Nancy and Lester Sadler ran pain clinics that sometimes serviced more than 100 patients a day–and that didn't even include the fake ones. They were convicted of several crimes and the Sixth Circuit affirmed all but one of the counts of conviction last week. Nancy Sadler's wire fraud conviction was vacated, however. According to the Court, "the government showed that Nancy lied to pharmaceutical distributors when she ordered pills for the clinic by using a fake name on her drug orders and by falsely telling the distributors that the drugs were being used to serve 'indigent' patients." But this did not "deprive" the distributors of their property, because Nancy paid full price. "[P]aying the going rate for a product does not square with the conventional understanding of 'deprive.'" The government argued that the distributors would not have sent the pills had Nancy told them the truth. The Sixth Circuit dubbed this a "right to accurate information" and noted that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes no longer cover this kind of intangible right in the post-McNally era. Congress' statutory fix of McNally only covers the intangible right of honest services, "which protects citizens from public-official corruption." Of course 18 U.S.C. Section 1346 does more than that, even after Skilling, as it also covers certain private deprivations of honest services. But the conduct at issue in Sadler did not involve Nancy's "honest services" to the pharmaceutical distributors. She provided no services to them–she simply fibbed, but paid full price. Here is the opinion in United States v. Nancy Sadler.
Category: Judicial Opinions
-
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Rajat Gupta's convictions for securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. (See here). The decision should be a hit for future evidence casebooks as it provides detailed analysis of a host of different evidence rules – Rules 403, 801, 802, 803, and 804.
But what the decision summarily denies is the argument that the "wiretap authorizations were obtained in violation of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, … and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution." The Second Circuit notes that since Rajaratnam's challenges were rejected, "Gupta's Title III and constitutional challenges are thus foreclosed." Hopefully a higher Court will examine the use of wiretaps in such white collar cases.
(esp)
-
Juan Prado was a mildly corrupt Chicago cop who pled guilty to taking bribes from tow truck operators in order to funnel business their way. At sentencing he argued for a downward variance based on several factors, including the downward variance received by James Wodnicki, an allegedly similarly situated Chicago cop who was sentenced in a related case. The sentencing court ruled, incorrectly, that Seventh Circuit precedent only allowed it to consider nationwide sentencing disparities under 18 U.S.C. Section 3553 (a)(6). It refused to consider any arguments, from either the prosecution or defense, based on Wodnicki's downward variance, and sentenced Prado to a within-Guidelines prison term of 42 months. Last week, in United States v. Prado, the Seventh Circuit reversed, since the sentencing court was unaware that it could consider Wodnicki's sentence in applying 3553 (a)(6), and since the Seventh Circuit thought this may have affected Prado's sentence. The opinion reaffirms two important points, to wit–that sentencing disparities can be considered on both individual and global levels, and that within-Guidelines sentences can be reversed when based on erroneous assumptions. Interestingly, Prado did not raise this specific ground of error until the case reached the appellate court, but the government failed to argue Prado's waiver on appeal. Ergo, the waived waiver doctrine applied.
-
This isn't exactly a white collar case, but America is our beat. Few things are more frustrating to a competent criminal defense attorney than a judge who won't allow her to make an adequate record. This problem seems to be getting worse in the federal system. What a nice surprise then that the Fifth Circuit, through Judge Ed Prado, is not having any of it. In United States v. Salazar, the district court revoked defendant's supervised release, sentenced him to a prison term, and imposed an additional supervised release term with new conditions. The new supervised release conditions were not announced by the trial court until near the end of the sentencing hearing. When defense attorney Angela Saad tried to object, the judge (Alia Moses) cut her off three times. On appeal, Salazar challenged Supervised Release Condition 6. The government argued for plain error review because Saad's objections to the new conditions were global and not specific. Salazar urged that abuse of discretion was the appropriate standard, as the judge had cut off counsel's attempts to object in more detail. The Court sided with Salazar. "Salazar had no reason to object to the conditions prior to sentencing, as they were not announced until that time." Moreover, "[c]ounsel…initially objected broadly to the conditions on account of their overly burdensome nature, but before counsel had an opportunity to finish her sentence, the court overruled her objection three times. Salazar's counsel reasonably believed that the district court would not have welcomed or entertained any further discussion of the issue." The Court ultimately vacated Condition 6, because the trial court had not adequately explained why it was reasonably related to statutory supervised release factors. This is a good case for a criminal appellate attorney to keep in his back pocket. It is altogether fitting that Prado wrote it. He was an outstanding trial judge who was always respectful to attorneys on both sides, and let them try their cases.
