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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
James Van Doren
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-3685

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

James Van Doren

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Arkansas - Fayetteville

____________

 Submitted: June 11, 2015

 Filed: September 3, 2015

____________

Before GRUENDER, BEAM, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

____________

BEAM, Circuit Judge.

James Van Doren appeals his conviction and sentence as well as the district

court's denial of his motion to withdraw his plea; Van Doren also appeals the denial 1

of his motion for reconsideration of this motion to withdraw; the district court's

The Honorable P.K. Holmes, III, Chief Judge, United States District Court for

1

the Western District of Arkansas. 

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refusal to vacate the money judgment for $22,000; and the district court's order

applying Van Doren's $25,000 cash bond toward payment of a fine, special

assessment, and satisfaction of the money judgment. For the reasons stated herein, 2

we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

In 2013, a grand jury charged James Van Doren and two codefendants in a

multicount indictment containing various counts of bankruptcy fraud, money

laundering, wire fraud, and similar charges, all related to financial dealings between

the three men charged. The twenty-seven-count, third superseding indictment

specifically named Van Doren in seven counts, and he ultimately pled guilty to one

count, count 24, which charged Van Doren with money laundering by engaging in

monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. 

As relevant to this matter, and in general terms, the third superseding

indictment contained allegations of an elaborate scheme by Brandon Barber, Van

Doren, and Barber's attorney K. Vaughn Knight to defraud Barber's creditors by

concealing income, assets, and funds from them in order to allow Barber to use those

funds for his benefit, including for his personal expenses. The dealings between the

men generally stemmed from Barber's extensive real estate development,

construction, and sales, and the various businesses created to handleBarber's business

ventures. The resulting bankruptcy fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering

allegations, along with the related conspiracy charges, stemfromthese many dealings

Van Doren's notice of appeal includes the latter two orders but he makes no 2

reference to them in his briefing and argument on appeal and thus we do not address

them here. See Griffith v. City of Des Moines, 387 F.3d 733, 739 (8th Cir. 2004)

(arguments not briefed are considered abandoned on appeal). 

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with Barber. Noted previously, Van Doren pled guilty to count 24, which specifically

alleged:

On or about the 29th day of October, 2008, in the Western District of

Arkansas, Fayetteville Division and elsewhere, the defendants, Brandon

Lynn Barber and James Van Doren, aided and abetted by each other and

others known and unknown to the grand jury, did knowingly engage in

a monetary transaction through a financial institution, affecting

interstate commerce, in criminally derived property of a value greater

than $10,000, that is, by causing $22,000 to be transferred from a

Citibank Account in New York in the name of James Van Doren to a

First Security Bank account in Fayetteville, Arkansas in the name of the

Barber Group, an entity owned by Barber, such proceeds having

derived froma specified unlawful activity, that is wire fraud, in violation

of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. All in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1957 and 2. 

Particular transfers of money between Barber and Van Doren formed the basis for

Van Doren's guilty plea and the district court's loss calculations at sentencing. The

factual basis for the guilty plea states:

On or about October 29, 2008, in the Western District of Arkansas, and

elsewhere, James Van Doren, aided and abetted by Brandon Barber,

engaged in a monetary transaction through a financial institution,

affecting interstate commerce, in criminally derived property of a value

greater than $10,000. Van Doren had agreed with Barber to conceal

certain amounts of Barber's income and transactions from creditors. As

part of this scheme and artifice to hide money from and thereby defraud

his creditors, on or about September 29, 2008, Barber endorsed a check

payable to him in the amount of $64,000 over to Van Doren. Van Doren

deposited this check into his Citibank Account in New York. On or

about October 29, 2008, Van Doren wired $22,000 of these funds from

his Citibank account in New York, to an account at First Security Bank

in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the name of The Barber Group, controlled

by Barber. Van Doren agreed and intended to help Barber conceal these

funds and defraud Barber's creditors. The records and evidence would

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further show that the specified unlawful activity for thistransaction was

wire fraud, specifically a wire transaction in furtherance of the scheme

to defraud Barber's creditors of $64,000 by concealing these funds to

make it appear that some of the funds belonged to Van Doren, when in

fact, Van Doren knew and agreed that the funds would be used by

Barber for his benefit, including his personal living expenses. The

banks involved were FDIC insured and the use of the wires in some way

or degree affected interstate commerce.

