next case is the united states versus bowman mr proctor whenever you're i think i cited a grand total of twelve cases in my brief fine got me beat but not by many the only question really before this court is was i framed the same issue three different ways should the court have granted a new trial the actual knowledge but you know it's circumstantial evidence admissible with the court infer from all sources running things of course either way was the evidence sufficient to show that he knew douglas was a real earl that along those lines was in the evidence that he was himself asked provide them ition on the notion that this was going to be used as part of the scheme and wouldn't that lead someone logically to understand that this was part of the modus operandi that's sad what's really important your honor is the main there were two witnesses on this case mr icahn the so too and i wasn't trial contemn steichen i am so place i just wanna make sure i heard that right did you say that the evidence does show that he provided his identification before he cashed those checks i thought your argument a trial was at the evidence didn't make the timeline clear the evidence is at best will that much is true but so the they had a conversation you want to make some money ok here's what i need in order to make some money you know driver's license social security whatever and then three or four days later again it appears in the testimony as i wasn't trial counsel so i'm thank you that's that's a great question my past evidences is twofold one is mr ackerman so two who provides the majority of the testimony on this mr james talks about it a little but  saying if you do it my way if you participate with me if you partake in my fraudulent endeavors here's what i need for you to open an account and we're talking about it in providing that is to open an account right which he subsequently does june the summer the next year he opens tb ventures and the split was different from when you open an account as opposed to the evidence is on contradicted that prior to june two thousand and thirteen all mister going to the bank or actually i think you want to the a t m machine and he's putting it in the machines are you sir i'm sorry i don't quite understand is is your point that the mere giving up of the id is not enough from which you could infer knowledge that it is that what you're saying that he gave up the idea for some other reason he gave up is this the best money was if you cashed check you got twenty percent of whatever right let's say the check was a thousand dollars you got to on if you opened on a card on which fraud was perpetrated upon you got more you got more like i think forty percent was asked when he's providing his i d that's i'm going to open a fraudulent bank account in my name you think that it can't be inferred from that that he understood that you needed a real identity to open these accounts for two reasons yes a correct ok reason number one is that m i didn't open that one i'm ok so is your are you is just so you're saying all you can tell from this is that the defendant knew this one guy when he opens up the sham bank account uses real i d s but maybe there's another way to do it and maybe they did it a different way on this other about how it's not even maybe your honor because i want point there was again testimony in the joint appendix that mr bowman was given a fake id and he tried to use it and he was unsuccessful in that so there's not a one size fits all you can assume because you open this one this one provide this information that these checks that are already being prepared were done the same way and i want to bring the course civic attention to sixty to join appendix and i look through the government's brief they don't even cite to it if they did i missed it but the question is so do you remember when you told mr bowman this is cross examination of mr if you did tell mr bowman that the density douglas on was a real person right at the bottom page two sixty two of the joint appendix h two sixty one the page before arguably they're talking about what happened t battles that's what miss science has and it's debatable but pitched to sixty two the very next page i don't think there's any ambiguity here at all if you did tell mr bowman that douglas com was a real person and that's the question and the answer no no no no no i wasn't in that open douglas com we just had them cashing money we just had them cash checks that's the priority james the only other person  at page three zero nine of the joint index says the question was or it's the fact of did he ever understand is that he was not using real i d s it wasn't very artfully crafted  answer was no he didn't say anything so friday james testimony is i don't know one way out by there he knew he was using the real names of real people but on page two sixty two of the joint appendix i wasn't the one that another bite at the apple so to speak if this court were to grant that up there's just there's no evidence before this court i think the government's going to respond to that bach warning to other sections of the j a that and to show the opposite of what that testimony's just and in the end what we have a at least from the government's point of view there's a conflict in the testimony and that both the jury and the district court judge resolve that conflict against your client how can that possibly be wrong that i understand your point what's really difficult to keep in mind here is the timeline of events by the summer of two thousand and thirteen we clear what mr bowman knows he's bringing us brother into the operation he's opening t v venture's he's cashing checks on it he's signing checks on it but again you can't retroactively you know the judge gave a willful blindness instruction that talks about mere hindsight isn't enough for a willful blindness you have to you know so the government's response you know it would be nice if they would delineate what he knew by the time the last one was hatched which was november second i think they do delineate that i mean i read the gearing in on of the district court judge i thought they walked through the timeline really specifically and you seem to be saying today that their timeline holds up their their i mean i go through very specifically and i'm going to forget the date there were no dates but that you know you you start with the fact that james open the accounting by the time james was working with the defendant to find it was already working or not going to go to gas and that he testified that he did fill the defendant in on how the operation marks and that the defendant must have understood it and gave up his own id documents to use and they were able to piece it so you know and the cases cited by the government i just wanted to briefly delineate this birth certificate social security driver's license in one case they cited really talk about i must have known it was a real document because it was a hologram on you know anyone with quick books can create these checks so there isn't that presumption that we have in other cases that because you have a check it must be from real person you know we distinguish these cases the government talks about the  real act in the response or get the name is