-
In United States v. Rubin, appellant maintained that his conviction for conspiracy to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 ("UIGEA") was invalid, despite his unconditional guilty plea, because the indictment against him alleged conduct exempt from prosecution under UIGEA, and therefore deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. Defendants who voluntarily plead guilty generally waive all non-jurisdictional defects in prior proceedings. (Conditional guilty pleas require the agreement of the government and the trial court.) Applying the U.S. Supreme Court's unfortunate decision in United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002), the Second Circuit squarely rejected Rubin's contention. Could Rubin have successfully argued, for the first time on appeal, pursuant to Fed. R.Crim.P. 12 (b)(3)(B), that his unconditional guilty plea was invalid because the indictment simply failed to allege an offense, irrespective of any jurisdictional issues? We do not know. According to the Second Circuit, his attorney failed to raise that point.
-
The degree of causation necessary to impose legal blame is an interesting philosophical, policy and, of course, legal issue. It is an issue that probably arises more often in tort than criminal cases, but is nonetheless important in criminal law in several areas, including sentencing considerations.
In Burrage v. United States, ___ U.S. ___ (12-7515, January 27, 2014), the Supreme Court considered the meaning of the term "result from" in a case where the district court imposed a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence upon a defendant for the sale of one gram of heroin since a buyer's death had "result[ed] from" the use of the heroin as one of several drugs he consumed that contributed to the death.
Burrage was convicted of distribution of narcotics to Banka, who died after imbibing the heroin and several other drugs. Medical experts at trial could not rule out that Banka might have died from using the other drugs even if he had not taken the heroin, but opined that the heroin use was a contributing factor to his death.
The district court declined to accept the defense contention that the statutory term "result from" required a "but-for" standard. Instead, it construed the phrase to mean that the drug sold had only to be a "contributing cause" of the death and so charged the jury. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.
In a unanimous opinion, written by Justice Scalia (who has authored some of the most innovative and pro-defense decisions by the Court in recent years), the Court reversed, ruling that the term "result from" should be construed in its "ordinary meaning" to require a "but-for" standard of causation — that the harm would not have resulted "but for" the defendant's conduct. It was, therefore, the Court found, not enough for the trier of fact to find that the drug transfer was merely a "contributing factor" to the death. The opinion discussed the Model Penal Code, the Restatement of Torts, baseball, and the rule of lenity, as well as the Court's recent restrictive reading of the term "because of" in discrimination cases, a discussion which triggered a special concurrence by Justice Ginsberg (which she apparently would not have felt the need to write "but for" that discussion).
The government, not untypically, made a doomsday argument that defining "result from" as the Court did would "unduly limit criminal liability" and "cannot be reconciled with sound policy." The Court disagreed, doubting that the opinion would prove to be a "policy disaster."
Although very unlikely to be a "disaster," the opinion may have ramifications beyond drug cases. The issue of what consequences resulted from the defendant's conduct arises frequently in homicide and assault cases, and also occasionally in white-collar cases, for instance in determining the amount of loss or harm for sentencing purposes. At the least, it appears that in federal criminal law the term "result from" now will have a more narrow meaning than previously.
-
One of the increasing incursions into constitutional rights in the white-collar area is the expansion of the "required records" exception to the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In general, that doctrine provides that an individual or entity required by law to maintain for regulatory purposes certain records has no Fifth Amendment right to refuse to produce them to the government.