Van Doren later moved to withdrawhis plea, advancing that he was "compelled

by conscience to act with honesty and integrity . . . [and therefore could not] honor

a commitment to truthfulness and continue to affirm a legal position that is contrary

to the truth." He specifically clarified that his claim was not that the district court

committed any procedural error under the FederalRules ofCriminal Procedure during

its acceptance of his guilty plea, but rather, in his own words, his request to withdraw

his plea was "based solely on his factual innocence." The district court denied Van

Doren's motion to withdraw his plea as well as his motion for reconsideration of the

denial, holding that his claim of innocence was insufficient to overcome his sworn

testimony acknowledging his guilt and that there was a sufficient factual basis

supporting the charge. The district court sentenced Van Doren to fifteen months'

imprisonment followed by a two-year term ofsupervised release. Van Doren appeals

these rulings and the sentence imposed. 

II. DISCUSSION

A. Plea

We review the denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea for an abuse of

discretion. United States v. Gamble, 327 F.3d 662, 663 (8th Cir. 2003). Relevant

here, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(d), a defendant may withdraw a

plea of guilty before the court imposes a sentence if "the defendant can show a fair

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and just reason for requesting the withdrawal." Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(d)(2)(B). "'While

the standard is liberal, the defendant has no automatic right to withdraw a plea.'"

United States v. Heid, 651 F.3d 850, 853 (8th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v.

Ramirez-Hernandez, 449 F.3d 824, 826 (8th Cir. 2006)). Rule 11(b)(3) additionally

mandates that "[b]efore entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine

that there is a factual basis for the plea." Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(3). A defendant may

establish a fair and just reason for withdrawing his guilty plea by demonstrating that

his plea is not supported by an adequate factual basis. Heid, 651 F.3d at 855-56. 

Van Doren renews his contention that an inadequate factual basis existed for

his guilty plea and, thus, that a fair and just reason exists for withdrawing the plea. 

The crux of Van Doren's claim is that because count 24 does not specify the facts

supporting the basis for the underlying wire fraud charge (the "specified unlawful

activity" supporting the money laundering charge), we look to count 23 of the

indictment, where allegations of conduct underlying a wire fraud charge are

explicated, to discern whether the conduct that Van Doren admitted to in his plea

constitutes the offense charged in count 24. In that vein, Van Doren argues that,

looking to count 23, the only specification in the indictment for the manner of

commission of the wire fraud was through "a scheme and artifice to defraud Barber's

creditors and for obtaining money and property by means of false and fraudulent

pretenses, representations and promises." Proceeding with that reasoning, Van 3

In part, and in addition to myriad facts supporting the charge, count 23 3

specifically alleges that during a specific time period, Van Doren

did knowingly and intentionally combine, conspire, confederate and

agree with . . . other[s] to devise and intend to devise a scheme and

artifice to defraud Barber's creditors and for obtaining money and

property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and

promises thereby affecting financial institutions and other creditors and

in furtherance of that scheme did transmit and cause to be transmitted

certain wire communicationsin interstate commerce. All in violation of

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Doren argues that because no other means of committing the offense was charged,

and because the government relied upon a concealment theory to prove the wire fraud

here, it necessarily "failed to identify a single alleged falsity, fraudulent pretense,

misrepresentation or promise" committed by Van Doren and thusfell short of proving

the requisite wire fraud supporting the money laundering charge. Van Doren

maintains that he was engaging in routine banking transactions and that the entire

transaction was completely truthful at all times–that he "misrepresented nothing."

Accordingly, Van Doren claims there was no factual basis to support the guilty plea

in count 24. 

We agree with Van Doren that the determinative issue in this matter is whether

the factual basis supporting the plea suffices to establish the offense charged in the

indictment as required, but our agreement ends there. See United States v. Cheney,

571 F.3d 764, 769 (8th Cir. 2009) (describing when a guilty plea is supported by a

sufficient factual basis). The factual basis of Van Doren's plea suffices to establish

the offense charged. Based on the factual basis of the plea, Van Doren committed

4

18 U.S.C. §§ 1349 and 1343.

That specific language of count 23 tracks the language of § 1343 "Fraud by wire,

radio, or television," which provides that "[w]hoever, having devised or intending to

devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, orfor obtaining money or property by means

of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises" transmits by wire, any

writing, sign, signal, picture or sound for the purpose of executing the fraudulent

scheme, shall be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. 18 U.S.C. §

1343.

