U.S. v. Lazarenko
| Citation | 546 F.3d 593 |
| Decision Date | 26 September 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-10592.,06-10592. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Pavel Ivanovich LAZARENKO, Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
Dennis P. Riordan (argued), Donald M. Horgan, Riordan & Horgan, Doron Weinberg, Weinberg & Wilder, San Francisco, CA, for the defendant-appellant.
Hartley M.K. West (argued), Assistant United States Attorney; Scott N. Schools, United States Attorney; Barbara J. Valliere, Chief, Appellate Section, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Martin J. Jenkins, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-0-00284-MJJ.
Before: A. WALLACE TASHIMA, M. MARGARET McKEOWN, and RONALD M. GOULD, Circuit Judges.
During his meteoric rise from serving as a local Ukrainian official to Prime Minister of Ukraine, Pavel Ivanovich Lazarenko formed multiple business relationships and engaged in a tangled series of business transactions that netted him millions of dollars. Lazarenko kept his money in foreign bank accounts, transferring funds from one account to another across the globe in an effort, so he was accused, to disguise and conceal the sources and ownership of the proceeds from the Ukrainian people. After the money passed through bank accounts in the United States, from Swiss, off-shore, and other accounts, the United States charged him in a 53-count indictment with conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property. Lazarenko was convicted on fourteen counts and now challenges those convictions on appeal. We affirm eight of his convictions, but reverse six others.
During the 1990s, Lazarenko was a public official in Ukraine. For several years he served in regional governmental positions, including as Governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine. He rose to the level of Ukrainian First Vice Prime Minister in 1995 and in May 1996, Lazarenko was appointed Prime Minister. Following a rift in his relationship with President Leonid Kuchma, he was dismissed from this position in July 1997. He then became a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and led the opposition Hromada Party.
While serving as a government official, Lazarenko became involved in the affairs of a number of businesses and formed relationships with prominent businessmen. The United States alleged that certain of Lazarenko's business relationships amounted to extortion and that he defrauded the Ukranian people by obtaining interests in companies, allocating privileges to cronies, and then failing to disclose his assets and wealth as required on Ukranian financial disclosure forms. The government identified five arrangements that formed the basis for the charges in the indictment.
According to testimony at trial, Lazarenko was extremely powerful as the governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine and in his other public roles. He required businesses to pay him fifty percent of their profits in exchange for his influence to make the businesses successful. Conversely, Lazarenko used his influence to disadvantage the businesses if he was not paid.
In 1990, Peter Kiritchenko, a businessman, formed a company known as Agrosnabsbyt, which was involved in agriculture and metals. In 1992, Kiritchenko met with Lazarenko because, according to Kiritchenko, "to do any kind of serious trade one needed [Lazarenko's] agreement." Lazarenko informed Kiritchenko that he worked with everyone "50-50," which Kiritchenko interpreted as meaning that Lazarenko would control fifty percent of the business and take fifty percent of the profits. Kiritchenko initially transferred $40,000 to Lazarenko as a gesture of "good faith." In January 1993, Kiritchenko transferred a fifty percent interest in Agrosnabsbyt to Ekaterina Karova, a relative of Lazarenko, and transferred fifty percent of the profits from the business to accounts controlled by Lazarenko. Later, Lazarenko and Kiritchenko partnered to move Lazarenko's money between accounts and together they purchased the European Federal Credit Bank ("EuroFed").
According to the indictment, Lazarenko established a similar relationship with Alexei Alexandrovich Dityatkovsky. In 1993, Lazarenko met Dityatkovsky and took a fifty percent interest in his company, Dneproneft, along with fifty percent of the profits as well. Lazarenko's share went to his driver and to an associate.
While Lazarenko was governor of Dnepropetrovsk, he was also actively involved in the operations of Naukovy State Farm ("Naukovy"), a dairy operation that was directed by Mykola Agafonov.1 Naukovy also had secured the right to export metal products and raw materials. Naukovy purchased cattle and farm equipment from a Dutch company, Van der Ploeg von Terpstra ("Van der Ploeg"). Van der Ploeg kept a foreign currency account at ABN Amro Bank for its business with Naukovy (the "ABN Amro account"). Unbeknownst to Van der Ploeg's chief accountant, Agafonov was given access to this account for his own use. Agafonov used the money in the ABN Amro account to, among other things, purchase a BMW and pay his credit card bills.