The Second Circuit last month, in affirming a contempt finding against an individual for failing to produce to a grand jury records of foreign bank accounts mandated to be kept by regulations promulgated pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 CFR 1012.420 ("BSA"), held, in accord with prior rulings by other circuits, that the "required records" exception to the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination pertains to the production of such records. In Re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated February 2, 2012, (13-403-CV, Dec. 19, 2013).
The individual contended that he had a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena for foreign bank records. He claimed that the subpoena put him in a Catch-22 position: produce documents that might incriminate him or confirm that he failed to maintain records of his foreign bank accounts, which also might incriminate him. The court essentially said "tough," and affirmed the contempt order.
The court first considered whether the "act of production" doctrine (see United States v. Hubbell, 500 U.S. 27 (2000)) applied to "required records." Under that doctrine, generally a person could on Fifth Amendment grounds resist a subpoena for the production of records unless the government could demonstrate it was a "foregone conclusion" that the person actually possessed such records. Although the contents of the records, as in the case of "required records," might not be privileged, by producing them the individual essentially incriminated herself by its production by admitting, among other things, that she possessed such records. The court held that the Fifth Amendment did not apply to required records, either as to the content of or production of such records, and thus the "act of production" privilege, a form of Fifth Amendment protection, did not apply.
The court then applied the three-prong test of Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62 (1968), to determine whether the required records doctrine applied to the BSA regulation. That test provides, first, that the purpose of the legal requirement must be "essentially regulatory;" second, that the information sought must be of a type "customarily kept;" and third, that the records must have "public aspects" which make them at least analogous to public documents. The court then held that the regulation, although it was designed in part to facilitate criminal prosecutions, was "essentially regulatory" in that it did not target only those suspected of criminal activity since possession of foreign bank accounts by itself was not unlawful. Second, it held that the records were "customarily kept" since holders of bank accounts are likely to be aware of or have records of the details of their accounts. Third, the court held that "records lawfully required to be kept" for purposes of constitutional analysis by definition have "public aspects." Practically, such a finding eliminated this third prong as an independent prerequisite for application of the exception.
In sum, the court essentially ruled that any records ordinarily kept by individuals that are required to be made available to governmental authorities pursuant to a law not primarily designed to detect criminal activity lack Fifth Amendment protection.
Thus, the decision essentially gives federal prosecutors the ability to subpoena any person and demand that she produce any foreign bank records she possesses, even absent any knowledge or suspicion that she has such an account. To be sure, in this case, and virtually all other reported cases involving subpoenas of foreign bank accounts, the government appears to have had a considerable basis to believe the person subpoenaed does have a foreign bank account. The Second Circuit's ruling, however, at least implicitly, does not require that such governmental knowledge be a prerequisite for an enforceable subpoena for foreign accounts. "Fishing expeditions" for foreign bank account information appear to be allowed.
I would not be surprised, therefore, to see a considerable increase in the number of governmental subpoenas for records of foreign bank accounts, and perhaps the addition of a boilerplate request for foreign bank records in other subpoenas for financial records. As they say, there's no harm in asking.
-
In the current New York Review of Books, Judge Jed Rakoff presents the most thoughtful, balanced analysis I have seen to date regarding DOJ's failure to prosecute high-level executives at elite financial institutions in connection with the recent financial crisis. Appropriately entitled, The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High Level Executives Been Prosecuted?, Judge Rakoff is careful not to point fingers, rush to judgment, or even allege that fraud has definitively been established. And that's a big part of the DOJ's problem. How can you establish fraud if the effort to investigate it has been haphazard and understaffed from the outset? Rakoff is someone worth listening to. An unusually thoughtful federal district judge, he has presided over many significant securities and bank fraud cases, served as chief of the Securities Fraud Unit in the SDNY U.S. Attorney's Office, and worked as a defense attorney. Oh yeah. He also hates the Sentencing Guidelines.