As an aside, even were we to indulge Van Doren's argument that there is no 4

allegation of concealment in count 23, he fails in that pursuit. Count 23 first

incorporates paragraphs 29-37 of the indictment, which paragraphs discuss the

transactions underlying the wire fraud charge and allege, among other claims of

concealment,that the transactions were completed in order to benefitBarber, "thereby

concealing the money fromcreditors and placing it beyond the reach of his creditors."

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wire fraud as charged. The plea agreement states that Barber transferred $64,000 to

Van Doren pursuant to an agreement between them to conceal the funds from

Barber's creditors so that the funds could later be directed back to Barber for his

personal use. 

[T]he Supreme Court has placed some outside limits on what constitutes

a scheme to defraud under sections 1341, 1343, and 1344, by finding

that these statutes must be interpreted with an eye toward the commonlaw understanding of fraud. . . . "At common law, fraud has not been

limited to those situations where there is an affirmative

misrepresentation or the violation of some independently-prescribed

legal duty . . . . Rather, even in the absence of a fiduciary, statutory, or

other independent legal duty to disclose material information, commonlaw fraud includes acts taken to conceal, create a false impression,

mislead, or otherwise deceive in order to prevent the other party from

acquiring material information."

United States v. Steffen, 687 F.3d 1104, 1113 (8th Cir. 2012) (third alteration in

original), (quoting United States v. Colton, 231 F.3d 890, 898-99 (4th Cir. 2000)). 

Simply, wire fraud under § 1343 can be established by a fraudulentscheme involving

concealment. Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349, 356 (2005) ("[F]raud at

common law included a scheme to deprive a victim of his entitlement to money. For

instance, a debtor who concealed his assets when settling debts with his creditors

So even were we to hold that the government could not proceed with its concealment

theory unless count 23's recitation included language in addition to the language

tracking the statutory definition of wire fraud and the facts already contained therein,

the entirety of count 23 encompassesthe theory nonetheless and the factual basis thus

established the crime.

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thereby committed common-law fraud."). Van Doren's plea is thus supported by an 5

adequate factual basis, as there is sufficient evidence upon which this court can

reasonably determine that Van Doren likely committed the offense as charged in

count 24. Cheney, 571 F.3d at 769 ("A guilty plea is supported by an adequate

factual basis when the record contains'sufficient evidence at the time ofthe plea upon

which a court may reasonably determine that the defendant likely committed the

offense.'" (quoting United States v. Gamble, 327 F.3d 662, 664 (8th Cir. 2003))). The

district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Van Doren's motion to withdraw

his plea on this basis. 

6

As to Van Doren's alleged actual innocence supporting a fair and just reason

for his requested withdrawal, we have thoroughly analyzed Van Doren's arguments

on appeal, carefully reviewed the record, and adopt the court's thorough and wellIn the instant analysis, Van Doren's insistence that he had no legal duty to 5

speak and, thus, cannot be criminally liable for participating in these "lawful"

transactions misses the mark. The claim of wire fraud in this matter is not premised

upon Van Doren's nondisclosure but rather on Van Doren's act of knowingly helping

Barber fraudulently conceal money from his creditors, among other similar

allegations, and their use of wires to do so. This collective conduct of fraudulent

concealment is the basis for the wire fraud charged. "'[T]he common law clearly

distinguishes between concealment and nondisclosure. The former is characterized

by deceptive acts or contrivances intended to hide information, mislead, avoid

suspicion, or prevent further inquiry into a material matter. The latter is characterized

by mere silence.'" Steffen, 687 F.3d at 1114 (quoting Colton, 231 F.3d at 898-99). 

This indictment alleges acts to conceal. 

Although we resolve Van Doren's challenge based on his admission to wire 6

fraud, we note that the government need not always prove that a defendant convicted

under 18 U.S.C. § 1957 participated in the specified unlawful conduct underlying a

money laundering charge. Instead, the government need only show that the defendant

knew that the money was criminally derived. 18 U.S.C. § 1957(c); United States v.

Hare, 49 F.3d 447, 452 (8th Cir. 1995); United States v. Lombardi, 5 F.3d 578, 570

n.3 (1st Cir. 1993).

