Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-17-03057/USCOURTS-caDC-17-03057-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Tarkara Cooper
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 28, 2019 Decided February 11, 2020 

No. 17-3057

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

TARKARA COOPER AND BRIAN BRYANT,

APPELLANTS

Consolidated with 18-3021

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:15-cr-00152-3)

(No. 1:15-cr-00152-5)

Dennis M. Hart, appointed by the Court, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant Tarkara Cooper. 

Brian J. Young, appointed by the Court, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant Brian Bryant.

Katherine M. Kelly, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Jessie K. Liu,

U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and John P. Mannarino,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 1 of 15
2

Before: SRINIVASAN and RAO, Circuit Judges, and

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge: Several individuals in

the District of Columbia acted together to steal millions of

dollars from the Federal Treasury. Their method of operation

was this. First beg, steal, purchase or borrow other people’s

identities including, most importantly, their Social Security

numbers. Then file false income tax returns seeking refunds in

their names. Keep the refund requests relatively small. List on

the tax returns the addresses, not of the purported filers, but of

one or another co-conspirator. Then, when the refund checks

from the Treasury arrive, compromise bank tellers, negotiate the

checks, and deposit the proceeds in the conspirators’ personal

accounts. This multi-year conspiracy netted a total of nearly $5

million in tax refunds from the Treasury.

Antonio Cooper, a bus driver and the hub in the wheel in

this conspiracy, entered a plea of guilty and testified for the

prosecution against others, including his niece, Tarkara Cooper. 

The jury convicted her and Brian Bryant of theft of public

money and conspiracy to defraud the United States. See 18

U.S.C. §§ 641, 371. The jury also convicted Bryant of

aggravated identity theft. See 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. The court

sentenced Ms. Cooper to 63 month’s imprisonment, 36 month’s

supervised release, and ordered her to pay nearly $2 million in

restitution. The court sentenced Bryant to 100 month’s

imprisonment, 36 month’s supervised release, and ordered him

to pay some $650,000 in restitution. Both defendants appeal

their convictions and their sentences. 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 2 of 15
3

The evidence showed that Antonio Cooper gathered names,

birth dates and Social Security numbers from friends, family

members, strangers, and “wherever [he] could.” Using this

information, he filed more than a thousand fraudulent federal

income tax returns seeking refunds. The typical refund check

was between $1,000 and $3,000. To receive the refunds from

the Treasury, the fraudulent tax returns listed Mr. Cooper’s

address or the addresses of other participants in his scheme, one

of whom was his niece Tarkara Cooper. More than 450

fraudulent tax returns seeking refunds of more than $1,200,000

listed Ms. Cooper’s address. When the refund checks arrived

she handed them to her uncle, who paid her $50 to $100 per

check. He then deposited the checks in his bank account or the

accounts of other co-conspirators. Antonio Cooper also sold

some of the checks to others, including Bryant. 

For his part, Bryant helped Mr. Cooper cash the refund

checks and received half of the face value of those checks in

exchange. Brianna Turner, a former Bank of America

employee, testified that she helped Bryant deposit some of these

checks. She said that Bryant expressed a willingness to

compensate her in exchange for violating the Bank’s rules on

third-party deposits. Bryant paid Turner between $300-$600 per

check deposited. He controlled dozens of bank accounts into

which refund checks were deposited. 

At some point in 2010, Postal Inspector Maria Couvillion 

opened an investigation after detecting what appeared to be

fraudulent tax returns being sent through the mail. Not until six

years later did a grand jury return indictments against Antonio

Cooper, Tarkara Cooper, Bryant and others. In the interim, the

conspirators carried on, filing more fake returns and cashing

more refund checks.

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 3 of 15
4

I.

We take up first the district court’s rejection of Tarkara

Cooper’s pretrial motion to suppress statements she made to

federal agents. The evidence at the suppression hearing showed

that before dawn on December 1, 2010, twelve law enforcement

officers – eleven federal agents and one from the local police –

arrived at the door of Cooper’s home in a “multi unit residential

complex” in the District of Columbia. The officers were there 1

to execute a search warrant. An agent knocked and announced

their presence. Cooper opened the door and some of the agents

entered. Inside were Cooper’s six-to-seven year old daughter

and an adult female friend of Cooper’s. After being

interviewed, the friend left. 

