U.S. v. Briggs

• Decision Date: 02 August 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 90-1201,90-1204 and 90-1205,s. 90-1201
• Citation: 939 F.2d 222
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Susan Carol BRIGGS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 222

939 F.2d 222

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Susan Carol BRIGGS, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 90-1201, 90-1204 and 90-1205.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 2, 1991.

Robert Udashen, Dallas, Tex., for defendant-appellant.

Delonia A. Watson, Asst. U.S. Atty., Marvin Collins, U.S. Atty., Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

ON REHEARING

(Opinion January 4, 1991, 5th Cir.1991, 920 F.2d 287)

Before GOLDBERG, KING and DUHE, Circuit Judges.

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

We sua sponte grant rehearing and withdraw our prior opinion in this case, 920 F.2d 287 (5th Cir.1991), substituting the following:

Susan Briggs stole over $5 million dollars from her employers by initiating wire transfers from their accounts to hers and others. She pleaded guilty in 1986 to charges of bank fraud and transportation of stolen money and was sentenced to a total of thirty years' imprisonment. Subsequently, in a 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255 motion, she challenged the validity of her guilty plea on the grounds that it was not knowing and intelligent. In essence, she maintained that she did not obtain funds by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, as required by the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344, and therefore her plea of guilty to that charge was not an informed one. Briggs' motion was denied without an evidentiary hearing, and she appealed. ¹

We conclude that the facts alleged in Briggs' Sec. 2255 motion, if proved to be true, would support a due process claim. Because her claim is not conclusively contradicted by the record in the criminal case, we remand this case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing at which time Briggs can endeavor to substantiate her allegations.

I. Facts and Proceedings Below

From 1981 through 1986, Susan Briggs worked for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Southmark Corporation, both located in Dallas. She was employed in the Treasury Department at EDS and as an Assistant Cash Manager at Southmark. Her duty at both corporations was to cause transfers of funds from company bank accounts "when necessary for actual business transactions." Rec. Excerpts at 58, 59 (Defendant's Factual Resume). The record does not otherwise detail the scope of Briggs' authority nor indicate to what extent, if at all, the banks were responsible for monitoring and policing the legitimacy of her transactions.

Regardless of the exact scope of her authority, Briggs exceeded the bounds when she decided to instigate some transfers to her own accounts. From 1984 through 1986 she initiated over a dozen unauthorized transfers from company accounts belonging to Southmark and to National Heritage Insurance Company, an EDS subsidiary. These transfers were made to Dallas accounts belonging to herself, her two sons, and a friend. She and her friend then transferred some of this money from their local accounts to accounts in the Cayman Islands. Briggs contends and the government does not dispute that Briggs' employers, not the banks, suffered the losses from these schemes; the record supports this assertion. There is no indication that the banks were or could have been found civilly liable to EDS and Southmark.

Precisely how Briggs effected these transfers is unclear. ² The factual resume supporting Briggs' plea states merely that she "caused" various wire transfers; ³ the indictments use the same phraseology, adding only that she "had access to the funds of Southmark by means of written or verbal transfer orders." A letter from Southmark's counsel states that Briggs accomplished her scheme by "manipulation of wire transfer instructions." An FBI agent testified at the preliminary hearing that Briggs had "authorized, initiated" or "initiat[ed] and approv[ed]" at least one of the wire transfers, and that the transfer had been "physically initiated" by a bank employee "based on instructions from" Briggs. The record does not disclose the nature and content of these instructions.

By late 1986 Briggs had accumulated $5.2 million of her employers' funds and a variety of criminal charges. The latter consisted of three counts of bank fraud (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344), seven counts of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1343), ten counts of transportation of stolen money (18 U.S.C. Sec. 2314), and related counts of conspiracy (18 U.S.C. Sec. 371) and aiding and abetting. Briggs pleaded guilty to two bank fraud counts and four stolen money counts, in exchange for which the government agreed to dismiss the remaining charges and bring no other charges relating to her employment with EDS and Southmark. The district court sentenced Briggs to a total of twenty years on the stolen money charges and ten years on the bank fraud charges, with these sentences to run consecutively. She began serving this thirty-year sentence in December 1986.