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reasoned orders on this issue. 8th Cir. R. 47B. We therefore affirm the district court

in all respects on Van Doren's motions to withdraw his plea and reconsideration of

the same following the district court's initial denial. 

B. Sentencing

Finally, Van Doren claims the district court erroneously calculated the offenselevel enhancements and, as a result, improperly increased his Guidelines range. He

asserts the loss calculation should have been limited to the value of what he claims

to be the laundered funds–which he claims was $22,000 (i.e., the amount Van Doren

wired to The Barber Group after depositing $64,000 into his own bank account in

New York)–as opposed to the $244,000 amount utilized by the district court in

arriving at its sentence calculation. This would have resulted in a four-level increase

rather than the twelve-level increase imposed. The $244,000 figure utilized by the

district court in its sentence calculation is comprised of three financial transactions: 

the $64,000 check that isthe subject of the factual basis in Van Doren's plea; $30,000

cash delivered to Van Doren by Barber and deposited by Van Doren into a safe

deposit box owned by Van Doren; and $150,000 wired by Barber's attorney to a bank

account in New York in the name of Epsilon Investments, LLC, an entity allegedly

owned by Van Doren. 

"We review de novo the 'legal conclusions a district court reaches in order to

apply an enhancement for purposes of calculating an advisory guidelines range . . .

while the factual findings underpinning the enhancement are reviewed for clear

error.'" United States v. Battle, 774 F.3d 504, 516 (8th Cir. 2014) (alteration in

original) (quoting United States v. Butler, 594 F.3d 955, 965 (8th Cir. 2010), cert.

denied, 135 S. Ct. 1881 (2015)). "'[S]entencing judges are required to find sentenceenhancing facts only by a preponderance of the evidence.'" United States v.

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Norwood, 774 F.3d 476, 479 (8th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (quoting United States v.

Scott, 449 F.3d 1040, 1043 (8th Cir. 2006)).

Section 2S1.1(a) ofthe Guidelines describes how a district court must calculate

the base offense level for the crime of money laundering. Section 2S1.1(a)(1)

provides that if, as here, the defendant committed the underlying offense, then the

offense level for the underlying offense serves asthe base offense level for the money

laundering crime. U.S.S.G. § 2S1.1(a)(1). As discussed above, the facts in the plea

agreement establish that Van Doren aided and abetted Barber in committing the wire

fraud offense that served as the basis for the money laundering charge in count 24. 

Accordingly, the district court appropriately calculated Van Doren's base offense

level using the guideline for the wire fraud offense. U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1. The district

court concluded that the base offense level for the wire fraud offense wassix, and the

court added a mandatory one-level increase for a money laundering conviction under

18 U.S.C. § 1957. U.S.S.G. §§ 2B1.1(a)(2) and 2S1.1(b)(2)(A). Applying §

2B1.1(b)(1)(G), the district court additionally increased Van Doren's offense level by

twelve after concluding that all three transfers alleged in relation to Van Doren were

part of the same scheme to defraud that formed the basis for the wire fraud offense. 

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(G) (proscribing that if a defendant is convicted of an offense

involving fraud or deceit and the loss exceeded $200,000, a twelve-level

enhancement applies). 

The district court committed no error in its sentencing calculations, correctly

calculated the losses associated with the wire fraud offense, and we find no clear error

in its factual findings underpinning the calculation. Section 1B1.3(a) provides that

unless otherwise specified, the specific offense characteristics(i.e., loss calculations)

shall be determined on the basis of all acts and omissions committed, aided, and

abetted, or willfully caused by the defendant, and in the case of a jointly undertaken

criminal activity, "all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others in

furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity." U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A),

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(B). Too, conduct comprising a dismissed count may be used as relevant conduct for

sentencing purposes. United States v. Andreano, 417 F.3d 967, 970 (8th Cir. 2005).

Evidence of the three transactions discussed here, and the district court's use of them

in its sentencing calculation, wasforemost at issue during the sentencing hearing, and

all of these transactions formed the basis of the wire fraud and money laundering

charges against Van Doren. The district court did not clearly err in determining that

the three financial transactions were part of a single underlying scheme to defraud

and thus accurately calculated Van Doren's sentence according to the Guidelines.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated herein, we affirm.

______________________________

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