United States v. Pate
| Decision Date | 10 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-10545 |
| Citation | 43 F.4th 1268 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Timothy Jermaine PATE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Nancy Greenwood, U.S. Attorney's Office, Augusta, GA, James C. Stuchell, U.S. Attorney Service - Southern District of Georgia, U.S. Attorney's Office, Savannah, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Justin Maines, The Nye Law Group, PC, Savannah, GA, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before Newsom, Branch, and Lagoa, Circuit Judges.
Title 18 U.S.C. § 1521 prohibits the filing of a false lien or encumbrance against the property of any officer or employee of the United States "on account of the performance of official duties." In 2018, Timothy Jermaine Pate filed various false liens against John Koskinen, the former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Jacob Lew, the former Secretary of the Treasury. There is no dispute that Pate filed the false liens to retaliate against Lew and Koskinen for acts they performed as part of their official duties. The twist here, and what makes this a case of first impression for this Court, is that Pate filed the false liens after Lew and Koskinen had left their positions with the federal government. We therefore are presented with the following question: Does § 1521 apply to false liens filed against former federal officers and employees for official actions they performed while in service with the federal government? We conclude that the answer to this question is yes—the plain language of § 1521 covers both current and former federal officers and employees. Thus, for the reasons discussed below, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm Pate's convictions predicated on violations of § 1521.
On October 3, 2018, a grand jury indicted Pate, who often referred to himself as "Akenaten Ali," on sixteen counts of filing false retaliatory liens against federal officials in violation of § 1521 and five counts of false bankruptcy declarations in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 152(3). This appeal concerns only four of the filing-false-lien counts, with one set of counts pertaining to false liens filed against John Koskinen, the former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), and the other set of counts pertaining to false liens filed against Jacob Lew, the former Secretary of the Treasury. At the times relevant to this appeal, Koskinen and Lew were no longer government officials.
As to the counts pertaining to Koskinen, Count 1 alleged that Pate filed a false retaliatory lien against Koskinen on or about March 6, 2018. Likewise, Count 6 alleged that Pate filed another false retaliatory lien against Koskinen on or about May 7, 2018. As to the counts pertaining to Lew, Count 5 alleged that Pate filed a false retaliatory lien against Lew on or about May 1, 2018. Similarly, Count 8 alleged that Pate filed another false retaliatory lien against Lew on or about May 7, 2018. As discussed below, these counts stemmed from Pate's filing of the false liens during a separate civil lawsuit that Pate filed against Koskinen, seemingly in an attempt to recoup a tax credit from the IRS. As relevant to this appeal, the magistrate judge entered a plea of not guilty for Pate as to these criminal counts, and the matter proceeded to trial on October 15, 2019.
At trial, the government called Jamie Hodge, the deputy clerk for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, as a witness. Hodge testified that Pate filed a complaint against Koskinen in a separate civil action on October 10, 2017 and indicated that an affidavit of compliance was attached to the complaint, stating that the IRS had not returned to Pate a tax credit for 2015 and 2016,1 that Pate was not a United States citizen, that Pate would never play the role of a debtor, and that Pate was an "heir to the Kingdom of Morocco." In his filings, Pate threatened to file liens against any judge, tax official, attorney, government official, or individual who opposed him in his litigation against Koskinen.
The United States Department of Justice ("DOJ") filed a motion to dismiss on Koskinen's behalf in this separate civil lawsuit, arguing that Pate was a "tax defier who participated in an original issue discount ... scheme to defraud the government" and that such a scheme was a "frivolous tax argument that has been around in various forms for many years." In his response to DOJ's motion, Pate threatened to file liens against Koskinen, Lew, and others if the IRS did not return to Pate the purported tax credit and if Koskinen, Lew, and others failed to answer his questions. Pate subsequently carried out his threats, filing a $33 million maritime lien against Koskinen on March 6, 2018 and a $15 million maritime lien against Lew on May 1, 2018. While the motion to dismiss in this separate civil lawsuit was pending, Pate also filed another lien against Koskinen for $33 million and another lien against Lew for $15 million in the form of U.C.C. Financing Statements on May 7, 2018. Thereafter, the district court presiding over the civil lawsuit dismissed Pate's case and, through a miscellaneous proceeding, declared the liens null and void, expunged them from the record, and prohibited Pate from filing such actions and liens without the district court's prior authorization.