Lazarenko was also actively involved in the operations at Nikopolsky Metal Works factory ("Nikopolsky"). At his direction, $2.4 million was transferred from Nikopolsky to Van der Ploeg's ABN Amro account supposedly to purchase wheat on behalf of Naukovy to combat a food crisis that was plaguing Ukraine at the time.2 The accountant for Naukovy and the bookkeeper for Van der Ploeg both testified that they did not know whether wheat was ever purchased. The records reflect that $1.2 million was transferred from the ABN Amro account to Agafonov's account in Hungary at PostaBank (the "PostaBank account"). In turn, $1.205 million was transferred from the PostaBank account to an account known as LIP Handel, controlled by Lazarenko in Switzerland. Lazarenko then transferred the money from this Swiss account to various banks, including a $1.8 million transfer to an account controlled by Kiritchenko at Bank of America in San Francisco, California.
Eventually, Lazarenko became the First Prime Minister of Ukraine and was responsible for the energy section within the government. According to the indictment, an associate of Lazarenko's, Yulia Tymoshenko, created a natural gas company, United Energy Systems of Ukraine ("UESU"), which received deliveries of gas from RAO Gazprom. UESU was held in large part by United Energy International, Ltd. ("UEIL"), which was owned by a Turkish national. UESU conveyed title to the gas to UEIL such that payments from Ukrainian customers for gas were diverted to UEIL. UEIL did not pay RAO Gazprom for the gas deliveries with the money it received from customers. Instead, it transferred approximately $140 million to a Cypriot company, Somolli, that was controlled, in part, by Tymoshenko. UEIL and Somolli transferred $97 million to accounts controlled by Kiritchenko in Switzerland, Poland, and the United States. Kiritchenko then transferred $120 million to accounts controlled by Lazarenko in Switzerland and Antigua. Lazarenko made two transfers of $14 million each from one of these accounts to accounts in the United States.
Lazarenko and Kiritchenko also allegedly controlled a Panamanian company, GHP Corp. ("GHP"). According to the U.S. government, in 1997, Lazarenko, by then Prime Minister, caused the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers to contract with GHP for the purchase of six pre-fabricated homes. GHP turned to Pacific Modern Homes ("PMH") in California and purchased six pre-fabricated homes for $524,763. The Cabinet of Ministers purchased the homes from GHP for $1,416,000. GHP produced false invoices to customs officials to make it appear that it had shipped the homes and paid $1,416,000 for them. Half of the profit realized by GHP was deposited into an account controlled by Lazarenko.
Based on Lazarenko's business activities, the government brought numerous charges. Count 1 charged Lazarenko with conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), for conducting financial transactions that involved the proceeds of extortion, wire fraud, and receipt and transfer of property that was stolen.
Counts 2 through 5 charged Lazarenko with money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2). The indictment specifically identified four wire transfers from Kiritchenko's ABS Trading account in San Francisco to Lazarenko's account in Geneva, Switzerland in 1994 and early 1995. Counts 6 through 8 charged Lazarenko with money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B). These transactions allegedly occurred in November 1997, August 1998, and September 1998. All the money laundering counts were based on the specific unlawful activities of receipt and transfer of property that was "stolen, unlawfully converted, and taken by fraud," in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314 and 2315; "extortion as specified in 18 U.S.C. § 1956(c)(7)(B)(ii); and wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343 and 1346." Id.
Counts 9 through 30 charged Lazarenko with wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343 and 1346. Specifically, Lazarenko was charged with honest services fraud against the people of Ukraine for obtaining ownership interests in Agrosnabsbyt, Dneproneft, and GHP, using his authority and influence to grant these companies privileges, and receiving money from these businesses. The indictment identified specific wire transfers in 1997 and 1998.
Counts 31 through 53 charged Lazarenko with transportation of stolen property in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2314. The indictment identified a wire transfer in 1994 and several others...
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