About an hour into the search, two agents began

interviewing Cooper in her living room. At some point in the

questioning, she admitted receiving in the mail at her address

one to five refund checks each week, and that her uncle paid her

when she turned over the checks to him. She argues here, as she

did in the district court, that the government could not introduce

these statements at trial because the agents did not first give her

Miranda warnings. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436

(1966). 

The district court denied Cooper’s motion. The court found

that Cooper “was not coerced into answering questions” and that

Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure establishes 1

two types of search warrants – a daytime warrant and a nighttime

warrant. It is difficult to obtain a nighttime warrant (see Rule

41(e)(2)(ii)), so investigators usually opt for a daytime warrant. But

Rule 41(a)(2)(B) defines “daytime” as “the hours between 6:00 a.m.

and 10:00 p.m. according to local time.” So-called “daytime”

warrants therefore may be executed while it is still dark outside. 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 4 of 15
5

she was not in custody within the meaning of Miranda. At trial,

an agent who interrogated Cooper testified about her statements.

Before a suspect in custody is interrogated, she must be

advised of her Miranda rights. See Stansbury v. California, 511

U.S. 318, 322 (1994). If the interrogating officers do not

provide Miranda warnings, any statements the suspect makes

are generally inadmissible at trial. Id. The obligation to apprise

the suspect of her rights attaches “only where there has been

such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render [her] ‘in

custody.’” Id. (quoting Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495

(1977)). 

A suspect is “in custody” if the circumstances of the

questioning “present a serious danger of coercion.” Howes v.

Fields, 565 U.S. 499, 508-09 (2012). To determine whether

such a danger existed, courts first consider whether a reasonable

person in the suspect’s position would have felt that “she was

not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave.” Id. at

509 (internal quotation marks omitted). Relevant factors in this

assessment include the location of the questioning, statements

made during the interview, the presence of any physical

restraints, and whether the interviewee was released once the

interrogation ended. Id.

Because “[n]ot all restraints on freedom of movement

amount to custody for purposes of Miranda,” a finding that a

person in the suspect’s shoes would not have felt free to leave

does not end the inquiry. Id. Rather, courts must then ask “the

additional question whether the relevant environment presents

the same inherently coercive pressures as the type of station

house questioning at issue in Miranda.” Id. We review de novo

the district court’s custody determination, and we review the

underlying factual findings for clear error. United States v.

Brinson-Scott, 714 F.3d 616, 621 (D.C. Cir. 2013). 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 5 of 15
6

Examination of the evidence before the district court at the

suppression hearing and at trial reveals no clearly erroneous

factual findings. Instead, the evidence amply supports the 2

conclusion that Cooper was not in custody when she admitted

that she was aware of, and participated in, her uncle’s fraud. 

The agents questioned Cooper in her living room. When an

interview takes place in a suspect’s home, that circumstance

usually weighs against finding the kind of custodial situation

that merits a Miranda warning. See, e.g., Beckwith v. United

States, 425 U.S. 341, 342, 347-48 (1976); United States v. Luck,

852 F.3d 615, 621 (6th Cir. 2017); 2 Wayne R. LaFave et al.,

Criminal Procedure § 6.6(e) (4th ed. 2014). 

Before the interview began, the agents told Cooper that she

was a subject of an investigation and described “the voluntary

nature of the interview.” They asked her “if she would agree to”

answer their questions. She agreed. The evidence shows, in 3

other words, that Cooper’s statements were given freely and

voluntarily. Such statements “remain a proper element in law

enforcement.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478.

In addition, no weapons were brandished and no handcuffs

were used. Cooper was “cooperative,” and the agents employed

Cooper did not renew her suppression motion at trial. While

2

we may therefore consider trial evidence to affirm, but not to reverse,

the district court’s pretrial ruling on the motion, see United States v.

Hicks, 978 F.2d 722, 724-25 (D.C. Cir. 1992), the evidence at trial

basically duplicated the evidence at the suppression hearing.

The parties did not discuss whether this exchange was a

3

functional equivalent ofsome of the standard Miranda warnings(“you

have the right to remain silent” and you have the right “to stop

answering at any time”). See Duckworth v. Egan, 492 U.S. 195, 202-

03 & n.4 (1989). 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 6 of 15
7

a “professional and cordial tone.” At no point did Cooper ask to

end the questioning. And once the interview was over, the

agents left without arresting her. Put simply, these facts do not

portray an environment presenting a meaningful danger of

coercion. 

