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Supremes Rule Unanimously: Property=Money Under MVRA
This morning in Robers v. United States (2014), the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a circuit split and unanimously affirmed the Seventh Circuit. The Mandatory Victim Restitution Act of 1996 requires offenders to pay their victims "an amount equal to…the value of the property" taken, minus "the value (as of the date the property is returned) of…the property that is
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Cyberstalking Statute Survives First Amednment Challenges in the First Circuit
Yesterday in United States v. Shawn Sayer, the First Circuit ruled that that a portion of the federal cyberstalking statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 2261A (2) (A), is constitutional as applied to defendant Sayer's actions and is not facially overbroad. The Court held that Sayer waived his void for vagueness challenge. The facts were undisputed and the case involved a multi-year effort by Sayer
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Fourth Circuit Confirms: “I’m My Own Grandpa.”
Well. It's complicated. Can your co-conspirator also be your victim? Your darn tootin' he can, under the Hobbs Act, according to the Fourth Circuit. In 2007, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the victim of a Hobbs Act conspiracy must be a person outside of the alleged conspiracy. The case is United States v. Brock, 501 F.3d
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Recent and Noteworthy
The Tenth Circuit explains the rather Talmudic distinction between a material omission, which requires the government to prove the defendant's duty to disclose, and a half-truth, which imposes no such requirement on the government. The case is U.S. v. Charles Homer Chip Sharp (10th Cir. 2014) (omission in mail fraud). I'm surprised that no academic has done a study on the
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In My Expert Opinion The Defendant Is A Liar
This post isn't about a white collar case, but America is our beat. Yesterday the Tenth Circuit reversed the bank robbery conviction of Stanley Hill, because FBI Special Agent Charles Jones (qualified as an "expert" trained in "special tactics and ways to identify deception in statements and truth in statements") testified that Hill's answers during a government interrogation were "not
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In the News & Around the Blogosphere
Tony Mauro, Legal Times, Ted Stevens’ Defense Lawyers Honored As ‘Constitutional Champions’ (congratulations to Brendan Sullivan Jr. & Robert Cary) Amanda Bronstad, The National Law Journal, Ex-KPMG Partner Gets 14 Months for Insider Trading Paul Mogin, National Law Journal, DOJ Relents on False-Statements Policy (esp)
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Wire Fraud: Lying Isn’t Always Enough
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
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A Fishy SOX Case
18 U.S.C. § 1519, known as the “anti-shredding provision” of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, makes it a crime for anyone who “knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object” with the intent to impede or obstruct an investigation (emphasis added). Congress passed
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Lois Lerner Held in Contempt
Last week, as reported in the New York Times (see here), the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold in contempt Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who after making a brief statement declaring her innocence invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege and refused to answer questions from the Committee members.
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NYU Conference – Deterring Corporate Crime: Effective Principles for Corporate Enforcement
I had the privilege of being at an NYU Conference titled, Deterring Corporate Crime: Effective Principles for Corporate Enforcement. Hats off to Professor Jennifer Arlen for bringing together folks with some different perspectives on corporate crime. Individuals presented data, and I heard different positions presented (corporate, government, industry, judicial) on a host of topics. The individual constituent
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