U.S. v. Terrazas, 07 Cr. 776(RJH).

• Decision Date: 08 August 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07 Cr. 776(RJH).,07 Cr. 776(RJH).
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, v. Jose TERRAZAS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

570 F.Supp.2d 550

UNITED STATES of America, v. Jose TERRAZAS, Defendant.

No. 07 Cr. 776(RJH).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

August 8, 2008.

Adam Sean Hickey, U.S. Attorney's Office, New York, NY, for United States of America.

Steven Robert Peikin, Amy Elizabeth Howlett, Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP, New York, NY, for Jose Terrazas.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

RICHARD J. HOLWELL, District Judge.

Defendant Jose Terrazas ("Defendant") has been indicted and charged with making false statements in a 2006 application for naturalization and during his citizenship interview in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1015(a). According to the indictment, Defendant falsely represented, inter alia, that he had never been arrested or convicted of a crime when, in fact, he had been arrested on four occasions between 1976 and 1993, these arrests leading to two convictions.¹

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1015(a), "[w]hoever knowingly makes any false statement under oath, in any case, proceeding, or matter relating to, or under, or by virtue of any law of the United States relating to naturalization, citizenship, or registry of aliens ... [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Defendant argues that the indictment must be dismissed because the government cannot establish an essential element of the offense. According to Defendant, materiality is an element of a § 1015(a) violation and the false statements Defendant is alleged to have made are, as a matter of law, immaterial. The government contends that § 1015(a) does not include a materiality requirement and that the statements at issue are, in any case, material.

The Court concludes that 18 U.S.C. § 1015(a) does not require a showing of materiality; as a consequence, the Court does not consider the materiality of the false statements with which Defendant is charged.

ANALYSIS

The "first step in interpreting a statute is to determine whether the language at issue has a plain and unambiguous meaning with regard to the particular dispute in the case." Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 340, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997); see also United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 490, 117 S.Ct. 921, 137 L.Ed.2d 107 (1997) (stating that "the first criterion in the interpretative hierarchy" is "a natural reading of the full text"). If the "statutory language is unambiguous and `the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent,'" no further inquiry is required. Robinson, 519 U.S. at 340, 117 S.Ct. 843 (quoting United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 240, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989)). The language of § 1015(a) is unambiguous. It applies to "any false statement under oath," without reference to the materiality of that statement. See United States v. Abuagla, 336 F.3d 277, 278-79 (4th Cir.2003) ("Nowhere does [§ 1015(a)] further say that a material fact must be the subject of the false statement or so much as mention materiality." (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Tongo, No. 93-5326, 1994 WL 33967, at *4 (6th Cir. Feb.7, 1994) ("A plain reading of [§ 1015(a)] ... similarly leaves no room for error.... There is no reference in the statutory text to materiality."); United States v. Rogers, 898 F.Supp. 219, 220, 222 n. 5 (S.D.N.Y.1995) (noting that 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) "does not contain an express requirement of materiality" and that materiality is not an element of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) or 18 U.S.C. § 1015(a) for the same reasons); United States v. Youssef, No. CR 06-667, 2007 WL 666929, at *1 (D.Ariz. Feb.28, 2007) ("The statute does not state that a material fact must be the subject of the false statement; rather, it clearly states that any false statement made under oath in a naturalization proceeding is prohibited."); United States v Bridges, 86 F.Supp. 922 (N.D.Cal.1949) ("The Section in question, upon which the prosecution is in particular grounded, Section 1015(a) . . . makes no reference to "materiality."").

The Supreme Court recently reached a similar conclusion with respect to 18 U.S.C. § 1014, which provides criminal penalties for "knowingly mak[ing] any false statement or report . . . for the purpose of influencing in any way the action" of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") insured bank. See Wells, 519 U.S. at 490, 117 S.Ct. 921. In finding that a "natural reading" of this language indicated no materiality requirement, the Court noted,

Nowhere does it further say that a material fact must be the subject of the false statement or so much as mention materiality. To the contrary, its terms cover "any" false statement that meets the other requirements in the statute, and the term "false statement" carries no general suggestion of influential significance.

Id.