that you first of all i didn't know there was i know your customer that's the word i'm looking for i didn't know until i read these pleadings and second of all when you've got mr bowman who the pre sentence report that's in the sealed join ice cream you know it's it's a stretch at best to say he must have known this court should have inferred that because he has these checks that douglas cons are real person so i'm less the court has any more again i'm not conceding but i really didn't plan to address it and i told mr fina such as well good morning your honor my name is hammer fine i am representing the united states today i was also a trial counsel so i'm responsible for the work of art we praise or crafted questions that were referred to earlier  this is all about timing as harris indicated and timing can be done can be displayed by having tape but it can also be determined and put into evidence in terms of sequences of events happen and what we know is this based upon the record that mr act two met harry bowman when he borrowed him as a worker to cash checks that wasn't part of somebody else's scheme that was part of ther about potential business they exchanged phone numbers and then three to four days after that mr bowman gave mr accurate such a copy of his maryland identification with his social security number on it is in the scheme and mr x to testify i'm looking at a one forty three to fourteen to sixteen to seventeen to fifty three he testified that during that period of time between when they met prior fraud employer to me talked about how the scheme worked they talked about the use of identities and they talked about with whether mr bowman would agree to let his identity explo thank for days to be generous before they met at the gas station and then then another four days again to be generous before where mr bowman indicated he understood the scheme understood ideas were used to open these accounts and provided his own and that yes your honor and he knew how to act that and well as i said it's all one scheme in some cases they did not have accounts to use to run their fraudulent deposits through and so they borrowed account  sometimes they didn't have the workers so they borrowed workers and to me loaned them work is loaned to mr bowman for example they are all accounts that were used within the same scheme and the fact that mr actual is so perelman also provided identification of friends of his is that accurate mr berman was interested in earning more money and so over the course of the next the first few months he sort of extended what he did so mister friday james you see that they were constantly looking for input into their scheme they needed people to cast checks sometimes they had to borrow they needed people to open these accounts because otherwise sometimes they had to borrow them and the significance of that mr it was absolutely clear about the significance of that is money if you borrow someone's workers you have to give them a cut if you borrow someone's bank account you have to give them a cut and so that's why they were eager to have it all done within the people who were under their control and so they would not i didn't intend to but just this whole thing reminds me that there's so much evidence of knowledge later on in the scheme so how did we come to care only about this thirteen a period  the fall of two thousand and twelve when that's sort of the government's toughest time to show this knowledge is was that the only predicate no your honor and had i this to do over again with hindsight i probably would have added additional aggravated a true victim that is someone whose identity was used as opposed to a complicit conspirator whose identity was being used this was by far sort of the hardest time and it's right me that even the district court when when the hearing opens as i don't see any evidence of knowledge be and again i take responsibility that i was the person who did it and and lesson learned that i know more counts of aggravated identity theft and in future cases i think the other thing to remember is multiple bank accounts and we know that from the testimony of rachel crane rachel nicely the postal inspector who had previously been a security officer for hugh and she talked about went through the documents were his apple robbins applications for various accounts for t v ventures and pointed out we are in the documents you can see that he had an account at he that he had in the case and at bank of america he didn't have to use his thumb print to make transactions a bank of america because they already had it on record he was a customer and so you have the fact that mr payment was involved in banking generally and you want to have the fact that mr bowman was in the whole thing from he was involved in fraud because had been working for to me doing another one of these check cases and so when you look at the clark case which i know the defense decided are the appellant has cited as supporting them i think it actually supports the government you circuit held a defendant ability to deposit checks and make withdrawals funds from those account evidence is how it's that he was using the means of identification of a real person and th be a bank account holder and a prior perpetrator of identity theft knew that banks open just accounts and give credit to give credit only to real people so that case  is exactly on point in the sense that mr bowman was an account holder this your problem and was in fact a prior identity theft individual and so he had knowledge that could be attributed to him circumstantial evidence that he must have known now that's obviously not all we have but when you look at the direct evidence in the context of that circumstantial evidence it becomes quite a compelling case that in fact in this case  i don't have an awful lot to add courts clearly read the briefs underlying opinion the ruling in the district court i just wanted to point out briefly that the testimony from both  more than a decade i think bennett came along and i was on a need to know basis because if you have the people that can cash the checks you can steal them if you have the means of making a fake identity you  know you don't want to share that with someone else it's compromised for want it's comp and ice both if you have social security numbers of judge diaz you don't want to share that with someone else because they burned that social security number you can't use that i think that was the task it was on a need to know basis and so within three or four days of meeting mr bowman mr ackerman so too gives up the keys to the kingdom and says well let me tell you about douglas kahn he's a real guy he lives where real lives he's got good credit we've opened this economy we've been feeding money back and forth doing transaction shadowing on another so that it's seasoned now is the time let's get in let's catch three checks in eight days before someone figures this out that's not supported by the testimony it's not a reasonable inference from the facts and while mr bowman needed to know a lot more later it's a fair inference from that's what this court you can conclude miss fine talks about how this was all one scheme there's no evidence really of the douglas on account came into exist