United States v. Deason
| Decision Date | 07 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-10461,14-10461 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee v. CALEB DEASON, Defendant - Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Before WIENER, CLEMENT, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.
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A jury convicted Defendant-Appellant Caleb Deason of: (1) one count of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and (2) one count of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957.1 On appeal, Deason challenges hisconviction, his sentence, and the court's restitution order, each of which we affirm.
Deason worked as a financial planner and independent insurance agent in Fort Worth, Texas. One of his clients was Daniel Secker. With Deason's assistance, Mr. Secker purchased a new life insurance policy issued by Transamerica Life Insurance Company ("Transamerica"), which took effect in December 2011. The Transamerica policy was intended to replace Mr. Secker's other life insurance policy which was issued by ING. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Secker died. At the time of his death, both of those policies were still in effect. Deason contacted Transamerica and told them that he would handle the claim of the beneficiary, Mr. Secker's widow, because he (Deason) was close to the Secker family.
After a series of exchanges over several weeks with the widow and her sister-in-law, who had been acting as a go-between, and with his Transamerica contact, Deason eventually sent a wire transfer form to Transamerica that he had created listing Mrs. Secker as the payee but also listing his Wells Fargo account number. He received an email saying that the claim had "been processed and submitted for approval," and that the "wire payment should be in the beneficiary's account by the end of the week." The next week, he realized that $1,004,028.41 had been deposited into his own Wells Fargo account. Three days after the money was deposited in his account, Deason texted Mrs. Secker's sister-in-law and explained that Transamerica was still investigating the claim because Mr. Secker had died during the policy's contestability period.2 Deason then transferred the policy's proceeds that he had received tohis savings accounts in three separate amounts. A week or so later, he withdrew approximately $67,133.00 from one of his savings accounts and used these funds to obtain a cashier's check, with which he purchased a used Land Rover. He then opened two new accounts with Wells Fargo and deposited the balance remaining from the Transamerica proceeds (approximately $933,000.00) into the newly-created accounts.
In September 2013, a grand jury charged Deason with the above-said counts, one for wire fraud and the other for engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. During the trial, Deason filed a motion for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the government's case and renewed his motion post-verdict, claiming in both that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. The trial court denied both motions. After a two-day trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on each count.
The presentence report ("PSR") recommended that the court increase Deason's offense level by two levels pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 for obstruction of justice because his sworn testimony was inconsistent with the evidence presented by the government. The PSR also suggested that, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3(a)(1), an upward departure to his sentence might be warranted based on reliable information that his criminal history category of I underrepresented his situation, viz., the likelihood that he would commit other crimes. Relative to this appeal, Deason challenged the obstruction of justice enhancement on the ground that his testimony at trial was truthful, but he indicated that he did not intend to present any further evidence regarding this objection.
Deason filed written objections, which he renewed during the sentencing hearing. The trial court overruled his obstruction of justice objection, explaining that it had reviewed the trial transcript and concluded that Deason gave several false answers during the trial which were designed to mislead thejury. The court adopted the factual findings of the PSR, as modified or supplemented by an addendum, and concluded that Deason's total offense level was 28. Combined with his criminal history category of I, the guideline imprisonment range was 78 to 97 months. After providing Deason and his counsel an opportunity to speak on his behalf, the court imposed an above-guidelines sentence of 120 months and ordered Deason to make restitution to Transamerica in the amount of $99,491.75.
In his "kitchen sink" appeal, Deason presents roughly a dozen challenges to his conviction, sentence, and restitution order. We first consider the issues he preserved, then address the contentions that he raises for the first time on appeal.
Deason claims that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to support his conviction for the conduct charged in Count One because: (1) Count One charges a wire from a bank in Iowa, and (2) there is insufficient evidence to support the interstate-commerce nexus. Deason preserved his objection to the sufficiency of the evidence by filing motions for a judgment of acquittal, so we review that objection de novo.3 The standard for such a claim is high: "In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence and the inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the verdict, and we determine whether a rational jury could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."4
The elements of wire fraud, as set out in 18 U.S.C. § 1343, are: (1) a scheme to defraud, (2) the use of wire communications, and (3) a specific intent to defraud.5 Deason's challenge relates to the second element, the use of wire communications. Claiming that Count One of the indictment charges a wire from a bank located in Iowa, he contends that the evidence presented at trial showed a wire to his Wells Fargo account from a bank located in New York, and insists that the evidence is thus insufficient to convict him for the conduct charged. Count One charges:
On or about April 5, 2012, in the Fort Worth Division of the Northern District of Texas and elsewhere, the defendant, Caleb Deason, . . . caused to be transmitted, by means of wire and radio communications in interstate commerce . . . a wire transfer of approximately $1,004,028.41 from HSBC Bank USA on behalf of Transamerica Life Insurance Company, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to the defendant's Wells Fargo Bank account, located in the state of Texas.
We are unpersuaded by Deason's deliberate misreading of this charge. Count One does not list the location of HSBC Bank USA as Iowa; rather, it states that Transamerica is located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.6
Relying on the same misreading of Count One, Deason contends that, because the United States did not adduce evidence that the charged wire was transmitted from Iowa into another state, his conviction for wire fraud must be reversed for lack of evidence regarding a nexus to interstate commerce. For substantially the same reasons expressed in the prior paragraph, we rejectDeason's claim that there is insufficient evidence of the wire's nexus to interstate commerce because Count One charged an "Iowa bank wire."7
Deason also attacks the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction for the conduct charged in Count Two, claiming that: (1) a cashier's check is not expressly defined as a "monetary instrument" in § 1956(c)(5) so his purchase of the cashier's check does not support his conviction under § 1957(a); (2) there is insufficient evidence to show that he "knew" the property with which he purchased the cashier's check was criminally-derived; and, (3) there is no evidentiary support for concluding that his purchase of the cashier's check implicated interstate commerce. Deason preserved his sufficiency of the evidence challenge, so we review these claims de novo.8 To repeat, our review is highly deferential to the jury's verdict.9
We consider first Deason's contention that his purchase of the cashier's check does not constitute a "monetary transaction" under § 1957(a) because a cashier's check is not defined as a "monetary instrument" in 18 U.S.C. § 1956(c)(5). The statutory language of §§ 1956 and 1957, and our precedent, foreclose his theory. First, a "monetary transaction" is defined in § 1957(f)(1) as "the deposit, withdrawal, transfer, or exchange, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, of funds or a monetary instrument . . . by, through, or to a financial institution . . ., including any transaction that would be a financial transaction under section 1956(c)(4)(B) of this title."10 A "financial transaction" is defined under § 1956(c)(4)(B) as a "transaction involving theuse of a financial institution which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce in any way or degree."11
Deason's purchase of a cashier's check constitutes a "monetary transaction" for the purpose of § 1957(a) in two ways: (1) It constitutes a "transfer, or exchange . . . of funds . . . by, through, and to a financial institution," and (2) it constitutes a "transaction involving the use of a financial institution . . . which affect[s] interstate . . . commerce."12 We are satisfied that his conduct falls within § 1957(a) even though cashier's checks are not expressly included on the list of "monetary instruments" in § 1956(c)(5).
Deason next claims that the trial record lacks the "necessary direct or circumstantial evidence" to support the jury's conclusion that he knew the $67,133.00 he withdrew to purchase the cashier's check was...
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