While working for Twitter, petitioner Ahmad Abouammo provided confidential account information concerning Saudi dissidents to a Saudi official in exchange for payments. After leaving Twitter and moving to Seattle, Abouammo was interviewed at his home by San Francisco-based FBI agents. When the agents asked for documentation supporting his claim that the payments were for consulting work, Abouammo went upstairs, created a false invoice, and emailed it to an agent. The agents later discovered the falsification through the document’s metadata after returning to San Francisco.
The Government charged Abouammo in the Northern District of California with falsifying a document with intent to obstruct a federal investigation under 18 U.S.C. § 1519. Abouammo argued that venue was proper only in the Western District of Washington, where he created the invoice. The district court rejected that argument, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed on the theory that the intended effects of the falsification occurred where the investigation was located.
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed. Justice Kagan explained that Article III and the Sixth Amendment tie criminal venue to where the crime was committed. When Congress has not supplied a specific venue rule, courts identify the offense’s “essential conduct elements” and determine where those acts occurred. Section 1519 prohibits falsifying a document with the required intent, and Abouammo completed that prohibited act in Seattle. His intent to obstruct an investigation in California did not transform the location of the investigation into a place where the crime occurred.
The Supreme Court also rejected the Government’s characterization of his § 1519 offense as an inchoate offense. A violation is complete once a defendant falsifies the document with the required intent; the defendant need not actually transmit the document or obstruct an investigation. The prosecution therefore belonged in the Western District of Washington.
Certiorari to the Ninth Circuit
Opinion by Kagan, joined by a unanimous Court
Click here to read the opinion.