Justia White Collar Crime Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit affirmed Defendants' convictions connected with the murder of Steven DiSarro, holding that Defendants were not entitled to relief on their allegations of error.Defendants, Francis Salemme and Paul Weadick, were convicted of the 1993 murder of DiSarro. At the time of the murder, Salemme was the boss of a criminal organization known as the New England La Cosa Nostra. Defendants murdered DiSarro to prevent him from talking with federal agents about his activities with Salemme, Weadick and Salemme's son. On appeal, Defendants challenged the trial court's admission of a significant amount of evidence concerning the prior criminal activities of Salemme and several witnesses. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in admitting the evidence. View "United States v. Weadick" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit for fraud, rescission, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, fraudulent conveyance, and unjust enrichment alleging that defendants had misrepresented that collateral managers would exercise independence in selecting assets for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants.The Second Circuit affirmed and held that plaintiffs have failed to establish, by clear and convincing evidence, reliance on defendants' representations. In this case, plaintiffs based their investment decisions solely on the investment proposals their investment advisor developed; the advisor developed these detailed investment proposals based on offering materials defendants provided and on the advisor's own due diligence; plaintiffs premised their fraud claims on the advisor's reliance on defendants' representations; but New York law does not support this theory of third-party representations. The court also held that plaintiffs have failed to establish that defendants misrepresented or omitted material information for two of the three CDO deals at issue—the Octans II CDO and the Sagittarius CDO I. The court explained that defendants' representations that the collateral managers would exercise independence in selecting assets were not misrepresentations at all, and defendants did not have a duty to disclose their knowledge of the hedge fund's investment strategy because this information could have been discovered through the exercise of due care. View "Loreley Financing (Jersey) No. 3 Ltd. v. Wells Fargo" on Justia Law

Percoco, a longtime friend and top aide to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, accepted payment in exchange for promising to use his position to perform official actions. For one scheme, Percoco promised to further the interests of an energy company, CPV; for another, Percoco agreed with Aiello to advance the interests of Aiello’s real estate development company. Aiello was convicted of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1349. Percoco was convicted of both conspiracy to commit honest-services wire fraud and solicitation of bribes or gratuities, 18 U.S.C. 666(a)(1)(B). The court had instructed the jury that the quid-pro-quo element of the offenses would be satisfied if Percoco wrongfully “obtained . . . property . . . in exchange [for] official acts as the opportunities arose.”The Second Circuit affirmed. Although the as-opportunities-arise instruction fell short of a recently clarified standard, which requires that the honest-services fraud involve a commitment to take official action on a particular matter or question, that error was harmless. A person who is not technically employed by the government may nevertheless owe a fiduciary duty to the public if he dominates and controls governmental business, and is actually relied on by people in the government because of some special relationship. View "United States v. Percoco" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371. Defendant, as a broker-dealer in the over-the-counter securities market, executed fraudulent trades for a co-defendant client with the effect of artificially inflating the share price of a sham company, Cubed. While defendant was involved in that activity, his co-defendants arranged the sale of Cubed shares outside the public market in a private placement. The district court concluded that defendant was liable under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 for restitution, both to purchasers of Cubed shares in the public market (in the amount of $479,000) and to purchasers in the private placement (in the amount of $1.85 million).The Second Circuit reversed and remanded, agreeing with defendant that the Government did not show that the private placement losses are attributable to his offense of conviction, as the MVRA requires. The court explained that the MVRA authorizes restitution only for losses "directly and proximately" caused by a covered "offense" of conviction, 18 U.S.C. 3663A(a)(2), (c). This proximate cause element requires that the Government prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the losses for which restitution compensates were foreseeable to the defendant in the course of committing the offense of conviction. In this case, because the Government has not adduced sufficient evidence that the private placement losses were foreseeable to defendant during his participation in the conspiracy to manipulate the public share price of Cubed, the MVRA does not authorize the $1.85 million in restitution for these losses. View "United States v. Goodrich" on Justia Law

Picard was appointed as the trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) pursuant to the Securities Investor Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. 78aaa, to recover funds for victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. SIPA empowers trustees to recover property transferred by the debtor where the transfers are void or voidable under the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. 548, 550, to the extent those provisions are consistent with SIPA. Under Sections 548 and 550, a transferee may retain transfers it took “for value” and “in good faith.” Picard sued to recover payments the defendants received either directly or indirectly from BLMIS. The district court held that a lack of good faith in a SIPA liquidation requires that the defendant-transferee has acted with “willful blindness” and that the trustee bears the burden of pleading the transferee’s lack of good faith. Relying on the district court’s legal conclusions, the bankruptcy court dismissed the actions, finding Picard did not plausibly allege the defendants were willfully blind to the fraud at BLMIS.The Second Circuit vacated. Nothing in SIPA compels departure from the well-established rule that the defendant bears the burden of pleading an affirmative defense. The district court erred by holding that the trustee bears the burden of pleading a lack of good faith under Sections 548(c) and 550(b)(1). View "In Re Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC" on Justia Law