Cooper’s argument to the contrary focuses on a fifteenminute break during the questioning. She needed to take her

daughter to school, and so the agents drove them to the school,

dropped her daughter off, and returned to the house with Cooper

to resume the interview. Cooper alleges that the agents refused

to let her leave the house unaccompanied, and that this refusal

illustrates the custodial nature of the questioning. 

Not so. Cooper offers no evidence that she asked to take

her daughter to school alone but was prevented from leaving. 

For safety reasons, if a person leaves her residence during the

execution of a search warrant, she is not typically allowed to

return until the search is completed. It is thus as likely as not

that the agents gave Cooper a ride so that she could return to her

house while the search was ongoing. And while she was in the

agents’ car, Cooper was not asked any questions. 

These circumstances do not amount to custody within the

meaning of Miranda. Indeed, to hold otherwise would be akin

to suggesting that voluntary statements uttered during the

execution of a valid search warrant are inadmissible at trial

absent the issuance of a Miranda warning. The Supreme Court

has rejected such an expansive view. See Andresen v. Maryland,

427 U.S. 463, 475 (1976). The district court thus correctly

concluded that Cooper’s statements could be used at trial.

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 7 of 15
8

II.

Cooper and Bryant also challenge the use of Special Agent

LaRose as a summary witness. Before trial, the government

asked the court to impose what it called the “Rule on

Witnesses.” Although the government did not mention it, Rule

615 of the Federal Rules of Evidence governs these sorts of

requests. The Rule provides: “At a party’s request, the court

must order witnesses excluded so that they cannot hear other

witnesses’ testimony.” The “must” command is softened with

four exceptions. The government asked the court to make an 

exception for IRS Special Agent Milne, who was the “lead case

agent,” and for IRS Special Agent LaRose, because “his

testimonywill be to summarize the evidence that is admitted and

put it in context.” The defendants did not object to the request. 4

Both IRS agents attended the entire trial. Milne sat at

counsel table. LaRose sat in the audience. The prosecution

apparently decided not to use Milne as a witness. The

prosecution called LaRose toward the end of its case-in-chief

Rule 615 “does not authorize excluding an officer or employee 4

of a party that is not a natural person, after being designated as the

party’s representative by its attorney.” Fed. R. Evid. 615(b). This

exception appears to cover Special Agent Milne. Another exception

to Rule 615 allows a witness to attend the trial if the party shows that

he is “essential to presenting the party’s claim or defense.” Fed. R.

Evid. 615(c). It may be that the government intended Special Agent

LaRose to be covered by this exception. See United States v. Pulley,

922 F.2d 1283, 1286 (6th Cir. 1991) (“Where the government wants

to have two agent-witnesses in attendance throughout the trial, it is

always free to designate one agent as its representative under subpart

[b] and try to show under subpart [c] that the presence of the second

agent is ‘essential’ to the presentation of its case.”); United States v.

Farnham, 791 F.2d 331, 335 (4th Cir. 1986).

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 8 of 15
9

without attempting to qualify him as an expert witness under

Federal Rule of Evidence 702.5

LaRose’s lengthy testimony on direct examination dealt

with extensive and detailed charts listing bank records, tax

returns, refund checks, and more connecting the defendants with

the tax fraud. He testified, for example, that after December 1,

2010, when the agents searched Cooper’s residence, 65 refund

checks totaling $151,853.24 were mailed to her home. Of those,

59 checks were negotiated, totaling $141,333.49. 

Rule 1006 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits the use

of summary charts “to prove the content of voluminous

writings.” The records here were indeed voluminous – many

millions of dollars in fraudulent refunds, thousands of phony tax

returns, hundreds of refund checks sent to many addresses,

checks cashed by others, deposits made in multiple accounts by

multiple co-conspirators, and more. Little wonder that the

charts were admitted without objection. 

Cooper and Bryant complain that the district court erred in

allowing LaRose to testify about matters other than those

contained in the charts. Their complaint greatly exaggerates the

record. 

