legally sufficient evidence the district court instructed the jury but expect to shift the instrument is quote a bogus financial documents made to look like a real financial documents when there is no such genuine financial instrument given that instruction aid and i'll just know that the government's now arguing that you know the document looks different than their legitimate counterparts and that they were partly issued by non existing entities and so they are not counterfeit within the meaning of or seventy two dollars which is the counterfeiting because in those cases the defendant in that case made the same argument that the government's making here which is that those documents were so obviously fake that they couldn't be prosecuted under section four hundred and seventy two dollars the counterfeit statue but the court  case that you know even if there were obvious you know differences between the genuine versions of those documents and the ones of the defense hat they may have been apparent to a skeptical examiner trained in the detection counterfeit currency what matters is whether an ordinary person not a g s a investigator whether an ordinary person had no grounds for suspicion but except those is true and sheer of the evidence is overwhelming except for one american airlines employee all ordinary person might think right and that's not that's not from the statute and that's not from the judge's instruction correct that discussion of what an ordinary person with think and what the legislative intent was and what kind of victim fourteen to government checks on the theory that they were drawn on a nonexistent account and therefore were were totally bogus why isn't this like that that  is to say something that in the words of the statute purports to be an actual security or financial instrument but in fact it is not because it's drawn on a nonexistent  had made them out to be so if we have cases from other circuits that say well you have a check check exists but it doesn't exist with that particular routing number and you have the th circuit saying purchase orders or travel requests exist but they don't exist for an entity called the office of commissioner for birds are i think so i think i may not be so particular i'm sure i can you repeat that  that multimillion dollar federal reserve notes which just do not exist is different than saying that government travel orders and government purchase orders do not exist now i understand that the government purchase orders and the travel request here that different things on them but that does not mean that they were not presented as made to appear as and were usually accepted as mature to make government travel requests or purchase orders go into so the same as the th circuit  distinction when it said that a counterfeit only one hundred dollars bill which you know we could have wrong serial numbers that could have as the government notes and everything could have like a secretary of state signature it's whether somebody who's being presented with a reasonable person looks at it and says this is obviously something phony anyway the th circuit made that distinction between a phony one hundred dollars bill which is counterfeit and a fictitious federal treasury warrant now you can say that but it supports their you know the issued correct if somebody presented you so hard in our case we have a government a purchase order there are such things as purchase orders but not on behalf of and of entities called the commissioner for secretary a signature you don't look closely for the treasury secretary signature but if somebody hand you a thirteen dollars bill that's a different matter entirely and that would be in line with the distinction to how was making it but i'm sorry the statute here talks not just about a false or fictitious instrument but ones that appear represent purport to be an actual security or other financial instrument issued under the authority of the united states what could that mean how would you have a document that purports to be an actual security issued under the authority of the united states without bearing loophole and it seems to me you're just shifting the loophole to a different situation right you're saying there is there's a class of documents that could well be neither fish nor fo it's this if this particular instrument were prosecuted under a counterfeiting statute wouldn't there be a perfectly plausible defense that this looks nothing at all like an actual government purchase  order which is in itself a rather rare and unusual document and therefore it's not really a counterfeit because it's really bogus no if this was if this prosecutor is a counterfeit a ordinary person with no grounds for suspicion even though they might be apparent to a skeptical examiner i'm not sure this is a case of something you know when you have a counterfeit twenty dollars bill or one hundred dollars bill some of them are very good and would require an expert to tell the difference some of them are fairly apparent to you know the case you're called over the manager and the manager has had some rudimentary training and said this is obviously fake there are all kinds of varieties there i think it's sure somebody some fool might take this and think it's a real real document but that person would have to think there is such a thing as the commissioner of burns wouldn't usually know i think he or she would have you believe that there is something that exists it's called a government purchase order or a government travel request and many many many people in this case did the american airline to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars according to government kept accepting government travel requests and so i will i think that the analogy that was being made and the prior question is is quite on point with what the defense is unsuccessful defense was and how it reset this is obviously fake there was an oversight portion of ben franklin it was printed on regular paper and that of the clock paper hybrid it was an engraved properly it's it's not as if this was helen faces a heavy