Fraud Cases

The Court vacated the defendant’s convictions for aggravated identity theft based on the trial court violating his Fifth Amendment right to be tried on offenses charged by the grand jury. The indictment against him was defective in alleging that he committed “attempted” aggravated identity theft, a non crime, and the district court erred in removing the “attempt” language from its jury instructions.

The Court found that there was sufficient evidence to convict the defendant for bribery based on evidence that he took money from an undercover agent to perform an official act, even though the defendant lacked the actual ability to exert the promised influence necessary to perform the official act. The Court explained that the Government does not have to prove that a bribery defendant actually has the ability to achieve the promised outcome since the crime of bribery is based on the agreement, not the outcome.

The Court held that the sentencing court committed plain error by applying the general-fraud Guidelines under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 because the defendant’s mail fraud conviction also established a visa fraud offense specifically covered under U.S.S.G. § 2L2.1, the Guideline for visa fraud.

The Court held that confidential, nonpublic information generated and held by a government agency constitutes “property” in Title 18 fraud offenses. The Court also held, unlike in Title 15 securities fraud cases, a defendant charged with securities or wire fraud under Title 18 does not have to receive a personal benefit to be convicted.

Among other rulings on other issues, the Court reversed the defendant’s conviction for bankruptcy fraud, holding that the income from his second religious temple, opened after the first temple filed a petition for bankruptcy and providing the same services as the first temple, did not constitute post-petition property of the first temple’s estate since the temples otherwise operated as two separate entities and the government did not try to pierce the corporate veil.

The Court affirmed the defendant’s convictions for wire fraud, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting proposed jury instructions that distinguished a “scheme to defraud” from a “scheme to deceive,” since the proposed instructions did not also include language defining an intent to harm based on a misrepresentation of the nature of the bargain.

The Court reversed the defendant’s conviction for aggravated identity theft, holding that the defendant did not “use” his patient’s identifying information when he fraudulent billed Medicare for services he never provided them, since he did not use their identifying information for the purposes of passing himself off as another person.

The Court affirmed the defendant’s conviction for possessing unauthorized access devices affecting interstate commerce, holding that the district court retained jurisdiction despite the guilty plea lacking a factual basis explaining how the defendant’s conduct affected interstate commerce. A district court’s jurisdiction is invoked by an indictment sufficiently alleging a federal offense, while an offense’s “jurisdictional element” only reflects Congress’s power to regulate or prohibit the conduct at issue.

The Court held there was sufficient evidence to convict the defendants of identify theft and mail fraud. The Court also rejected the argument that the defendants received ineffective assistance from conflicted counsel after the defendants filed bar complaints against them. The Court held that the defendants failed to show that their attorneys had a conflict of interest, let alone were ineffective, since “the state-bar grievances did not create conflicting obligations” and thus did not put the attorneys in a position to have to choose one interest over another.

The Court held that payments made to a victim of a fraud scream can still be part of the loss amount if the payments were made “in furtherance of the scheme.”