It is presumed that "Congress incorporates the common-law meaning of the terms it uses if those `terms . . . have accumulated settled meaning under . . . the common law' and `the statute does not otherwise dictate.'" Id. at 491, 117 S.Ct. 921; see also Kungys v. United States, 485 U.S. 759, 770, 108 S.Ct. 1537, 99 L.Ed.2d 839 (1988) ("When Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under either equity or the common law, a court may infer . . . that Congress meant to incorporate the established meaning of the terms."). In Wells, the Court held that the statutory language "false statement" in § 1014 did not include an "implication of materiality" simply because other common law crimes involving false statements, like perjury, required materiality. Wells, 519 U.S. at 491, 117 S.Ct. 921. Similarly, in Kungys, the Court found that the statutory language "give[] false testimony" in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(f) did not include an implied element of materiality, distinguishing this phrase from "misrepresentation," which was also the name of a common law tort that required materiality. Kungys, 485 U.S. at 781, 108 S.Ct. 1537.

Defendant attempts to distinguish § 1015(a) from the statutes at issue in Wells and Kungys on the grounds that § 1015(a) applies not to "false statement[s]" or "false testimony" but to "false statement[s] under oath." (Def.'s Br. 7 n. 2; Reply 5-6 (emphasis added by Defendant).) Defendant argues that because, at common law, a false statement under oath to a public official was considered perjury, the Court should infer that Congress, by using the phrase "false statement under oath" in § 1015(a), intended to incorporate the materiality requirement of common law perjury. (Def.'s Br. 6.) Defendant cites no support for the proposition that the phrase "false statement under oath" has any "common law antecedent" or "established meaning" that includes a materiality element. (Id. (quoting Kungys, 485 U.S. at 769, 770, 108 S.Ct. 1537).) Indeed, the premise of Defendant's argument was squarely rejected by the Supreme Court in Wells:

[W]e disagree with [the] . . . view that any term that is an element of a common-law crime carries with it every other aspect of that common-law crime. . . . It is impossible to believe that Congress intended to impose such restrictions sub silentio, however, and so our rule on imputing common-law meaning to statutory terms does not sweep so broadly.

519 U.S. at 491 n. 10, 117 S.Ct. 921.

Defendant also argues that § 1015(a) requires materiality because courts have read an implied materiality element into similar statutes. (Reply 2-3.) However, all of these statutes are distinguishable. For example, 18 U.S.C. § 542 prohibits the introduction into the United States of imported merchandise "by means of any . . . false statement." Materiality is an element of a § 542 violation, not because the term "false statement" implies materiality, but because the statute only prohibits false statements that are the "means" by which merchandise is imported into the country. See United States v. Avelino, 967 F.2d 815, 817 (2d Cir.1992) ("[F]alse statements under Section 542 are necessarily material because the importation must be `by means of [the] false statement."). Likewise 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1344, the mail, wire, and bank fraud statutes, each prohibits a "scheme or artifice to defraud." The Supreme Court has held that these include an implied materiality requirement based on the "well-settled meaning of `fraud,'" which "require[s] a misrepresentation or concealment of material fact." Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 20-23, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999). Finally, 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) provides criminal penalties for "knowingly procur[ing] or attempt[ing] to procure, contrary to law, the naturalization of any person. . . ." The Ninth Circuit has held that this statute includes a materiality element. United States v. Alferahin, 433 F.3d 1148, 1155-56 (9th Cir.2006). In doing so, the court specifically distinguished 18 U.S.C. § 1014, the statute at issue in Wells, which does not require materiality, on the grounds that § 1014, like § 1015, was directed at "false statements," not statements "contrary to law." Id.²

There are a number of modern cases holding, consistent with the result reached by this Court, that § 1015(a) includes no materiality requirement. See, e.g., Abuagla, 336 F.3d at 278-79; Tongo, 1994 WL 33967, at *4; Rogers, 898 F.Supp. at 220-21, 222 n. 5;³ United States v. Rogers, 908 F.Supp. 219, 220 (S.D.N.Y.1995); Youssef, 2007 WL 666929, at *1-2. The only cases Defendant identifies holding that § 1015(a) or a related predecessor statute includes a materiality requirement are three older district court cases, United States v. Grottkau, 30 F. 672 (E.D.Wis.1887), United States v. Bressi, 208 F. 369 (W.D.Wash. 1913), and United States v. Laut, 17 F.R.D. 31 (S.D.N.Y.1955).⁴ In Grottkau, the court interpreted Section 5395 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, enacted in 1870, which prohibited "knowingly swear[ing] falsely" in an oath or affidavit relating to the naturalization of aliens. Grottkau, 30 F. at 673. Analogizing to common law perjury, the court...