Claud “Rick” Koerber was indicted by a grand jury for wire fraud, tax fraud, and mail fraud relating to a real estate investment scheme. A superseding indictment added to his wire fraud and tax evasion counts, charging him with additional counts for securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. More than five years passed without a trial, resulting in the district court’s dismissing the case with prejudice under the Speedy Trial Act. On the government’s appeal of that decision, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s dismissal-with-prejudice order, identifying errors in its application of the Speedy Trial Act factors. On remand, after reapplying the factors, the district court decided to dismiss without prejudice. So in 2017 the government reindicted Koerber for the offenses earlier charged in the superseding indictment. Koerber’s first trial ended in a hung jury. His second trial ended in jury convictions on all but two counts. The court later imposed a 170-month prison sentence. On appeal, Koerber challenged his prosecution and conviction, claiming a range of errors: from evidentiary rulings, to trial-management issues, to asserted statutory and constitutional violations. After reviewing the briefing, the record, and the relevant law, the Tenth Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed. View "United States v. Koerber" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed in full the verdicts of the jury convicting the five defendants in this case on charges brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(d) but vacated the restitution and forfeiture orders, holding that the jury's special findings and verdicts as to all defendants were affirmed.Defendants in this case were a group of pharmaceutical executives involved with Insys Therapeutics, Inc., which marketed and sold Subsys, a fentanyl-laced medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use in the treatment of breakthrough cancer pain. A jury found Defendants guilty of racketeering charges, and the court sentenced Defendants to prison terms of varying lengths. The First Circuit upheld the jury verdicts in full and affirmed the district court's denial of Defendants' various motions for judgments of acquittal and/or new trials but vacated the restitution and forfeiture orders, holding that the district court erred as to these orders. View "United States v. Simon" on Justia Law

Dr. Narang and Moparty were convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1349; Health Care Fraud, section 1347, and Engaging in Monetary Transactions in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity, section 1957. Narang is an internist who practiced at his Texas self-owned clinic, North Cypress. Moparty co-owned Red Oak Hospital and served as an administrator for Trinity Health Network, which provided staffing and administrative services to health care entities. Narang ordered unnecessary medical tests for patients and then authorized Moparty to bill for these tests at the higher hospital rate even though these patients were seen and treated at Narang’s North Cypress office. The indictment alleged that this scheme resulted in fraudulent billing of over $20 million to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Cigna. Those companies paid Moparty at least $3.2 million in reimbursement for those claims which he allegedly split with Narang through a series of financial transactions.The court sentenced Moparty to 108 months and Narang to 121 months of imprisonment, with joint and several liability for $2,621,999.04 in restitution. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and finding that, although the government made repeated errors, those errors did not warrant reversal. View "United States v. Moparty" on Justia Law

Alan Williams pleaded guilty to a single count of bank fraud and stipulated to restitution tied to that count and two others that were later dismissed. The government got its conviction, and Williams limited his sentencing exposure and possible future charges. In this appeal, Williams attempted to step back from his bargain, seeking to keep the favorable plea deal, but to contest the restitution he stipulated was owed. Furthermore, he contested the district court’s apportionment of that total restitution between WebBank and Wells Fargo Bank, as recommended by the Presentence Report (PSR). The Tenth Circuit surmised Williams' first hurdle was to overcome the appeal waiver included in his Plea Agreement. To this, the Court concluded the appeal waiver did not bar his total-restitution challenge: the Plea Agreement allowed Williams to appeal the apportionment of the total restitution and the substantive reasonableness of his prison sentence as well. However, addressing the merits of Williams’s challenges, the Court no reason to disturb the order and sentence, and affirmed. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Married since 1967, John and Frances Rogers filed joint federal income tax returns for many years. They underreported their tax obligations many times; the misreporting was the product of a fraudulent tax scheme designed by John, a Harvard‐trained tax attorney. The Seventh Circuit has affirmed the Tax Court’s rulings in favor of the IRS every time.Frances challenged two Tax Court decisions denying her “innocent spouse relief,” 26 U.S.C. 6015. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, having previously affirmed the denial of Frances’s request for innocent spouse relief for the 2004 tax year. The Tax Court took considerable care assessing Frances’s claims, denying them largely on the basis that she was aware of too many facts and too many warning signs during the relevant tax years to escape financial responsibility for the clear fraud perpetrated on the U.S. Treasury. The Tax Court applied the correct standard, with the possible exception of one factual error in its 2018 opinion regarding the couple’s lavish lifestyle but any error was harmless. Frances holds a master’s degree in biochemistry, a law degree, an M.B.A., and a doctorate in education. She assisted in managing her husband’s law firm while he sought treatment for alcoholism; she fired the office manager, maintained accounting records, endorsed and deposited checks, and paid expenses. View "Rogers v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law