Commonwealth v. Braune, SJC-12514

• Decision Date: 29 January 2019
• Docket Number: SJC-12514
• Citation: 114 N.E.3d 964,481 Mass. 304
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Shea BRAUNE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

481 Mass. 304

114 N.E.3d 964

COMMONWEALTH

v.Shea BRAUNE.

SJC-12514

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex..

Argued October 4, 2018

Decided January 29, 2019

Alexandra H. Deal, Boston, for the defendant.

Philip A. Mallard, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.

LOWY, J.

The defendant, Shea Braune, was convicted of receiving stolen property and money laundering after she and her girlfriend, Romi Kimell, used over $ 300,000 in cash that Kimell had stolen from her mother and stepfather to fund a lavish lifestyle. In an ill-fated attempt to cover their tracks, Kimell gave a substantial amount of the stolen cash to Braune, who deposited it into her checking account through a series of transactions, each under $ 10,000, later claiming to have received the money in an inheritance. A subset of these deposits forms the basis for Braune's money laundering conviction. On appeal, Braune argues that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish "concealment" money laundering, in violation of G. L. c. 267A, § 2 (2) (ii) (A), where she openly deposited the money into her checking account using her own name. Because we conclude that the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to conclude that Braune's deposits were designed, in whole or in part, to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the stolen funds, we affirm.

Background. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the jury could have found the following facts. In the fall of 2013, when the victims, James and Janice Welling,¹ went to stay at their Florida home for the winter, they left over $ 300,000 in cash (packaged in stacks of fifty and one hundred dollar bills), along with a few items of Janice's jewelry, in a box that was taped shut and stored in a locked closet in the master bedroom of their North Andover home.² The only other person who knew about the box was Janice's daughter, Kimell.

Kimell had enjoyed a close relationship with her mother and James, who was Kimell's stepfather, and the Wellings had provided significant financial support to Kimell throughout her life. However, the relationship had soured shortly before the time in question.³ While the Wellings were in Florida, Kimell began to remove cash from the box in the Wellings' master closet. Kimell provided some of the cash to Braune. Braune then made a series of deposits into her checking account, each under $ 10,000,⁴ using the stolen money.

At a certain point, Kimell took the remaining contents of the box and replaced them with a duffel bag full of copy paper, resealing the box and restoring it to its place in the closet.⁵ Kimell informed her mother that she and Braune were moving to California and that Braune had received a large inheritance. During and after the move to California, Braune's pattern of making successive, large cash deposits -- each under $ 10,000 -- continued, as did a pattern of lavish spending by Kimell and Braune.⁶

The Wellings did not discover that the cash and jewelry were missing until October 2014, and did not immediately report the incident to police. Instead, they confronted Kimell about the missing money, and when she denied any involvement, they hired a private investigator to look into the matter.

In July of 2015, Kimell filed a petition for bankruptcy in a Federal bankruptcy court in California. James intervened in that proceeding, and his attorney deposed Kimell and Braune. In their sworn deposition testimony, which was later entered as an exhibit in the criminal trial in Massachusetts, Kimell and Braune reiterated their claim that Braune had used money from an inheritance to support their lavish lifestyle.⁷

Shortly after the defendant filed the petition for bankruptcy, the Massachusetts State police worked with law enforcement officials in California to execute a search of the home that Braune and Kimell shared in San Diego. Among other things, the police recovered, from Kimell's bedroom, jewelry matching that which Janice had reported missing; and from the closet in Braune's bedroom, a total of $ 130,110 in United States currency, stored in a backpack and a cardboard box and packaged mainly in stacks of fifty and one hundred dollar bills, consistent with James's description of the missing money.

Discussion. In assessing the sufficiency of the evidence, we ask "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt" (emphasis in original). Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 677, 393 N.E.2d 370 (1979), quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 141, 741 N.E.2d 25 (2001), and the inferences drawn from such evidence "need not be necessary and inescapable, only reasonable and possible." Commonwealth v. Goddard, 476 Mass. 443, 449, 68 N.E.3d 1146 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Jones, 432 Mass. 623, 628, 737 N.E.2d 1247 (2000).

