Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, in his capacity as the State Director of the United Public Workers, AFSCME, Local 646, AFL-CIO (UPW), negotiated contracts with dental and health insurance providers, HDS and PGMA, on behalf of UPW members and their families. A jury subsequently convicted petitioner of fifty counts of "theft of honest services" from the UPW and its members, as well as conspiracy, embezzlement, money laundering, and health care fraud. At issue was the instructional omission to the jury regarding honest services fraud in light of the Supreme Court's holding in Skilling v. United States. The court held that the error had no "substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict." Accordingly, the court affirmed the theft of honest services, money laundering, and health care fraud judgments of conviction against petitioner and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Gary Rodrigues" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of structuring financial transactions and was sentenced to thirty months in prison. On appeal, defendant challenged the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence. The court held that the district court did not commit any procedural error in sentencing defendant and that court adequately explained the sentence it imposed and its reasons for denying both a downward departure and a variance. The court also held that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court sentenced him at the bottom of the Guidelines range, after taking into account various factors such as his military service, health, age, and role in the crime. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Bordeaux, Jr." on Justia Law

Former Louisiana congressman, William J. Jefferson (defendant), was convicted of eleven offenses - including conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery, money laundering, and racketeering - arising from his involvement in multiple bribery and fraud schemes. Defendant appealed his convictions on several grounds: (1) that an erroneous instruction was given to the jury with respect to the bribery statute's definition of an "official act"; (2) that another erroneous instruction was given with respect to the "quid pro quo" element of the bribery-related offenses; (3) that defendant's schemes to deprive citizens of honest services did not constitute federal crimes; and (4) that venue was improper on one of his wire fraud offenses. The court affirmed each of defendant's conviction except his Count 10 wire fraud conviction and sentence, which the court vacated and remanded for such further proceedings as may be appropriate. View "United States v. Jefferson" on Justia Law

In this case, an insurance agency had a contract with an insurance company that allowed the agency to commingle collected insurance premiums with its other funds in its general operating account. The government contended that the premiums collected by the agency were the property of the insurance company and held "in trust" by the agency; it alleged that when the funds were not remitted but used for other purposes, they were embezzled by the agency's treasurer, defendant. Defendant was charged with ten counts of embezzlement of insurance premiums in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1033(b)(1) and one count of conspiracy to commit embezzlement. The court held that under long-standing Arizona law, the contract between the agency and the company, which permitted agency commingling, required monthly agency payments whether premiums were collected or not, and created a right of interest on late payments, created a creditor-debtor relationship, not a trust. The agency had contractual and fiduciary duties to the company, but was not a trustee. Because the funds in question were not held "in trust" by the agency as a matter of law, an essential element of embezzlement was lacking. Therefore, the court reversed the denial of defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal. View "United States v. Lequire" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to several counts of mail and wire fraud, was convicted by a jury of violations of federal campaign finance law, and was sentenced to 292 months in prison. Defendant appealed the resulting judgment of conviction on various grounds, including that the loss calculated for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines improperly included promised returns on defendant's victims' investments. The court affirmed the district court in all respects, and held that (1) defendant waived any statute of limitations challenge to the indictment by pleading guilty; (2) the district court's admission of the Ponzi scheme evidence was not plain error; (3) the district court did not err by calculating the intended loss amount under the Guidelines to include the loss of putative profits that victims reinvested in defendant's Ponzi scheme; (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion when weighing the factors relevant to defendant's sentence; and (5) under the circumstances of the case, the appointment of a new attorney for sentencing was not required. View "United States v. Hsu" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from a restitution order imposed by the district court after a jury convicted her of various crimes associated with her involvement in a fraudulent real estate investment scheme. The court held that the district court failed to provide an adequate explanation of its reasoning in calculating the amount of restitution owed to two of the victims and, therefore, vacated that portion of the restitution order. The court remanded for recalculation and explanation of the award pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. View "United States v. Yeung" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of mail fraud and money laundering charges related to two separate fraudulent schemes: the River Shore Scheme and the GenSpec Scheme. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions and sentences on various grounds. The court concluded that the proof presented at trial in connection with the River Shores mail fraud count materially varied from the allegations contained in the superseding indictment and this variance substantially prejudiced defendant. Therefore, the court reversed his conviction on this count. The court also reversed defendant's money laundering convictions because they were predicated on the River Shores mail fraud count. The court affirmed defendant's mail fraud convictions related to the GenSpec Scheme. Finally, the court held that defendant's other assertions of error lacked merit. View "United States v. Lander" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of numerous offenses relating to her involvement in a fraudulent "high-yield investment program." Before defendant was indicted and before the applicable statute of limitations had run, the district court granted a government application to suspend the statute of limitations pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3292 while the government sought the assistance of the Hungarian government in recovering records relating to transfers of the scheme's proceeds into Hungarian bank accounts. On appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that the indictments should have been dismissed because insufficient evidence supported the district court's order to suspend the running of the statute of limitations. The court held (1) that the evidence in this case was sufficient to support the district court's order; (2) that section 3292 did not require that the foreign evidence sought be necessary for an indictment, nor that it be obtainable only through an official request to a foreign government; and (3) that district courts could rely on ex parte proceedings when deciding to issue section 3292 orders. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Lyttle" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed from judgments following a jury trial that resulted in their convictions for racketeering and related offenses. Defendants all contended, inter alia, that the district court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the relatedness and continuity factors required to establish a pattern of racketeering under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(c) and (d). The court concluded that the district court's RICO instruction was legally erroneous and this error was prejudicial with regard to Chris Cain. With regard to the racketeering convictions of David Cain, Jr. and Jamie Soha, however, applying a plain error standard of review, the court concluded that it was not reasonably likely that a properly instructed jury would have failed to find a pattern of racketeering. Accordingly, the court reversed the RICO convictions with regard to Chris Cain only and remanded for resentencing. The court affirmed the convictions in all other respects. View "United States v. Cain, Jr., et al." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of bank fraud, his sentence was subsequently reduced, he was placed on supervised release, and his supervised release was revoked twice. Defendant appealed the second revocation of his supervised release and appealed the district court's post revocation sentence, which included a special condition of supervised release requiring him to reside in a residential reentry center for a third time upon his release. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in revoking defendant's supervised release where he admitted to violating ten conditions of supervised release. The court also held that the district court did not plainly err when it ordered defendant to reside in a residential reentry center where that court followed the procedures set forth in 18 U.S.C. 3583. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Melton" on Justia Law