U.S. v. Haranda, 03-20063-BC.

• Decision Date: 26 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-20063-BC.,03-20063-BC.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Joseph HARANDA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

333 F.Supp.2d 618

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Joseph HARANDA, Defendant.

No. 03-20063-BC.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Northern Division.

August 26, 2004.

Janet L. Parker, U.S. Attorney's Office, Bay City, MI, for Plaintiff.

Kenneth R. Sasse, Federal Defender Office, Flint, MI, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT OF ACQUITTAL

LAWSON, District Judge.

The defendant was charged in a single count indictment with embezzling, stealing purloining, or knowingly converting to his own use a United States Treasury Department check in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. The case proceeded to a trial before a jury in March 2004. The defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 at the conclusion of the government's proofs, and the Court reserved its decision on the motion, ultimately denying it. The defendant then proceeded with his case, after which the jury returned a verdict of guilty on March 24, 2004. The defendant has filed a timely motion for judgment of acquittal and supporting brief, to which the government has responded. A hearing on the motion was held in open court on August 17, 2004. The Court now concludes that sufficient evidence was presented by the government from which a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of the offense. The Court, therefore, will deny the defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal.

I.

The dispute in this case centers on an income tax refund that the defendant was owed on his 2000 tax return. The Treasury Department in fact mailed a check to the defendant in the amount of the refund, $4,131, payable to the defendant in his own name. However, when the check was sent, the defendant was not at his residence, where he had lived with Sharlene Brockett, f/k/a Sharlene Milliman. It is undisputed that Brockett signed the defendant's name to the check and deposited it into her bank account on October 11, 2001. Catherine Reder, an attorney who had represented Ms. Brockett in a child custody and support proceeding involving the defendant, testified that she heard the defendant admit during the court proceeding that he gave permission to Brockett to endorse his name on the check. The defendant disputed Reder's claim at trial, but it is clear that the defendant demanded return of the check proceeds and other items of personal property during the friend of the court hearing on November 7, 2001. The defendant contended that Brockett took his pickup truck and all his worldly possessions during a time when the defendant was in jail, and he wanted compensation for his loss.

Approximately a week after the court hearing, the defendant contacted a Michigan State Police officer, Trooper Michael Darrow, to report that his federal income tax refund check has been stolen by Brockett. Darrow began an investigation that initially focused on Brockett as a suspect. In the mean time, on November 20, 2001 the defendant signed and submitted a claim to the United States Treasury Department for the proceeds of his income tax refund check. The parties agree that as of the date the defendant submitted the claim, he had not received payment of his 2000 income tax refund. However, the claim form contained a warning notice on its first page that stated: "This claim is made for the proceeds of the above check. If you cash both the original and any settlement checks, the overpayment must be promptly refunded."

Trooper Darrow testified that he contacted Brockett on November 26, 2001. Brockett told Darrow that she had kept the proceeds of the check in a bank account, and after the friend of the court hearing she obtained a cashier's check payable to herself in the same amount as the defendant's refund. Brockett stated to Darrow that she was willing and able to return the money from the tax refund check to the defendant. The next day, November, 27, 2001, Brockett obtained a cashier's check made payable to the defendant in the same amount as the cashier's check to herself that she had shown to Trooper Darrow. The new check, in the amount of $4,131, was sent to the defendant by Brockett's attorney, Catherine Reder.

Darrow then attempted to conduct a follow-up interview with the defendant. He called the defendant on November 30, 2001 and arranged for an interview with him on the following day. The defendant failed to appear at the scheduled time. On December 10, 2001, the defendant received a certified letter from Ms. Reder containing the bank check for $4,131 accompanied by a letter stating that the check represented the amount of his federal income tax refund check. The defendant signed the return receipt for the letter and check, although he disputes that he received the letter. He then cashed the check, depositing some of the money into his own account and keeping the remainder as cash. The Treasury Department initially refused payment of the check that Brockett had deposited in her account; however, the depository bank eventually was reimbursed for the amount sometime after August 23, 2002.

On May 1, 2002, the United States Treasury issued a check to the defendant in the amount of $4,131, and the defendant promptly deposited this check and used the proceeds. The government contended that cashing the second refund check constituted conversion of government property, since the defendant previously had recovered the amount of the tax refund from Brockett. He therefore received a total of $8,262 for his tax refund when he was entitled to only $4,131. However, at trial the defendant argued that the money he received from Brockett represented compensation for his pickup truck and other items of personal property she had taken from him.

After the defendant had cashed the second treasury check, he was contacted and interviewed by Richard Kelly from the Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. At the time he did not mention his stolen truck or personal property. Kelly interviewed the defendant again in December 2002. The defendant admitted during the interview that he had received and kept the proceeds from both the cashier's check from Brockett and the replacement check from the IRS. He claimed at that time that he thought the check he had received from Brockett was an equity payment from the sale of his truck. He did not mention the personal property that was to have disappeared with the truck.

After a two-day trial, the jury convicted the defendant as charged. In his motion for judgment of acquittal now pending before the Court, he contends that the evidence at trial failed to establish that the defendant converted property of the government because he obtained and cashed a legitimately claimed refund check. He states that his claim for a replacement check was valid because he had not received his income tax refund at the time. He also insists that because he was entitled to his income tax refund, the replacement check did not belong to the government at the time it was issued.

II.

A motion for judgment of acquittal pursuant to Rule 29 requires the Court to apply the well-known standard articulated by the Supreme Court in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The critical inquiry is "whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 318, 99 S.Ct. 2781.

[T]his inquiry does not require a court to "ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at the trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Instead the relevant question is 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.

Id. at 318-19, 99 S.Ct. 2781 (internal citation and footnote omitted).

The evidence need not exclude every theory of innocence. Id. at 319. The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to demonstrate guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "The prosecution, however, must present substantial evidence as to each element of the offense from which a jury could find the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Brown v. Davis, 752 F.2d 1142, 1145 (6th Cir.1985) (internal citation omitted). "Substantial evidence is more than a scintilla. It means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept to support a conclusion. It is evidence affording a substantial basis of fact from which the fact in issue can be reasonably inferred." United States v. Martin, 375 F.2d 956, 957 (6th Cir.1967). Where the evidence is at least as indicative of innocence as guilt, the Court must direct a verdict of acquittal. United States v. Berger, 224 F.3d 107, 116 (2d Cir.2000).

The statute under which the defendant was charged states:

Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof; or Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted — Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

18 U.S.C. § 641. In order to convict a defendant under this statute, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the "defendant (1) knowingly (2) stole or converted to [his use or] the use of another (3) something of value of the United States." United States v. Forman, 180 F.3d 766, 769(6th Cir.1999) (citing United States v. Sanderson, 966 F.2d 184, 188 (6th Cir.1992)).

The defendant contends that the government's proofs are insufficient on the third element because the second treasury check he cashed was not...