United States v. Coughlin

• Decision Date: 06 July 2011
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No. 08–334 (RCL).
• Citation: 821 F.Supp.2d 8
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Charles E. COUGHLIN, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

821 F.Supp.2d 8

UNITED STATES of America

v.Charles E. COUGHLIN, Defendant.

Criminal Case No. 08–334 (RCL).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

July 6, 2011.

Jonathan William Haray, Susan Beth Menzer, U.S. Attorney's Office, Washington, DC, for United States of America.

Andrew Jay Graham, Kramon & Graham, P.A., Baltimore, MD, for Defendant.

Memorandum Opinion

ROYCE C. LAMBERTH, Chief Judge.

Before the Court are several motions that will determine the scope and nature of the defendant's upcoming retrial for making a false claim and theft of public money. The Court has reviewed the parties' motions, the applicable law, and the entire record in this case extensively. Its resolution of these motions is intricate, piecemeal, and not amenable to quick synopsis in this introductory paragraph. Therefore, the Court offers the following explanation of this case's complex factual and procedural background, a summary of the parties' various motions and arguments, and its own explanation of its reasoning in resolving them.

I. Facts and Procedural History

a. Coughlin's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Claim

Charles Coughlin, a United States naval officer, was working at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed a hijacked plane into the building just seventy-five feet from his desk. In December 2003, Coughlin submitted a claim to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), which Congress created to compensate people who were injured in the attack. He claimed that the crash caused the ceiling over his desk to collapse, that flying debris hit him, and that he struck his head while rescuing people at the disaster site.

On January 22, 2004, Coughlin's attorney, Walter Laake, hand-delivered Coughlin's claim application, with an attached cover letter, to the VCF. On February 3, Laake mailed the VCF a corrected version of the cover letter. The January 22nd and February 3rd documents explained Coughlin's claim that his 9/11 injuries caused him severe and permanent disabilities, including neck, head, and upper back pain; restricted range of motion; and weakness and numbness in his left arm and hand. Coughlin said that his injuries prevented him from playing certain sports, and his medical needs forced him to take time off from work. He claimed that he couldn't complete normal household chores like painting, electrical wiring, and installing a patio. Instead, he said, he had to pay others to do them and included a list of ten checks he had written for such replacement services. His application made clear, though, that he wasn't seeking compensation for those replacement services or any other economic damages. Instead, he sought $180,000 in compensation solely “for the personal injuries that he suffered.”

Initially, the VCF determined that Coughlin was ineligible for compensation because he hadn't sought medical treatment within the time allowed by the Fund. On February 17, 2004, though, Coughlin appealed that determination, explaining the delay and asking for a waiver of ineligibility that was available to rescue workers. On February 20 and March 9, he submitted additional documentation to support his appeal, including certified medical records and a doctor's report. The VCF then reversed itself and, on April 14, informed Coughlin that he was eligible for a presumed award of $60,000. That award represented zero dollars of economic loss and $60,000 of noneconomic loss. It advised Coughlin that he could either accept that amount or request an appeal hearing. On April 30, Coughlin's attorney mailed the VCF a letter asking for such a hearing.

At the May 13, 2004 appeal hearing, Coughlin's attorney told the hearing officer that Coughlin had two reasons for seeking review. The $60,000 presumed award for non-economic loss was, he said, “unfair and inadequate and in and of itself would give rise to a request for review.” But the presumed award was also an egregious error because it “provided no compensation for economic loss to the Claimant.” The attorney acknowledged that the failure to award compensation for economic loss was not the VCF's fault. He explained that “one of the things that we didn't spell out in the initial claim and that the claim evaluator really didn't have before him—and it was an oversight on my part ... was the fact that there was a past, present, and future loss of earnings component to this claim, which was never even made initially.”

To support his appeal, Coughlin submitted ten new exhibits, nine of which addressed his economic loss claim. These included a letter documenting salary he lost from taking off from work for doctor appointments and physical therapy. He also offered thirty-two carbon copies of checks purportedly reflecting payments to others for household chores he could no longer perform himself. Finally, he provided a six-page schedule setting out and totaling his past and future economic claims. The VCF rendered its final decision on June 1, awarding Coughlin $331,034: $151,034 for economic damages and the entire $180,000 he had requested for noneconomic damages for his personal injury.

b. The First Trial

A grand jury indicted Coughlin on October 31, 2008, charging that, “[f]rom in or about December 2003, and continuing until in or about June 2004,” he “willfully and knowingly devised, and intended to devise, a scheme and artifice to defraud the VCF and to obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses and representations.” Indictment ¶ 6. The indictment alleged that Coughlin submitted false and misleading information about his pre-and post-September 11 medical condition and about his loss of earnings.

