Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to passing counterfeit securities. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in determining the intended-loss calculation and in determining the amount of restitution. In this case, trying to rent a jet without intending to pay for it satisfied the definition of an intended loss, and the district court reasonably estimated the victims' ultimate losses. View "United States v. Smith" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions stemming from their involvement in a fraudulent scheme to collect disaster assistance. Defendant Walter was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eleven counts of wire fraud, two counts of theft from a program receiving federal funds, and three counts of money laundering; Defendant Rosie was convicted of the conspiracy count, ten counts of wire fraud, and a money laundering count; and Defendant Anita was convicted of the conspiracy count.The court held that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendants. The court also held that the district court did not misapply a two-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) to Rosie's sentence where the offense involved a misrepresentation that the defendant was acting on behalf of a charitable, educational, religious, or political organization, or a government agency. The court vacated the no-new-credit special condition and remanded for the district court to reform the written no-new-credit condition to match the one implied by the oral sentence of restitution. The court also vacated the no-gambling special condition, because it was not so clearly consistent with an oral pronouncement of restitution as to be reasonably encompassed within that pronouncement. The court affirmed the remaining two challenged conditions. View "United States v. Diggles" on Justia Law

Harmelech pled guilty to one count of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341; the government dismissed the remaining count. Harmelech, who owned and operated multiple cable installation companies, admitted to setting up about 384 DIRECTV accounts under a fraudulent scheme that involved multi-family buildings. He pocketed money that should have been paid for servicing those accounts for six years. Harmelech involved several employees in his scheme and attempted to prevent DIRECTV from discovering his scheme by instructing the building managers not to cooperate in an investigation. At sentencing, Harmelech claimed his scheme actually benefited the company by bringing in additional business. The district court adopted the government’ loss calculation and found Harmelech owed: $108,000 in account delinquencies; $39,000 in unrecovered DIRECTV receivers; and $29,600 in promotional customer credits; $166,0001 for stolen channels and $35,000 for the price DIRECTV paid for its internal investigation. The court ordered $372,600 in restitution, assessed a four-level sentencing enhancement for Harmelech’s role as the organizer and leader of an otherwise extensive fraudulent scheme U.S.S.G. 3B1.1(a), and sentenced Harmelech to 48 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court’s loss calculation was concrete, specific, conservative in its results, and consistent with Seventh Circuit precedent. View "United States v. Harmelech" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions and sentences for health care fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The court rejected statutory and constitutional speedy trial claims. The court also held that the district court abused its discretion in denying severance; even assuming a Rule 16 violation, defendants failed to establish the requisite prejudice to their substantial rights for the court to conclude that the district court abused its discretion by not excluding Exhibit 439; the evidence was sufficient to convict defendants; and challenges to the unanimity and aiding-and-abetting instructions rejected on plain error review.The court also held that the district court properly concluded that the $80.6 million in payments from D.C. Medicaid to Global constituted loss under the Mandatory Victims Rights Act; the district court did not plainly violate the Excessive Fines Clause by ordering forfeitures without considering defendants' ability to pay them; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by imposing four sentencing enhancements for committing crimes involving a loss of approximately $80 million, abusing positions of trust, playing a managerial role in the crimes, and violating an administrative order. View "United States v. Bikundi" on Justia Law

Anthony, his brother Christopher, their sister Sharon, and Sharon’s husband, Durand, sought tax refunds for 21 separate fictitious trusts that they created. They were successful in obtaining refund checks based upon many of these returns, receiving over $360,000. They were convicted of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit identity theft, and illegal monetary transactions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that insufficient evidence supported Sharon’s convictions; that insufficient evidence supported the finding that Anthony and Sharon knew that they were using the names and personal identifying information of real people; that Anthony and Christopher were deprived of the effective assistance of counsel because their state-bar grievances against their attorneys created conflicts of interest; that the indictment was duplicitous regarding the aggravated-identify-theft charges and the district court failed to cure this defect by issuing a specific unanimity jury instruction; that the court’s aiding-and-abetting jury instruction was legally incorrect, and that insufficient evidence supported the court’s aiding-and-abetting jury instruction. View "United States v. Gandy" on Justia Law

