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Monday, November 23rd, 2020

Second Circuit affirms conviction of payday-loan lender on RICO and Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”) charges. United States v. Moseley, __F.3d__, No. 18-2003-cr, 2020 WL 6437737 (2d Cir. Nov. 3, 2020) (Circuit Judges: Kearse, Carney, Bianco).

In  United States v. Moseley, No.18-2003, 2020 WL 5523210 (2d Cir. Nov. 3,  2020) , the Second Circuit holds that the choice-of-law provisions in the defendant’s payday-loan agreements — which named  3 jurisdictions that don’t have usury laws — were unenforceable under New York law, so  the usury laws of New York applied in the case of loans to New York residents. And, here, the RICO counts were based on New York domiciled  borrowers . The agreements also didn’t sufficiently disclose the total payments the borrower would have to make on the loans, as required by TILA.

The loans

Richard Moseley operated a payday-loan business, between 2004 and 2014,  in which he “lent money to borrowers in New York and other states at interest rates exceeding —by many multiples—the maximum legal interest rates allowed in those states; in its loan documents, it failed to meet TILA disclosure requirements; and …

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Categories: due process, hearsay, RICO, Sixth Amendment

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Friday, October 12th, 2018

The Second Circuit on Inadmissible Background Testimony

This week the Second Circuit issued an opinion, available here, in United States v. Demott, No. 13-3410 (2d Cir. 2018) (Leval, Pooler, Wesley) (appeal from N.D.N.Y). The opinion has three holdings. First, it rejects an as-applied vagueness challenge to the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act, 21 U.S.C. §§ 802(32)(A), 813. Second, with respect to mens rea, it holds the Analogue Act requires only that the defendant knew he was dealing with a controlled substance — not that the defendant knew he was dealing with a substance that is controlled under the Analogue Act itself.

Third, and of particular interest, the Circuit reversed the defendant’s conviction because the district court erroneously admitted impermissible hearsay evidence as “background testimony.” Slip op. at 35-50. Specifically, a detective testified for the government as to how he got involved in the criminal investigation that led to the defendant’s arrest. The detective …

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Tuesday, March 27th, 2018

Confrontation Clause Error in Summary Opinion

Yesterday the Circuit engaged in a bit of harmless error in describing the relationship between the Confrontation Clause and the business records exception to the hearsay rule, Fed. R. Evid. 803(6). The mistake in United States v. Grecco, No. 16-3112 (2d Cir. 2008) (Jacobs, Wesley, Korman (EDNY)), available here, is worth flagging because it has the potential to create problems in future cases.

The appeal in Grecco raised the question of whether the admission of an autopsy report violated the Confrontation Clause because the report was “testimonial” in nature. The panel held that any error in admitting the report was harmless, and thus declined to address this question. The panel repeatedly framed the question, however, as “whether the autopsy report was testimonial in nature, or a business record that is therefore not subject to Confrontation Clause requirements.” Sum. op. at 3.

This framing misstates the law. At one …

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Categories: Confrontation Clause, Crawford, hearsay

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Thursday, December 14th, 2017

Second Circuit on the Exclusion Non-Hearsay Evidence Concerning the Advice of Counsel Defense

Yesterday, in a published opinion, the Second Circuit reversed the convictions in an off-label drug importing case because the district court erroneously excluded evidence concerning the advice of counsel defense. The opinion in United States v. Scully, No. 16-3073 (Pooler, Lynch, Cogan (by designation) (appeal from Spatt, J., EDNY) is available here. The opinion touches on hearsay issues that arise beyond the fraud context.

The defendants in Scully were charged with fraud, conspiracy, and drug importation counts resulting from a “parallel importing” scheme: that is, the defendants’ company would import foreign versions of FDA-approved drugs and sell them at a reduced rate. One of the defendants cooperated and, at trial, the other defendant (Scully) advanced an advice-of-counsel defense. The defense sought to introduce evidence of an attorney’s legal advice through Scully’s own testimony, and elicited the following exchange during its direct examination of Scully:

Q. Did Mr.

…
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Categories: evidence, fraud, hearsay, jury instructions, Uncategorized

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Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

“Toxic” Hearsay Warrants New Trial

In an opinion yesterday, the Second Circuit (Jacobs, Pooler, Hall) ordered a retrial of Armani Cummings based on the admission of non-harmless hearsay.

Cummings was charged with killing two people in the course of committing drug crimes.  A government witness testified, in essence: “Someone told me Cummings threatened to kill me.”  The Court explained that this was not an admissible statement by Cummings (the party opponent) but, rather, was double hearsay from a third party “someone” and thus inadmissible.

The error of admitting the statement, the Court further held, was not harmless: “The hearsay was especially toxic because it created a grave risk that the jury would use it as evidence of Cummings’s murderous propensity” and thus convict him for being a “bad man” rather than for committing the two alleged murders.

Of particular note, the Court ordered a retrial even though (1) the jury heard evidence that Cummings …

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Categories: harmless error, hearsay

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Wednesday, September 21st, 2016

Tax Attorney’s Conviction Affirmed

The single opinion the Circuit issued today is United States v. Daugerdas, No. 14-2437-cr  (Circuit Judges: Kearse, Walker, and Cabranes).