At the criminal trial relevant to this appeal, the government also called Koskinen and Lew as witnesses. Koskinen testified that he was Commissioner of the IRS from December 2013 to November 2017 and that he was currently retired. He denied having any meetings, communications, correspondence, contracts, or loans with Pate. He also denied owing Pate $33 million when asked about the maritime lien and U.C.C. Financing Statement lien. With respect to the U.C.C. Financing Statement lien, Koskinen identified the mailing address listed below his name as belonging to the IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C.
During Lew's testimony, Lew stated that he was the Secretary of the Treasury between February 2013 and January 20, 2017, and that he currently worked as a partner in a private equity firm and as a visiting professor at Columbia University. Like Koskinen, Lew denied having any knowledge of Pate or having any communications or loans with him. He also denied owing Pate $15 million when asked about the maritime lien and U.C.C. Financing Statement lien. With respect to the U.C.C. Financing Statement lien, Lew identified the mailing address listed below his name—i.e., 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.—as belonging to the Department of the Treasury.
After the government rested, defense counsel for Pate moved for a directed verdict as to Counts 1, 5, 6, and 8, arguing that "the federal official[s] alleged in those counts, former Commissioner [Koskinen], and former Secretary ... Lew, were not public officials at the time" Pate filed the liens. For this reason, defense counsel asserted that § 1521 did not apply to Pate because § 1521, and its cross reference to 18 U.S.C. § 1114, did not pertain to former government officials. The district court took the motion under advisement and denied it, ruling that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could conclude that Pate filed the liens against Koskinen and Lew "on account of the performance of official duties." Pate did not present a further defense, and the jury found him guilty on all twenty-one counts. The district court subsequently sentenced Pate to 300 months’ imprisonment, and Pate filed this timely appeal relevant to the four counts of filing false liens.
"We review questions of statutory interpretation de novo." United States v. Johnson , 399 F.3d 1297, 1298 (11th Cir. 2005)
On appeal, Pate advances the same argument that he made to the district court during his motion for a directed verdict—that § 1521 does not apply to him because, as he claims, § 1521 does not apply to former government officials like Koskinen and Lew. For the below reasons, we are not persuaded by Pate's argument and his reading of § 1521.
Statutory interpretation analysis "begins and ends with the statutory text." Singh v. U.S. Att'y Gen. , 945 F.3d 1310, 1314 (11th Cir. 2019). This "fundamental precept" of statutory interpretation requires that the statute's language "be given its plain and ordinary meaning unless the statutory text or context requires otherwise." United States v. Chinchilla , 987 F.3d 1303, 1313 (11th Cir. 2021). As such, we begin with the applicable statutory text.
Section 1521, the primary statute under review, provides:
Whoever files, attempts to file, or conspires to file, in any public record or in any private record which is generally available to the public, any false lien or encumbrance against the real or personal property of an individual described in [ 18 U.S.C.] section 1114, on account of the performance of official duties by that individual, knowing or having reason to know that such lien or encumbrance is false or contains any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both.
For purposes of § 1521, Congress premised liability on an action taken against "an individual described in section 1114," thereby incorporating portions of § 1114. Section 1114 makes it a crime to kill or attempt to kill2 :
[A]ny officer or employee of the United States or of any agency in any branch of the United States Government (including any member of the uniformed services) while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties, or any person assisting such an officer or employee in the performance of such duties or on account of that assistance.
Section 1114 addresses two categories of individuals. First, § 1114 addresses "any officer or employee of the United States or of any agency in any branch of...
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...on account of the performance of official duties." United States v. Pate, 43 F.4th 1268, 1275 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation marks omitted). In Pate, we upheld the conviction under § 1521 where the defendant filed false liens against the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") and......