burden and the court mistry every inference in favor of the government and more specifically misled through the the issue is whether any reasonable juror could have found that these were fictitious in the definition that the government requested the district court to give right that's correct and the definition that the government requested and that the parties are in agreement was an appropriate instruction is that the documents must constitute bogus financial documents made to look like a real financial document and that's precisely what many many documents created and passed by jones did he created office of the commissioner for burns to entitle the recipients of payment and ostensibly were made on behalf of an entity the office of commissioner for berger and intergovernmental organization for six oculus also bogus financial documents that are made to look look real we did not we the government charged this defendant with passing fictitious obligations and that's because well for several reasons but that's because those are the types of documents he keep tabs of the court pointed out just a few minutes ago there there is no entity called the office of the commissioner for burns that is authorized to issue came and documents on behalf of the united states government there is because mr mr jones is counsel just passed would not fall within the counterfeiting statute but the court really need not reach that issue here because the question isn't whether they could also be they could all to support a counterfeiting conviction the question is whether they mutually exclusive they are not mutually exclusive and there's there are some there's some support for that for that conclusion in cases in the circuit that have that have looked at the truth got to it without fictitious financial obligation but the instrument that was that issue there was the same instrument so there is there is some overlap or or some area where a particular instrument may be conceive instrument there are certain categories the fictitious obligations that are are designed to appear to be financial instruments generally meaning not similar to any existing it sounds like what you're saying is that the full  rule i'm not sure that's right as and as i sit here i can't i can't think of an example of it are a document that would be counterfeit and not false or fictitious but in that i think that that question is is sort of beyond the scope of the court's inquiry here the court really just needs to to assess where the documents that jones path fall on the counterfeit and and fictitious obligations a ll and i think the discussion that was the discussion earlier with respect to the williams th circuit opinion and the morgan field th circuit opinion really really shows where that line is both of those cases  as the court noted involves checks but the th circuit case involved an altered and altered a check that was and the court explained it was an actual negotiable instrument issued by a legitimate bank there was an actual checking account associated with the checked but the check at help had been modified and so that check that not form the basis for a fictitious obligation conviction so i got the following instruct on statements made by the government during its close the closing argument that the g t r's on the purchase orders passed by jones were fake those documents were fake that they were fake in the sense that  common to say these things false and fictitious when they're really alternative and the and i think this case was about the language of indictments that says that and subsumes or in that t ballot correct that's correct and just to return to one point that was that was made when mr anderson with the king as as the court correctly noted the purpose that the that the appellant is now making what that would but that would impracticality do is create a gap between between documents that could that could be considered counterfeit documents and  that at least includes some category of documents and discuss there's a certain category of documents that would be classified as counterfeit but would not qualify as a fictitious obligation those were the were entirely concocted they were they work checked that contain fake payers and were drawn on accounts that that did not exist and what was the williams decision make clear and what the th circuit conviction is based on the defendant pathing a type of document that that generally exist though anderson involved site drafts which previous previously that existed williams involved  legitimate payment documents but they were still convictions were still affirmed based on defendant passing those types of documents because there were indicators and that in the document but they were not otherwise legitimate and so the same is true here where jones passed a number of different types of false documents purchase orders government transportation requests other payment documents that may involve some of the same generic word for the same reasons that the defendant and how it where they were discussing not the treasury warrant but the gold and silver certificate and rd the government noted that there is a scale i think with the think counterfeit and that there is some line that needs to be drawn in each case between where those things fall well i think that indicates that the statute itself is ambiguous and as i noted before any ambiguity should be resolved in the defendant's favor word has two different meanings one of which does not apply here and one of which would i think it's the phrase to be an actual security is what is what i and the other courts have looked at except for the th circuit or grant that the other court did look at that and said ok we can't really tell exactly what that means and so we looked at the legislative history in the context in which the statute was drawn and the context was that there and that was why they passed the statue because according to senator d'amato prosecutors were saying that they could not prosecute people under the counterfeiting statute if they were presenting people with purported obligation