Briggs did not appeal her convictions, but she did file a motion for reconsideration seeking reduction of her sentence, pursuant to former Fed.R.Crim.P. 35. ⁴ The trial court denied the motion. In April 1989, she filed a 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255 ⁵ motion to vacate the judgment and sentence as to the bank fraud convictions. In March 1990, the district judge adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation that the motion be denied. Briggs subsequently appealed.

II. Discussion

A. The Bank Fraud Statute

As enacted in 1984, and as applicable to this case, the bank fraud statute provided in relevant part:

(a) Whoever knowingly executes, or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice--

(1) to defraud a federally chartered or insured financial institution; or (2) to obtain any of the moneys, funds, credits, assets, securities or other property owned by or under the custody or control of a federally chartered or insured financial institution by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, shall be [fined or imprisoned].

Former 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344(a). ⁶

The government charged Briggs under indictments and an information whose language comprehends both provisions of Sec. 1344(a), so we must determine if her conduct amounts to a violation under either subsection. Cf. United States v. Medeles, 916 F.2d 195, 197-98 (5th Cir.1990) (where indictment and jury charge do not allege elements of a subsection of statute, conviction cannot be sustained under that subsection). We consider each provision in turn.

1. Defrauding a Bank

Former subsection (a)(1) prohibits "a scheme or artifice ... to defraud a financial institution." The indictment and information to which Briggs pleaded guilty, and the factual resume supporting her plea, refer only to the theft of her employers' funds. The record does not indicate that the banks suffered any loss, actual or potential, as a result of Briggs' conduct; indeed, the government does not argue that she attempted to obtain funds belonging to the banks, but only that she attempted to obtain funds under the custody and control of the banks--a violation of subsection (a)(2), not (a)(1). Accordingly, subsection (a)(1) is not applicable to the conduct of which the government accused Briggs. ⁷

2. Obtaining Funds by Means of False Representations

The second provision of former section 1344, subsection (a)(2), comes closer to Briggs' conduct. This subsection punishes anyone who

knowingly executes, or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice ... to obtain any of the moneys, funds, credits, assets, securities or other property owned by or under the custody or control of a federally chartered or insured financial institution by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises....

Former 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344 & 1344(a)(2).

As the funds in this case were not owned by the banks, the parties focused their discussion on the "custody or control" language. It is unclear how to square this phrase with the legislative history, which emphasizes that the purpose of the statute is the protection of financial institutions themselves. ⁸ Is the financial institution the victim in a scheme whose execution causes it no actual or potential loss? Briggs says no. Noting the dangers that inhere in over-federalizing garden variety fraud, she suggests that the "custody or control" language only applies where the defendant is an employee of the bank from which she obtains the funds. This interpretation, although imaginative, finds no support in the statutory text or legislative history, other than the need to reconcile or ignore the apparent textual inconsistency.

We turn instead to another clause of subsection (a)(2), the requirement that the scheme be "by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises." So far as the sparse record discloses, Briggs made no explicit false representations, statements, or promises in carrying out her scheme. However, the government argues that the bare act of instructing a bank to transfer funds is, in itself, a representation of one's authority to order the transfer.

This contention, however, is foreclosed by our precedent. In United States v. Medeles, 916 F.2d 195 (5th Cir.1990), we disapproved a similar theory in the context of a check-kiting scheme. The defendant in that case, Medeles, maintained checking accounts at three federally insured banks. He kited checks between these accounts, knowing the checks to be drawn on insufficient funds. In the course of this scheme, Medeles made no explicit false representations. Ultimately, he withdrew $3700 and flew to Las Vegas for a gambling spree.

Medeles was indicted and convicted under the same statute at issue here, former 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344(a)(2). The conviction was premised on the notion that by depositing the checks, Medeles implicitly represented that they were good. Since Medeles knew this to be false, the government characterized the act of depositing the checks as a (knowing) false representation. We reversed, holding that "the...