Fraud Cases

Last month, the U.S. Sentencing Commission published a new report titled “The Organizational Sentencing Guidelines: Thirty Years of Innovation and Influence,” summarizing hte history and development of Chapter 8 of the U.S. Guidelines, which apply to defendant-corporations and other defendant-entities.

The Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s order acquitting a defendant of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, holding that the defendant, who worked for a U.K. subsidiary of a U.S. company involved in bribing Indonesian officials, was not an “agent” or employee” of the U.S. company under common law. The Court also held that the defendant’s speedy trial rights were not violated by a 6-year delay and that the trial court did not err in instructing the jury on withdrawal from a conspiracy and proving venue in a case involving money transfers through multiple states.

Earlier this month, President Biden signed legislation extending the statute of limitations for federal prosecutions against individuals and businesses accused of fraudulently obtaining COVID-19 relief funds, specifically through the PPP and EIDL loan programs. The PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act and the COVID-19 EIDL Fraud Statute of Limitations Act extended the statute of limitations to ten years, up from five years.

The Eighth Circuit reversed a district court’s order of restitution in a smuggling and postage counterfeiting case. The Court held that only losses caused by specific conduct that forms the basis of a conviction can be included in a restitution order, and since the defendant’s conviction was based only on his forgery of stamps and not a broader conspiracy, scheme, or pattern, the restitution should have been limited to losses caused by the forgery.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s wire fraud conviction where the defendant had orchestrated a fraudulent multimillion dollar investment scheme from Israel. The Court held that the wire fraud statute does not apply extraterritorially but that the defendant was properly charged because she used American wires to further her scheme. While affirming her conviction, the Court vacated the restitution order since it went beyond domestic victims of the defendant’s wire fraud.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction for several fraud offenses but reversed his conviction for federal program fraud under 18 USC 666. At issue was whether Section 666 “criminalizes multiple conversions of less than $5,000, if the government must point to conversions that took place over more than one year to reach the $5,000 statutory minimum.” The Court held that Section 666 “requires each transaction used to reach the aggregate $5,000 requirement to occur within the same one-year period.”

The Eighth Circuit reversed some, but not all, of a defendant’s convictions for multiple counts of wire fraud where, after depositing embezzled funds from his church, the defendant-priest made several payments from that account using those funds. The Court upheld the defendant’s convictions based on the deposits since they furthered the scheme but reversed those based on the payments, since those payments did not help further or conceal the offense.

The Ninth Circuit vacated defendants’ sentences for fraud, which had been enhanced by 20 levels under USSG 2B1.1 based on the loss resulting from the closure of a bank due to defendants’ offenses. The Court held that, where an enhancement has “an extremely disproportionate effect on the sentence,” the underlying facts must be shown by “clear and convincing evidence.” Here, it was not clear and convincing that defendants had caused the bank to collapse.

On March 10, 2022, the Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the appointment of a “Director for COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement,” a position that would head the DOJ’s criminal and civil enforcement actions relating to COVID-19 relief fraud. To date, the DOJ reports over $8 billion in alleged fraud, including PPP and EIDL loan fraud and unemployment insurance fraud….

Regarding PPP and EIDL loan fraud, the DOJ announced that “approximately 500 defendants have been charged in over 340 cases with alleged intended losses of over $700 million.” The DOJ also claims to have seized over $1 billion in EIDL loan fraud proceeds. Regarding unemployment insurance fraud, the DOJ announced that “over 430 defendants have been charged and arrested for federal offenses related to UI fraud.”

ast week, media outlets reported that the Department of Justice has launched “an expansive criminal investigation into short selling by hedge funds and research firms.” Among other things, the government is studying the relationships between hedge funds and the sources that publish reports that affect how a company’s stock price is performing. In other words, the government is scrutinizing whether firms that publish negative reports on certain companies are colluding with hedge funds that are shorting those companies’ stocks, and investigators are also looking into potential insider trading and other abuses.