendi the statutory maximum is the maximum sentence that may be imposed based solely on the jurys findings