The indictment contained five counts of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341—one for each letter that Coughlin sent or caused to be sent to the VCF while pursuing his claim. Count One was for the February 3, 2004 version of the cover letter that his attorney originally sent to the VCF on January 22, 2004. Count Two was for his February 17 appeal of the VCF's ineligibility decision. Count Three was for the February 20 letter that contained certified copies of his medical records. Count Four was for the March 9 letter that contained additional exhibits that Coughlin offered to support his rescue activities and physical injuries. Count Five was for his April 30 request for an appeal hearing regarding the amount of the VCF award.

The indictment also included two non-mail-fraud counts. Count Six charged Coughlin with making a false and fraudulent claim in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 287. And Count Seven charged him with theft of public money in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641.

After a month-long trial, a jury acquitted Coughlin on three of the five mail fraud charges—Counts Two, Three, and Five. It was unable to reach a verdict on the other four counts, and on April 15, 2009, the presiding judge, Honorable Henry Kennedy, granted a mistrial.

c. The Second Trial

The government sought to retry Coughlin on all of the hung counts. Coughlin objected, invoking a prong of the double jeopardy analysis known as “issue preclusion” or “collateral estoppel.” In Ashe v. Swenson, the Supreme Court explained that this doctrine bars the government from prosecuting a defendant on a charge that depends on facts that a previous acquittal on a different charge necessarily decided in the defendant's favor. 397 U.S. 436, 443–44, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970).

At the time of the April 15 mistrial, the rule in the D.C. Circuit was that Ashe didn't bar retrial in a case like Coughlin's. In United States v. White, the Circuit held that, where the same jury acquits a defendant on some charges and can't reach a verdict as to others, the acquittals couldn't have been based on a fact upon which the hung counts depended. 936 F.2d 1326, 1329 (D.C.Cir.1991). Adhering to White, Judge Kennedy denied Coughlin's double jeopardy motion. On June 8, 2009, a new trial commenced on the two remaining mail fraud counts, as well as on the false claim and theft counts.

In the middle of the second trial, the Supreme Court decided Yeager v. United States, 557 U.S. 110, 129 S.Ct. 2360, 174 L.Ed.2d 78 (2009). Yeager expressly overruled the decisions of those circuits—including the D.C. Circuit—that had held that a conflict between acquittals and hung counts barred the application of issue preclusion. 129 S.Ct. at 2365 (citing White, 936 F.2d 1326). Relying on Yeager, Coughlin promptly renewed his motion to bar retrial. He argued that the only disputed issue at the first trial was his fraudulent intent; that by acquitting him on some mail fraud counts, the jury necessarily found that he had acted in good faith when he sought money from the VCF; and that this finding precluded liability on all of the remaining counts. On June 30, Judge Kennedy denied Coughlin's motion, concluding that, although his argument regarding the two mail fraud counts was not frivolous, it failed to satisfy the Yeager test. As for the false claim and theft counts, Judge Kennedy held that Coughlin's double jeopardy argument simply lacked legal merit.

Coughlin filed both an appeal of Judge Kennedy's decision as well as an emergency motion to stay the ongoing retrial. A special panel of the D.C. Circuit stayed the trial pending the appeal. The panel found the stay warranted in light of the “unusual circumstances presented” by Yeager's mid-trial reversal of Circuit precedent, and in light of Judge Kennedy's determination that Coughlin's double jeopardy claim wasn't entirely frivolous. It took the D.C. Circuit a good deal of time to decide the case, and eventually the parties moved for—and Judge Kennedy—granted a mistrial.

d. The D.C. Circuit's Decision

The D.C. Circuit reversed Judge Kennedy's decision to allow the government to retry Coughlin on the two remaining mail fraud counts and affirmed his decision allowing retrial of the false claim and theft counts. United States v. Coughlin, 610 F.3d 89 (D.C.Cir...