Among the many theories Rakoff posits for the failure to prosecute what, it bears repeating, only may have been fraud, are two that I take issue with. These investigations were apparently parceled out to to various OUSA districts, rather than being concentrated in the SDNY. Judge Rakoff believes that the SDNY would have been the more logical choice, as it has more experience in sophisticated fraud investigations. This may be true as a general proposition. But the most plausible historical fraud model for the mortgage meltdown-fueled financial crisis is the Savings & Loan Scandal of the late 1980s, so successfully prosecuted by DOJ into the mid-1990s. The SDNY had very little of that action.
Judge Rakoff also notes the government's role in creating the conditions that led to the current crisis as a potential prosecution pitfall. But this did not stop the S&L prosecutors from forging ahead in their cases. Back then, virtually every S&L criminal defendant claimed that the government had created that crisis by establishing, and then abandoning, Regulatory Accounting Principles, aka RAP. (One marked difference between the two scandals is that the S&L Scandal was immediately met with public outrage and a sustained Executive Branch commitment to investigate and prosecute where warranted. The sustained Executive Branch commitment has not happened this time around, for whatever reason.)
But these are minor quibbles and Judge Rakoff is spot on in most of his observations.
Judge Rakoff is right to reject the "revolving door" theory of non-prosecution. Any prosecutor worth his salt would love to make a name for himself, and would definitely enhance his private sector marketability, by winning one of these cases. Judge Rakoff also correctly notes that these cases are hard and time-consuming to investigate.
The judge's most salient point has nothing to do with the various theories for DOJ's failure to prosecute. Instead, it is his observation that there is no substitute for holding financial elites responsible for their major criminal misdeeds. The compliance and deferred prosecution agreements favored today are simply a cost of doing business for most big corporations. What's worse, in the current environment, DOJ is giving a walk to elite financial actors and simultaneously prosecuting middle-class pikers with a vengeance that is sickening to behold. The elite financial actors may not have committed criminal fraud, but many of them bear heavy responsibility for the ensuing mess. It is so much easier for DOJ to rack up the stats by picking the low hanging fruit.
The one thing Judge Rakoff cannot do, and does not try to do, is answer the question of whether criminal fraud occurred in the highest sectors of our financial world. The answer to that question can only be supplied, at least as an initial matter, by the AUSA in charge of each investigation. And if no prosecution occurs, you and I are unlikely to ever know the reason why.
-
What a marvelous dissent by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, joined by judges Pregerson, Reinhardt, Thomas, and Watford, in United States v. Olsen. He dissented from the Ninth Circuit's refusal to rehear en banc the panel decision which excused an appalling example of Brady/Giglio error as immaterial. As Judge Kozinski so eloquently put it: "There is an epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land. Only judges can put a stop to it."
(wisenberg)
-
Second Circuit Reverses Convictions, Rejecting Government’s Expansive “Continuing Conspiracy” Theory
Guest Blog by - Sara Kropf, Law Offices of Sara Kropf; Grand Jury Target Blog
The Second Circuit recently reversed the convictions of three defendants convicted in a municipal bond bid-rigging scheme, rejecting the government’s attempt to rely on an attenuated theory of continuing conspiracy. The three defendants were immediately released from prison and the indictment was dismissed. The opinion sets a much-needed limit on the government’s unfettered use of the continuing conspiracy theory to avoid the statute of limitations.
Background: The World of Municipal Bond Taxes
The case involves the somewhat esoteric world of municipal bond taxes. Municipalities issue bonds. Because the bond funds are usually used for long-term projects, municipalities often do not spend the bond funds immediately.
To earn additional revenue from the funds, the municipal bond issuer may invest in “guaranteed investment contracts” (“GICs”) provided by financial institutions, such as GE (called a “provider”). GICs pay predetermined interest payments to the municipality, providing an additional source of income. Municipalities must rebate to the Treasury any interest earned over bond interest rate.
The tax code has certain provisions to prevent arbitrage in GICs. Important here, municipalities must determine the “fair market value” of the GIC. This is difficult because, as the Second Circuit noted, “GICs are not regularly traded.”