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(G) requires, at the 5

defendant’s request, that “the government must give to the defendant

a written summary of any testimony that the government intends to

use under Rules 702, 703, or 705 of the Federal Rules of Evidence

during its case-in-chief at trial.” See also LCvR 16.5(b) (requiring

pretrial statements that include “a schedule of witnesses to be called

by the party” and that expert witnesses “be designated by an

asterisk”). It may be that, because its pretrial materials failed to

identify LaRose as an expert, the government believed it would be

unable to qualify him as an expert at trial. 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 9 of 15
10

A prosecutor’s “non-expert summary witness can help the

jury organize and evaluate evidence which is factually

complex.” United States v. Lemire, 720 F.2d 1327, 1348 (D.C.

Cir. 1983). Putting it in terms of “helping the jury” may suggest

that prosecutors call summary witnesses for some neutral,

educational trial purpose. That of course is not true. 

Prosecutors call witnesses, including summary witnesses, to

prove their case – to help convince the jury that the defendant is

guilty as charged. 

It follows that there must be limitations on the sort of “help”

a government summary witness may provide. One of the most

important is this: the witness may not usurp the jury’s factfinding function by summarizing or describing not only what is

in evidence but also what inferences should be drawn from that

evidence. United States v. Hampton, 718 F.3d 978, 983 (D.C.

Cir. 2013). Another danger to be guarded against is that the jury

will treat summary testimony “as additional evidence or as

corroborative of the truth.” Lemire, 720 F.3d at 1348. See also

Lauren Weiser, RequirementsforAdmitting Summary Testimony

of Government Agents in Federal White Collar Cases, 36 AM.

J. CRIM. L. 179, 181-82 (2009). 

LaRose, the defendants claim, crossed these lines. They

argue that the government functionally introduced the agent as

though he were an expert witness by reviewing at length his

training and professional background. LaRose then appeared to

present an expert opinion, suggesting that based on his fifteen

years of experience as an investigator, it is not uncommon for

fraudsters to open and use multiple bank accounts to avoid

detection by bank employees. The defendants suggest it is

possible that the jury simply relied on LaRose’s expertise and

experience, rather than its own review of the record, to conclude

that the signatures were indeed forged and that the scheme

participants used several bank accounts to escape detection.

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 10 of 15
11

The defendants also argue that LaRose discussed evidence

that was, at the time of his testimony, not yet admitted. He

testified before two of the government’s witnesses, Chyna

Watkins and Vincent Short, took the stand. Watkins was

Bryant’s girlfriend, and she told the jury that she “gave him

access to” her bank account and allowed him to deposit

thousands of dollars into it. She later withdrew the money for

him in exchange for a series of small payments. Short was one

of the scheme’s victims. He testified that he lost his

identification card, that he did not recognize a tax return filed in

his name listing Cooper’s address, and that he did not sign a

check made payable to Bryant that appeared to contain his

signature. 

Before Watkins and Short offered this testimony, LaRose

stated that Watkins’s account was under Bryant’s control. He

also referred to Short’s “purported” signature on the check to

Bryant. According to the defendants, by doing so he improperly

bolstered the credibility of Watkins’s and Short’s subsequent

testimony. 

Cooper and Bryant also take issue with LaRose’s count-bycount synthesis of the government’s evidence against them. 

They argue that the government used the agent to present

conclusory testimony that effectively served as a second closing

argument.

But even if the district court erred in allowing LaRose to

stray beyond a narrow summary of the evidence reflected in the

charts, Cooper and Bryant have not shown that they were

substantially prejudiced by this error. See United States v.

Miller, 738 F.3d 361, 372 (D.C. Cir. 2013); Kotteakos v. United

States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946). LaRose’s testimony was

extensive, consuming 150 pages of transcript. The defendants

point to a minuscule portion of what he said. The alleged errors

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 11 of 15
12

were, in other words, quite minor. Without LaRose’s testimony,

the record still contains overwhelming evidence of the

defendants’ guilt. Any error was thus harmless.

Consider the evidence against Cooper. She confessed that

she had an agreement with her uncle to receive payment in

exchange for giving him the checks that were mailed to her

home. The hundreds of checks mailed to her address amply

support the finding that she was a knowing participant in the

scheme. Her uncle also testified that he told Cooper the tax

checks she was receiving were not “legit.” She “knew about

everything.” In addition, Cooper was identified in video

surveillance footage interacting with a bank teller who helped

the participants perpetrate the fraud. The strength of this

evidence makes it very unlikely that the portion of LaRose’s

testimony Cooper complains about materially influenced the

jury’s verdict. 

