there are a couple of issues that i wish to bring to the court's attention this morning the st of which deals with counts two through eleven those counts would be subject to an enlarged statute of limitations because the  ten years prior to the time of the indictment and the issue there is that the government simply failed to prove any reasonable connection between sun trust bank which i simply as bank and sun trust mortgage which held refer to his mortgage the only testimony of the only evidence that we have is st of all the government called a former vice president of mortgage who is asked if what is the what is the relationship between mortgage and bank and his answer was that mortgage is a wholly owned subsidiary of bank well in two thousand and seventeen we certainly did not this a great problem was it did not say anything about two thousand and six in two thousand and seven nd of all there was there was evidence of a wire transfer that came directly from bank two  of directors meeting minutes show the relationship between the two entities there were no contract there were no evidence about common directors or shareholders there was no wrong agreement stating for example for many of the persons who apply for mortgages that their mortgage could be sold to another financial institution in other words the are twenty nine should have been granted there was simply only speculation about the relationship between the two the  the nd issue is the one concerning the the the testimony concerning diminished capacity by the experts psychiatry and the jury charge that followed transactions occurred that he suffered from bipolar one disease with psychotic episodes which is the most paranoid most serious of the bipolar gradations  so the question here was and what what the trial counsel sort do was to be able to have this expert testimony to so that you could draw the conclusion rojas lacked the ability to form specific intent not anything else not he was contesting anything else other than the fact that he had did not have the ability to form a specific intent to commit the wiring bank the psychiatry this two to testify about you had to basically give the definition to give give the jury a premire on what and what bipolar one disorder with psychotic episodes me and that and that that how it would apply specifically to this case now once again recognizing there's a for certainly a fine line between a comment on the ultimate issue which is that for the  jury which was certainly not something that was being argued or requested by the facts which then brings us to the to the instruction which which is really really a problem the instruction in was simply that there has been testimony that mr bell during the relevant time period of the indictment was suffering from mental health condition that may have been  thank you may have impacted his judgment and what ended up happening was was the trial judge declined to give the theory of defense instruction and frankly gave an instruction that did not accurately depict what the theory of defense was because the trial judge charge that the theory of defense was that he could not formulate specific intent in mid two thousand and seven well that isn't what what was being bank as opposed to the mortgage company so clearly the defendant was on notice that the bank would be affected and martin there was an agreement that the mortgage could not be so that the mortgage could be sell to another financial institution thereby putting the defense and i notice that there was a an increased risk of loss in mullens which the government cited the government proved meticulously have the fraud affected both the bit of a chart reflecting the senses miss rojas with sentenced to a total term of one hundred and fourteen months and that sentence was greater than the total combined sentences of everybody else that was sentenced in this case there were thirteen players in all seven of the players the corrupt banker who really was involved in falsifying that the bank application the information on the financial sector was never even die none of the straw buyers were indicted and backed the miller title employees who were in charge of actually preparing the hud was preparing or assisting the borrowers in the loan applications going through the loan process and through the closing process none of the closing agents or employees were indicted the only people that were indicted along with ms rojas and her son and they were the title owners would be carlos  what's been called the trial penalty regarding the sufficiency of the evidence i just wanted to point out to the port that you have a six year old plus woman a st offender the mother and holder of a title company which the title company doesn't prepare the hugs they don't seem to be information they would be to recruiters bankers loan officers closing agents sellers straw purchasers and she never prepared any signed any loan at station on such documents it appears that the government's argument is even though this woman is  charge of or at least coal owner of a title company that's conducting over at this period anywhere from one hundred and two thousand two hundred closings a month several years later gets indicted for twelve residential loans that the government  hinky and i think if i read their argument their suggestion of sufficiency the evidence goes to the source of the funds the clothes which were not from the borrowers but rather were from sellers that were invested put title companies accept funds from family members rd parties investors real estate companies etc in this particular case the lender never prohibited that conduct and never explicitly prohibited or excluded that conduct  so therefore really doing nothing other than signing a few papers or a few checks a woman that been sitting in an office fire itself is being run by the recruiters and being run by the employees none of whom are indicted we believe the evidence in that scenario is insufficient became the target of the rojas a twenty eight million dollars fraud contrary to what the defense is arguing all of the all that is required to show an effect on a bank is for the scheme to have created a risk of loss to the bank a bank may not have been the target of the fraud charged loans as further evidence of funding the government also introduced miller titles bank account statements which plainly show that the loan proceeds were wired by sun trust think out of atlanta georgia not on trust mortgage the wire confirmations also had the borrowers names which further links on trust bank transfer to the fraudulent loan proceeds they counsel have made chiefly for argument st they take a hyper technical reading  witness jason grable testimony by relying on the fact that he's