To ease the burden on municipalities, IRS regulations provide for a safe harbor to the “fair market value” calculation if the municipality holds a competitive bidding process among GIC providers. Third-party brokers solicit blind bids from several providers. The bidders do not know who else is bidding or the rates of interest being offered by their competitors.
The Defendants’ Role
Three defendants worked for a unit of GE that provided GICs. One left in 2001 to work with a company called Financial Security Assurance, Inc. Between 1999 and 2004, “the Defendants (on behalf of their employers GE and FSA) agreed to pay kickbacks to three brokers . . . and the brokers obliged by rigging the bidding process in several ways.” For example, the broker would disclose the amount of other bids or keep other bidders off the bid list.
The kickbacks helped GE and FSA win bids to provide GICs to municipalities at a lower interest rate. This, in turn, potentially affected whether any interest payments would be rebated to Treasury. According to the Second Circuit, “each deal defrauded the municipality, the Treasury, or both.”
The Indictments
On July 27, 2010, a grand jury returned an indictment. A superseding indictment was then returned for one count of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy.
The defendants moved to dismiss on statute of limitations grounds. The district court granted the motion as to the substantive wire fraud count but refused to dismiss the conspiracy counts. It reasoned that as long as unindicted co-conspirators GE and FSA made interest payments on the GICs, the conspiracy was continuing.
The defendants were convicted after a three week-trial and three days of deliberations.
The Second Circuit’s Reversal
The Second Circuit reversed, in an opinion authored by Judge Jacobs. United States v. Grimm, No. 12-4310. Judge Kearse dissented.
The applicable statute of limitations for general conspiracy is five years and for conspiracy to commit tax fraud is six years. The court noted that although the indictment listed 55 overt acts, the only ones within either limitations period “were the periodic interest payments made by providers to issuers pursuant to the GICs.”
The court explained that only acts within the scope of the conspiracy could be properly considered in the statute of limitations analysis. The indictment alleged two purposes—the defendants sought to (1) “deprive issuers of money by causing them to award investment agreements at artificially determined or suppressed rates . . . “ and (2) to impede the government’s collection of tax revenue.
The court relied heavily on United States v. Salmonese, 352 F.3d 608 (2d Cir. 2003). That case held that a co-conspirator’s receipt of profits from a financial instrument that was part of the fraud was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy because it was part of the co-conspirators’ “anticipated economic benefits.” But Salmonese also explained that the conspiracy ends if the “payoff merely consists of a lengthy, indefinite series of ordinary, typically noncriminal, unilateral actions . . . and there is no evidence that any concerted activity posing the special societal dangers of conspiracy is still taking place.”
The Second Circuit explained that Salmonese’s list of factors was not exclusive. It provided a more general enunciation of the rule:
[G]enerally, overt acts have ended when the conspiracy has completed its influence on an otherwise legitimate course of common dealing that remains ongoing for a prolonged time, without measures of concealment, adjustment or any other corrupt intervention by any conspirator.
Here, the court concluded, the GIC payments satisfied this rule and therefore were not within the scope of the conspiracy. The payments were indefinite (because they were “prolonged beyond the near future); they were ordinary (part of a commercial obligation); and they were made unilaterally (by the provider).
The court held that the interest payments were the “result of a completed conspiracy” and not “in furtherance of one that is ongoing.” It noted that there was no indication that making the payments prolonged the conspiracy in any way. Because the payments were not overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy, the government could not rely on them to satisfy the statute of limitations.
The Limits
Because white collar indictments frequently arise out of complex, long-term financial instruments (and are often the result of lengthy government investigations), the Grimm opinion is of note. The opinion announces a general rule that may be application to other financial fraud cases. And, of course, it is a refreshing change to see a court limit the government’s use of the continuing conspiracy theory. Every minor ripple effect of a conspiracy should not be used to excuse the government’s failure to bring a case within the already lengthy limitations period.
(sk)
MattBray.net 