Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence from various offenses arising from his leadership of schemes wherein fraud was systematically utilized to keep his real estate empire afloat. The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of the thirteen charges stated in the indictment; the trial court acted well within its discretion by instructing the jury on willful blindness; and defendant's below-Guidelines sentence of 216 months in prison was substantively reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Vinson" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant John Riddles pled guilty to one count of workers' compensation insurance fraud. His conviction grew out of his application for workers' compensation insurance, which fraudulently represented that a number of nurses who had been placed in residential care and skilled-nursing facilities by Riddles' staffing agency were computer programmers. His misrepresentation of the nurses as computer programmers substantially reduced the premium his agency was charged by the workers' compensation insurer that accepted his company's application; accordingly, the trial court required that Riddles pay, as restitution to the insurer, $37,000 in premiums the insurer would have earned in the absence of his misrepresentation. Contrary to his argument on appeal, a workers' compensation insurer could recover, as restitution under Penal Code section 1202.4, the premiums it would have earned in the absence of misrepresentations by an insurance applicant. The fact Riddles may have been able to establish that the Labor Code did not require that he provide workers' compensation coverage for the nurses did not relieve him of responsibility for providing the insurer with a fraudulent application or alter the fact the nurses were covered by the policy he obtained. View "California v. Riddles" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction of one count of embezzling funds from her company's 401(k) plan, and the forfeiture order entered against her. The court affirmed the conviction in a summary order issued contemporaneously with this opinion. At issue here was the amount of defendant's forfeiture order. The court held that mandatory criminal forfeiture amounts may not be reduced by the amount of restitution in the absence of specific statutory authorization for such an offset. Because the district court lacked the discretion to reduce defendant's forfeiture order in this case, the court affirmed as to this issue. View "United States v. Bodouva" on Justia Law

Defendant Abraham Fisch, a criminal defense attorney, was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, money laundering, and tax evasion. Defendant and Lloyd Williams, a former FBI informant, would approach defendants who had criminal charges pending against them and told the defendants to pay them large sums of money as purported legal fees. Fisch and Williams promised to use the money to pay off federal officials but, in actuality, had no such government contacts. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of the offenses; Fisch failed to make out a Fifth Amendment violation based on the denial of a hearing regarding the lis pendens on his home; Fisch failed to establish a Sixth Amendment violation by the government's seeking a lis pendens on his home as an asset traceable to his criminal proceeds; Fisch failed to make the requisite showing of prosecutorial misconduct; the court rejected Fisch's challenges to the jury instructions; and the court rejected Fisch's challenges to the district court's post-trial forfeiture orders. The court declined to address Fisch's ineffective assistance of counsel claims on direct appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed as to all issues except the denial of Fisch's ineffective assistance of counsel claims. View "United States v. Fisch" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence and conviction for filing false liens or encumbrances. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant where a jury could conclude from the filings at issue that defendant was attempting to file false liens or encumbrances; the district court did not abuse its discretion by answering a jury note where, among other things, responding would have conflicted with the jury instructions; and the district court did not err by adding a six-level enhancement under USSG 2A6.1(b)(1) for threatening or harassing communications where there was evidence that defendant threatened to file liens. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Jordan" on Justia Law

Minhas defrauded customers of his Chicago travel agencies and airlines through a scheme in which he collected payment for airline reservations that he canceled without his customers’ knowledge, by manipulating the two-tiered online ticket-reservation system. Minhas was convicted of wire and mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341 and 1343 in two separate cases: one that proceeded to a bench trial and one in which Minhas pleaded guilty in 2015. At a consolidated sentencing hearing, the district court imposed two partially concurrent prison terms totaling 114 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge the district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines’ enhancement for causing “substantial financial hardship” to the two sets of victims (U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(2)). The court acknowledged that it had “seen stronger evidence,” but was not convinced that the district court committed clear error in its assessment of the record. View "United States v. Minhas" on Justia Law

Simmerman began working at Shoreline Federal Credit Union in 1987 and became manager in 2006. She began embezzling money, by complex manipulation of ledgers, in 1998 and was discovered in 2014. She pled guilty to embezzling $1,528,000, 18 U.S.C. 657, and to structuring the deposits of the money she stole to evade the reporting requirements of 31 U.S.C. 5313(a), in violation of 31 U.S.C. 5324(a)(3) and (d)(1). The district court assessed Simmerman’s total offense level at 28, based on a base offense level of seven, a 16-level increase for a loss amount between $1 million and $2.5 million, a two-level increase for sophisticated means, four-level increase for jeopardizing the soundness of a financial institution, a two-level increase for abuse of a position of trust, and a three-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility and a timely plea. With a criminal history category of I, Simmerman’s guideline range was 78-97 months and she was sentenced to 78 months on Count 1 and 60 months on Count 2, to be served concurrently. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, upholding the imposition of enhancements for sophisticated means (U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(10)(C)); jeopardizing the soundness of a financial institution (U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(16)(B)(i)); and abuse of a position of trust (U.S.S.G. 3B1.3). View "United States v. Simmerman" on Justia Law

Between 2012 and 2014, three University of Michigan students (plaintiffs) rented rooms from Alawi, which collected $2550 in security deposits from the three. When they moved out, they received their security deposits back, minus small deductions for minor damages to the properties. Plaintiffs believed that Alawi had not complied with Michigan law, which requires landlords to deposit security deposits in a regulated financial institution and to provide the address of that institution to the tenant. The plaintiffs sued Alawi for $6.6 million on behalf of a putative class of six years’ worth of tenants, alleging violations of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Michigan law; alleging that Alawi was not entitled to hold security deposits at all (given these alleged breaches of Michigan law), and that knowingly taking security deposits anyway constituted a pattern of federal wire, mail, and bank fraud. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the RICO claim. The complaint failed to articulate any concrete injury; its allegations were too vague to meet the particularity requirement of fraud allegations under Civil Rule 9(b). View "Wall v. Michigan Rental" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting, and one count of possessing a false identification document with the intent to defraud the United States. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's forfeiture order in the amount of $4,128,554.00. The court held that when a conviction for aggravated identity theft is premised on a proven or admitted violation of a predicate offense that is enumerated in the civil forfeiture statute, then forfeiture is authorized. The court concluded that the district court had statutory authority to enter a criminal forfeiture order because of defendant's conviction of aggravated identity theft, with a bank fraud predicate offense; defendant waived his Eighth Amendment claim; defendant waived his right to appeal the forfeiture order on notice grounds; and defendant waived his claim that the district court erred by not requiring the government to prove the amount of proceeds. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Pollard" on Justia Law

Defendants Dey and Finazzo were involved in a conspiracy to use South Bay as a supplier of Aeropostale apparel in exchange for secret payments. Finazzo was a former merchandising executive for Aeropostale, and Dey controlled South Bay, a clothing vendor. Dey plead guilty to conspiracy, and a jury convicted Finazzo of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and to violate the Travel Act, 18 U.S.C. 371, fourteen counts of mail fraud, and one count of wire fraud. The court affirmed the district court's jury instructions regarding the "right to control" property under the mail and wire fraud statutes; concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support the challenged portions of the jury verdict; but, vacated and remanded the district court's restitution order as to Finazzo and Dey. In a simultaneously issued summary order, the court affirmed the remaining issues on appeal. View "United States v. Finazzo" on Justia Law