the present tense when in context it's clear he was talking about the time period at issue but cancel overlooks two key features of his testimony st the questions leading up to the parent subsidiary discussion all focused around the time period at issue and nd the witness was employed at the bank from two thousand and six to two thousand and twelve so he couldn't have been talking about the bank's relationship at the time of the trial but instead was relying on his prior knowledge of the bank structure moreover a nd witness lou sellers the bank's investigator excuse me the government's investigator testified to the same relationship and his response was specific to the twenty million sixty two thousand and seven time period off to the extent that there are multiple competing inferences that can be drawn from the evidence that the reading that favors the jury verdict should prevail nd if we look at the ledgers as somehow supporting a loss mitigation arrangement this doesn't eliminate the risk of los more specific to this case to affect a financial institution and highlighting the distinction between to effect a bank that is with respect to wire fraud and to put your funds owned by a financial institution which was the question at issue bennett case because it was proceeding under a bank fraud charge the bennett court suggested the wire fraud could actually be satisfied with proof that the parent subsidiary relationship even though that evidence would not cut it for bank fraud forced this is more of the term but overlooking the fact that she still received a forty percent reduction from the lower end of the guideline i think he said this is family martin the argument more to go to the pretty experienced i mean i know you can do that but do you think it's really a good idea to have these kind of extreme disparities between the defendants that go to trial and the ones that  out in the argument presented today as she wasn't just a bystander she was one of two owners in the two closely held title companies that were at the heart of the scheme and not only that but she was directly responsible and depositing the the proceeds essentially that were going to be used to pay back the bank and without her title license it would be difficult to conceive of the scheme having arisen the way that it did and  the source of the funds to have been essentially a clue to the way that they were so i think she was not just a minor player and i think they're casting her in the role of say a son of conoco or a christina if you know but that definitely was not deeply connected to the mechanisms that allowed this conspiracy to succeed so so for all of those reasons it's not a disproportionate sentence considering her role and considering other sentences mental health concerns that were raised by defense counsel actively with defense counsel is arguing that their expert dr miller should have been allowed to o four b prevents us from doing in a criminal case an expert witness must not offer an opinion about whether the defendant did or did not have a particular mental  of the transactions with respect to michael rojas and with respect to his mental illness was that with respect to the non one hundred and twelve ounce of you transaction he was simply according to him he was simply acting according to industry standard and his direct testimony when he took the stand he testified multiple times that it was industry standard and any party not necessarily the buyer could provide the cash flows and this is not a problem so would be very inconsistent for him to say on the one hand i'm applying industry standard but nevertheless i'm also operating in a manic state for all of these other transactions his mental illness defense was cabinet necessarily believe that it was error in applying that those instructions put in the but in any event to the extent they're arguing that it was error it was certainly invited error multiple times defense counsel even before the court officially stated that it why they asked for a mistrial as a result of the investigators identification of michael rojas is signature on fifteen why is because it is effectively undercut what i said earlier about michael michael rojas his testimony about industry standards he testified that whenever you have cash to close it can be essentially supplied by anyone who is not the buyer what fifteen y y in that series of transactions concerning the way purchased with that shows is in the process of supplying proof of the cash to close that the the supporting document was doctored to reflect that the buyer rather than being the title was the actual supplier  had custody and control over her children well if that were the case certainly as i think we all know a parent certainly has has their child living under their own roof and hopefully have  control over them depends on what age they are i suppose if that were the case between bank and mortgage here then mortgage would have been the alter ego of bank and clearly the equal protection that both enjoy would have been dissipated in fact one need only look at the at the indictment itself and the indictment itself distinguishes between mortgage being the lender and bank being the financial institution and i would suggest that as a result of the lack of evidence to show the relationship between the two that in fact what we have is the is  that is because the district judge had ruled and i would most respectfully suggest having tried so many cases in forty one years when it when the district judge makes a ruling and then gives you a choice and tells you you know see if you can  and finally i would just make the point very very clearly that the defendant testify and clearly and in any trial if there's any one particular piece of evidence that is most important for jury it's when a defendant testifies and the defendant did not say that i was that i did not knowingly sign the checks or do the transactions that are the subject of the case but rather what ended up happening was was the district judge misstated it when when he said that his theory could could only be formulate specific intent in mid two thousand and seven and more importantly that he did not act knowingly and willfully and with specific intent very well thank you very much thank you appreciate the argument say that sometime in two thousand and five you recall he basically told are generally about a c he didn't say any specifics again that's a year before any charge conduct he never relayed what the conversation was who was present what was said if you look through the transcripts of his testimony is wrong in general terms of referring to barbara and michael what they did or barbara or mike again no specifics in general terms regarding the disbursement funds and