The defendant was a Certified Public Accountant and tax attorney. He and others designed tax shelters (for wealthy clients) in which the transactions underlying the shelters focused on the transactions tax consequences, not on their profitability. And the tax shelters “generally did not generate meaningful returns.” The defendant was convicted by a jury of seven counts related to the tax shelters (i.e., 1 count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS [§371] ; 4 counts of client tax evasion [26 U.S.C. § 7201]; 1 count of IRS obstruction [id. 7212(a)]; and 1 count of mail fraud [18 U.S.C. § 1341] ).

Interesting though, the jury acquitted Mr. Daugerdas of the 3 counts that charged him with personal tax evasion based on his use of  the tax shelters …

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Categories: fraud, hearsay, tax evasion

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Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

That’s What She Said

United States v. Carthen, No. 10-4817-cr (2d Cir. May 23, 2012) (Winter, McLaughlin, Cabranes, CJJ)

Defenant Tyrone Carthen appealed the government’s reliance on hearsay at his supervised release violation hearing. The circuit, finding no error, affirmed.

Carthen was charged with violating his supervised release by beating and threatening his ex-girlfriend, Marquita Cox. The matter was investigated by Carthen’s probation officer, Darcy Zavatsky, who interviewed Cox and other witnesses, and also reviewed various police and court records. At the VOSR hearing, however, the government called only Zavatsky, who was permitted to, over objection, describe what she had learned. Just before the hearing, it emerged that Cox, who had been cooperative at first, was refusing to testify because she did not want to be respnosible for sending Carthen back to jail. Just after the district court decided the case, Cox submitted a letter to the court asserting that she had …

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Categories: good cause, hearsay, supervised release, Uncategorized

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Sunday, June 19th, 2011

Mommy Dearest

United States v. O’Connor, No. 08-5968-cr (2d Cir. June 16, 2011) (Kearse, Pooler, Hall, CJJ)

Linda O’Connor began sexually abusing her daughter, S.O., when S.O. was ten years old. O’Connor also allowed her friend – he was also her occasional financial benefactor and sex partner – George Lang, to do so; O’Connor even sometimes joined in. Lang died of cancer before he could be prosecuted, and O’Connor then passed S.O. on to her landlord, co-defendant Dean Sacco, in lieu of paying rent. Sacco raped S.O. many times, and also took pictures of the abuse. Finally, on two occasions, O’Connor brought S.O. to a motel in Binghamton, where strangers raped her for money, while O’Connor looked on and ordered her to follow the men’s instructions.

O’Connor and Sacco were convicted of various sex trafficking and child pornography offenses; she was sentenced to 30 years and he to life. This opinion affirms …

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Categories: attorney withdrawal, hearsay, severance, Uncategorized

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Saturday, August 14th, 2010

A Bad Call

United States v. Gomez, No. 08-3829-cr (2d Cir. August 4, 2010) (Leval, Pooler, Parker, CJJ)

Here, the improper admission of indirect hearsay resulted in a new trial.

Background

Fred Rivas and a confederate sold 5,000 Ecstacy pills to a confidential informant. They were arrested, and Rivas agreed to cooperate. A New York City detective, Michael Ryan, was permitted to testify about the nature of Rivas’ cooperation; specifically, Ryan testified that he asked Rivas to “call the person who had given him that 5,000 pills,” and that Ryan then dialed Gomez’ number from Rivas’ phone and recorded their conversation. The district court denied Gomez’ hearsay objection to this testimony, and the government ended up using it in summation to directly implicate Gomez as the supplier.

The Circuit’s Decision

The court found that Ryan’s testimony constituted prejudicial hearsay, and rejected with unusually strong language the government’s claim that it admitted the testimony …

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Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Kaiser on a Roll

United States v. Kaiser, No. 07-2365-cr (2d Cir. July 1, 2010) (Jacobs, Calabresi, Pooler, CJJ)

Mark Kaiser was convicted after a jury trial of securities fraud-related offenses in connection with an accounting fraud scheme at USF, a large food product distributor. The circuit, finding error in the conscious avoidance instruction and in an evidentiary ruling, vacated the judgment and remanded the case for a new trial.

Background

From 1994 until 2001, Kaiser helped run USF’s Purchasing Department, and negotiated rebates from its vendors called promotional allowances (“PA”s”). Kaiser was charged with developing a scheme to fraudulently inflate the PA income for certain years and with committing other fraudulent acts, including making false statements, to hide the inflated numbers from USF’s outside auditors. The government’s case was built largely around the testimony of three cooperating witnesses, who testified that Kaiser was the mastermind. Kaiser’s defense was that the cooperators had cooked …

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Sunday, October 19th, 2008

Expert Tease

United States v. Mejia, No. 05-2856-cr (2d Cir. October 6, 2008) (Jacobs, Parker, Hall, CJJ)

Here, the improper admission of “officer expert” testimony resulted in a new trial.

Background

The defendants were convicted of participating in two drive-by shootings in connection with their membership in the MS-13 gang. One defendant was sentenced to sixty-three years’ imprisonment, the other to sixty.

A significant portion of the evidence against them, however, came from a New York State Police investigator who testified about the structure and organization of MS-13, as well as its “methods and activities, modes of communication and slang.” It turned out however, the officer’s sources for much of this information were suspect, including reports from other law enforcement officers, custodial statements from other gang members, internet research, and wiretaps that he listened to.

The Court’s Ruling

The court of appeals reversed, finding that much of the officer’s testimony was improper.…

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Categories: Crawford, expert witnesses, hearsay, Uncategorized

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