Medicare pays for doctors’ home visits if a patient is homebound. Mobile Doctors offered physician services to homebound Medicare beneficiaries, hiring doctors who assigned their Medicare billing rights to the company. Upon receipt of payment, Mobile would pay the physician-employee a percentage of what Mobile received from billing Medicare. Many of Mobile’s patients did not actually qualify as homebound. Some doctors signed certifications for additional unneeded treatment from companies that provided at-home nursing or physical therapy services—companies that had referred the patients to Mobile. Mobile submitted Medicare codes for more serious and more expensive diagnoses or procedures than the provider actually diagnosed or performed. Mobile instructed physicians to list at least three diagnoses in the patient file; if the doctors did not list enough, a staff member added more. Mobile only paid the physicians if they checked at least one of the top two billing codes. Doctors who billed for the higher of the top two codes were paid more. Mobile also paid for “standing orders” for testing, although Medicare prohibits testing done under standing orders. Daneshvar joined Mobile as a physician in 2012. After following Mobile’s policies Daneshvar was convicted of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud but found not guilty of healthcare fraud; he was sentenced to 24 months' imprisonment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Daneshvar’s trial was fair; none of the district court’s rulings during that proceeding should be reversed. There was no reversible error with his sentencing. View "United States v. Daneshvar" on Justia Law

Fennell took kickbacks while employed as facilities and transportation director for Indiana’s Vigo County School Corporation. The evidence showed an actual loss amount of $110,600 in kickbacks that he and a codefendant received for steering government contracts to a favored bidder. The presentence investigation report recited that amount as restitution, which the district court imposed, but the court referred to that amount orally as the “intended” loss. Fennell sought a remand, arguing that 18 U.S.C. 3664(a) requires that the presentence report contain its own detailed accounting rather than incorporate the trial evidence by reference and that the district court erred by imposing restitution for the intended loss instead of actual loss. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. There was no plain error in the district court’s restitution calculation, and despite the mistaken oral reference to an intended loss, the record showed beyond reasonable dispute that the amount awarded was the victim’s actual loss. View "United States v. Fennell" on Justia Law

Wendy and Daryl Yurek were charged with tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. After a joint jury trial, the Yureks were convicted on both offenses. The district court then sentenced Mrs. Yurek to a prison term of 27 months, leading her to appeal the conviction and sentence. On appeal, Mrs. Yurek challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented against her, and claimed the district court erred in denying her motions for severance and a new trial. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part: affirming Mrs. Yurek’s conviction, but vacated her sentence. The Court determined the district court applied the wrong test when deciding whether to grant a mitigating-role adjustment. View "United States v. Yurek (Wendy)" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of 90 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Defendant obtained millions of dollars from victims by telling them that he needed to pay CIA and FBI agents to protect him and his family from the Mafia, and that he would pay the victims back.The Ninth Circuit vacated in part, agreeing with the parties that insufficient evidence supported defendant's convictions for Counts 81-90. The panel rejected defendant's claim that his waiver of counsel was invalid; that he was not competent to represent himself; that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him; that the government committed misconduct during trial; that the district court erred by not granting him a continuance; that his trial suffered cumulative error; and that the district court erred in denying his post-trial motions. Accordingly, the panel affirmed defendant's convictions as to Counts 1-80 and Count 91. The panel remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Audette" on Justia Law

Dr. Sheth, a cardiologist, admitted in a plea agreement that he engaged in a scheme to overbill government and private insurers by approximately $13 million, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1347. The scheme resulted in a loss to Medicare of about $9 million in payments for services Sheth did not render between 2002 and 2007, and a loss of about $4 million to private healthcare insurers for the same conduct. After the government detected the fraud, in June 2007, it initiated an administrative proceeding and seized funds from four Harris Bank accounts that the government believed were the proceeds of Sheth’s fraud. In his plea, Sheth agreed to forfeit $13 million in assets; the government would apply the proceeds of the forfeited property to any restitution judgment resulting from his conviction. Sheth disputed the valuation of some of the property applied to the restitution judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision as to the valuation of Seth’s real property but remanded for consideration of the application of $225,000 in interest that had accrued on the Harris accounts to the restitution judgment. View "United States v. Sheth" on Justia Law