The Massachusetts money laundering statute, G. L. c. 267A, § 2, provides in relevant part:⁸

"Whoever knowingly ... (2) engages in a transaction involving a monetary instrument or other property known to be derived from criminal activity ... (ii) knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part either to: (A) conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership or control of the property derived from criminal activity; or (B) avoid a [Federal or State] transaction reporting requirement ... shall be guilty of the crime of money laundering ..."

Braune was convicted of concealment money laundering in violation of G. L. c. 267A, § 2 (2) (ii) (A).⁹

Here, at least three forms of evidence typically associated with concealment money laundering were present: (1) the false statements made by the defendant and Kimell, initially to Kimell's mother and then later in sworn deposition testimony, that the money was part of an inheritance that Braune received from her grandfather, suggested an intent to conceal; (2) the structure of the defendant's deposits, which were staggered over time and confined to amounts below the reporting threshold, supported an inference of a design to conceal; and (3) the use of the defendant as a third party to deposit the money supported an inference of an intent to distance the money from Kimell and the Wellings, in other words, an intent to conceal the nature, source, ownership, or control of the stolen funds. As discussed below, the combination of these factors persuades us that the evidence was sufficient to establish a design to conceal under G. L. c. 267A, § 2 (2) (ii) (A).¹⁰

The language of § 2 (2) (ii) mirrors the language of the Federal money laundering statute, in particular its requirement that the defendant engage in the subject transaction "knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part ... (i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity; or (ii) to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law." 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B) (2012). Where, as here, our State statute "largely replicates" a cognate provision of Federal law, we consider the Federal courts' interpretation of the Federal statute "highly persuasive" in interpreting our own law. Commonwealth v. Eberhart, 461 Mass. 809, 815, 965 N.E.2d 791 (2012), quoting Commonwealth v. Colon, 81 Mass. App. Ct. 8, 12, 14, 958 N.E.2d 56 (2011).

In Cuellar v. United States, 553 U.S. 550, 556-557, 128 S.Ct. 1994, 170 L.Ed.2d 942 (2008), the United States Supreme Court interpreted the "designed ... to conceal" requirement of a neighboring provision of the Federal money laundering statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), which applies to transportation money laundering rather than transaction money laundering.¹¹ More specifically, the Court addressed whether evidence that the defendant hid the proceeds of illicit drug transactions in a secret compartment of a vehicle while transporting the funds across the border to Mexico was sufficient to establish a design to conceal. Id. at 553-554, 561, 128 S.Ct. 1994.

The Court observed that "when an act is ‘designed to’ do something, the most natural reading is that it has that something as its purpose." Id. at 563-564, 128 S.Ct. 1994. Thus, in the context of concealment money laundering, " ‘design’ means purpose or plan; i.e., the intended aim of the transportation." Id. at 563, 128 S.Ct. 1994. Accordingly, the Court held that concealment money laundering "requires proof that the purpose -- not merely effect -- of the transportation was to conceal or disguise a listed attribute" of the funds. Id. at 567, 128 S.Ct. 1994.

In so holding, the Cuellar Court rejected the proposition that the "designed ... to conceal" element of the Federal money laundering statute requires the prosecution "[to] prove that the defendant attempted to create the appearance of legitimate wealth." Id. at 557, 128 S.Ct. 1994. Rather, in Cuellar, "what the Government had to prove was that [the defendant] knew that taking the funds to Mexico [i.e., the transportation] was ‘designed,’ at least in part, to conceal or disguise their ‘nature,’ ‘location,’ ‘source,’ ‘ownership,’ or ‘control.’ " Id. at 562, 128 S.Ct. 1994.

On the facts presented in Cuellar, the Court held that although evidence of the secretive manner in which the funds were transported "was plainly probative of an underlying goal to prevent the funds from being detected while he drove them from the United States to Mexico," id. at 566, 128 S.Ct. 1994, that evidence was insufficient, standing alone, to establish that the transportation of the money was designed to conceal a listed attribute of the funds, especially where the...