Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

Defendants, Brian Keith Ellefson and Mark Edward Ellefsen, were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States by obstructing the IRS in the assessment and collection of federal taxes. Brian was also convicted of three counts of filing false income tax returns while Mark was convicted of three counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false income tax returns. Defendants appealed their convictions and challenged the restitution order. The court held that because the undisclosed information at issue was not material, there was no Brady violation. The court also held that, although the defense should have been allowed to cross-examine a certain government witness regarding a tax-loss calculation and whether she considered Brian's additional payments, any error in denying the cross-examination was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding defendants' proposed expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. The district court also did not err in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal and did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial where the record was replete with evidence to support the jury's finding that defendants acted willfully. The court finally held that there was no clear error in the district court's judgment of restitution where the government met its burden of proof and deducted Brian's additional payments from the amount of restitution owed to the IRS. Accordingly, the convictions and restitution orders were affirmed. View "United States v. Ellefsen" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of filing a false joint income tax return with his wife for calendar year 2007 and sentenced to twenty-four months in prison. On appeal, defendant argued that there was insufficient evidence of willful false reporting, admission of unfairly prejudicial evidence of gambling expenses, and a substantively unreasonable sentence. The court held that the government's evidence was sufficient to permit a rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also held that defendant's casino activities were clear evidence that he personally spent a substantial amount of his business's reported income on expenditures that were not reportable as the business's costs of goods sold and that the evidence was unlikely to unfairly prejudice him. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its substantial sentencing discretion in imposing a presumptively reasonable sentence that was within the advisory guidelines range. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "United States v. Shrum" on Justia Law

Defendant, a state court judge and former criminal defense attorney, was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements, stemming from defendant's use of his position as a state judge to obtain money and sexual favors in exchange for assisting a criminal defendant. Defendant subsequently appealed his conviction and his 60-month concurrent sentences. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion for a new trial; based on the record, the court concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the verdict would have been the same absent any error in the jury instructions and the indictment; and defendant's sufficiency of the evidence challenged failed. The court also held that the district court properly applied the specific offense characteristic; the second uncharged bribe could be used to increase the offense level for defendant's bribery conviction; and any monies rendered for legitimate legal services could not be subtracted from the loss value under U.S.S.G. 2C1.1(b)(2) because defendant and his colleague provided these services after the offense was detected. Therefore, none of defendant's several challenges required a new trial, reversal of conviction, or resentencing.View "United States v. Barraza" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted for the theft or embezzlement of funds from his employee's IRA accounts in violation of 18 U.S.C. 664. On appeal, defendant argued that his conviction should be reversed because, at trial, the district court barred him from presenting evidence to the jury that he eventually repaid all of the embezzled funds. The court held that because the intent to permanently deprive was neither a required element of, nor a defense to, the conversion or stealing that section 664 criminalized, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded evidence of defendant's eventual repayment of his employees' funds in a bankruptcy proceeding as irrelevant. View "United States v. Van Elsen" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of wire fraud, money laundering, and failure to file tax returns. The district court sentenced him to 90 months imprisonment and ordered over eight million dollars in restitution. Defendant appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient for his wire-fraud and money-laundering convictions and that his sentence and the restitution were unreasonable. The court held that, based on the totality of the evidence, the jury reasonable returned a guilty verdict. The court also held that the district court was authorized to consider the charged and uncharged conduct in awarding restitution and that the district court did not abuse its discretion by ordering restitution in an amount greater than the loss calculation. The court further held that the district court specifically acknowledged the relevant sentencing factors, that they were advisory, and that it was for the district court to determine a sentence which was sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with those factors. The court finally held that the 90 month sentence was substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Jefferson" on Justia Law

Appellant was the target of a grand jury investigation seeking to determine whether he used secret Swiss bank accounts to evade paying federal taxes. The district court granted a motion to compel appellant's compliance with a grand jury subpoena dueces tecum demanding that he produce certain records related to his foreign bank accounts. The court declined to condition its order compelling production upon a grant of limited immunity, and pursuant to the recalcitrant witness statute, 28 U.S.C. 1826, held appellant in contempt for refusing to comply. The court held that because the records sought through the subpoena fell under the Required Records Doctrine, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was inapplicable, and appellant could not invoke it to resist compliance with the subpoena's command. The court also held that because appellant's Fifth Amendment privilege was not implicated, it need not address appellant's request for immunity. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "In re: Grand Jury Investigation of M.H." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from appellant's participation in the Bayou Hedge Fund Group (Bayou), a classic Ponzi scheme masked as a group of domestic and offshore hedge funds. Appellant appealed from his sentencing, following a plea of guilty to misprision of felony in violation of 18 U.S.C. 4. At issue was whether the district court's order of restitution in the amount of $60 million was improper because it relied on events occurring outside the relevant time period and the putative victims' losses were neither directly nor proximately caused by his actions as required by the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. The court found no error, much less plain error, in the district court's use of appellant's fraudulent 2003 faxes at sentencing. The court also found no error in the district court's conclusion that appellant's failure to report the Bayou fraud was both the direct and the proximate cause of the victim investors' losses. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Marino" on Justia Law

The United States brought this civil action under 26 U.S.C. 7408 to enjoin defendant from promoting several fraudulent tax schemes. After a court trial, the district court permanently enjoined defendant from promoting his schemes, ordered him to advise the IRS of any tax arrangements or business entities formed at his discretion, and required him to provide a copy of its order to his clients. On appeal, defendant argued that the injunction was not supported by adequate factual findings and legal conclusions, and that it was overbroad, an impermissible delegation of Article III power, and an unconstitutional prior restraint. The court rejected defendant's hypertechnical criticisms of the district court's order where section 6700 was a linguistically complex and intricate statute and where the district court need not include the entire statutory language in each of its findings and conclusions. Therefore, the court held that the district court's exhaustive order more than satisfied each of the requirements in section 6700 and affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Count One of the multi-count indictment in this case charged Robert and Patrick Singletary, and others, with conspiring between 1997 and September 16, 2004, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, to commit three offenses: (1) to defraud a federally insured bank, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1344; (2) to make false representations with respect to material facts to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001; and (3) to defraud purchasers of residential property and mortgage lenders, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343. The Singletarys eventually pled guilty to Count One to the extent that it alleged a conspiracy to commit the section 1343 offense in addition to the section 1001 offense. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion in ordering restitution in the sum of $1 million. The court held that the district court failed to determine by a preponderance of the evidence which of the 56 mortgages the loan officers handled was obtained through a false "gift" letter, a false "credit explanation" letter, or a false employment verification form; and where fraud was found, to determine the extent of the actual loss HUD could have incurred due to the mortgage's foreclosure. Accordingly, the court vacated the restitution provisions and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant-Appellant Michael Cooper was convicted by jury on one count of conspiracy to defraud, and multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, money laundering and engaging in transactions derived from unlawful activity. Defendant filed several motions with the district court including motions for a judgment of acquittal, a post-verdict motion for a new trial, and a motion to suppress evidence under the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied them all. On appeal, Defendant challenged the district court's denial of those motions. Upon review of the trial court record and the applicable legal authority, the Tenth Circuit found Defendant failed to prove that the evidence presented against him at trial was insufficient to support his convictions. Therefore the Court affirmed the district court's denials of Defendant's motions for judgment of acquittal, for a new trial, and to suppress evidence, and affirmed Defendant's convictions.