The evidence against Bryant was also compelling. Antonio

Cooper testified that Bryant helped him cash the refund checks

and received half of the face value of those checks in exchange. 

Brianna Turner, the former bank teller, admitted that she helped

Bryant deposit some of these checks in exchange for

compensation. 

The government presented evidence of multiple bank

accounts controlled by Bryant into which dozens of refund

checks were deposited. For example, Bryant deposited 26

refund checks totaling more than $115,000 into a Capital One

account in his name between May 2011 and July 2012. 

Further minimizing the effect of any possible error was the

district court’s limiting instruction, which informed the jury that

LaRose’s summaries “are not in and of themselves proof of the

facts,” and that his testimony was to be used “only as a matter

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 12 of 15
13

of convenience.” This instruction, virtually identical to the one

issued by the trial court in Lemire, helped lower the risk that the

jury would take the summary testimony for more than it was

worth. See Lemire, 720 F.2d at 1348 n.32. Juries “are presumed

to follow their instructions,” and the record offers no reason to

doubt the validity of that presumption here. Zafiro v. United

States, 506 U.S. 534, 540 (1993) (internal quotation marks

omitted).

More still, the defendants had an opportunity to crossexamine LaRose. They did so, eliciting testimony that LaRose

is not a hand-writing expert and that he lacked personal

knowledge about whether Bryant controlled Watkins’s bank

account. In sum, Watkins’s and Short’s testimony, as well as

the record evidence, fully corroborated LaRose’s summary of

the investigation. We therefore find that his testimony did not

meaningfully prejudice the defense.

III.

We have reviewed and reject the defendants’ remaining

arguments. Cooper moved for a mistrial during the

government’s rebuttal. She alleged that the prosecutor

improperly lumped her together with co-defendants whose

participation in the scheme was much more substantial. The

district court denied this motion. It did not err by doing so. The

prosecutor did not misstate the evidence applicable to Cooper,

and the occasional inadvertent references to “these defendants”

when discussing acts not attributable to Cooper were quickly

remedied. See United States v. Gartmon, 146 F.3d 1015, 1026

(D.C. Cir. 1998).

The defendants also challenge the sentences the district

court imposed, suggesting that the loss amounts attributed to

Cooper and Bryant were too high. The court attributed a loss to

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 13 of 15
14

the Treasury of about $650,000 to Bryant’s participation in the

scheme, and a loss of around $4.6 million to Cooper’s

participation. These findings of fact must be upheld unless they

are clearly erroneous. United States v. Day, 524 F.3d 1361,

1367 (D.C. Cir. 2008). They are not. 

The value of the bank accounts reasonably connected to

Bryant’s participation in the scheme was at least $528,252.94. 

And the government presented evidence of checks attributable

to co-conspirators’ home addresses that were not attributed to

particular bank accounts. The value of such checks was well

over a million dollars, and at least some are reasonably

connected to Bryant’s role in the fraud.

Similarly, the amount attributed to Cooper—the entire

intended loss attributable to her uncle’s scheme—was not

clearly erroneous. See United States v. Seiler, 348 F.3d 265, 268

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (noting that, in determining a sentence in a

conspiracy case, the district court takes into account “all

reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions” committed by others

in furtherance of the conspiracy) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Because, as the district court noted, Cooper’s

participation in the scheme was “neither minor nor minimal,” it

was not clear error to conclude that her co-conspirators’ actions

were reasonably foreseeable to her. 

Cooper also challenges the restitution the district court

ordered her to pay. But the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act

requires defendants to reimburse victims for the actual, provable

loss suffered. See United States v. Fair, 699 F.3d 508, 512-13

(D.C. Cir. 2012). The government showed that Cooper’s

participation in the scheme cost the Treasury at least $1.9

million. Requiring this amount in restitution was therefore

appropriate. 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 14 of 15
15

For these reasons, the defendants’ convictions and the

sentences they received are affirmed. 

So ordered. 

USCA Case #17-3057 Document #1828012 Filed: 02/11/2020 Page 15 of 15