Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02851/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02851-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Cynthia Anne Gould
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILED 

U-:: in~d Stares Com t of Appeab 

JAN 2 3 1990 

ROBERT L HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. No . · 88-2851 

CYNTHIA ANNE GOULD, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

(D.C. No. CR-88-172-T) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before*TACHA and SETH, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District 

Judge. 

This appeal is from an order of conviction following a jury 

trial finding defendant guilty of embezzlement from the Tonkawa 

Tribe of Oklahoma. In this appeal defendant argues that the 

district court erred in refusing to sever the trials of defendant 

and her father, co-defendant Henry Lemar Allen, and further that 

the district court erred in admitting the prior conviction of 

Henry Lemar Allen into evidence at the trial of this matter. We 

affirm. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

** The Honorable Wesley E. Brown, District Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 88-2851 Document: 01019961093 Date Filed: 01/23/1990 Page: 1 
• 

In one of the counts of the indictment involved in this case, 

defendant was charged with conspiring with her co-defendant Allen 

to embezzle funds from the Tonkawa Tribe of Oklahoma. The 

district court refused to sever the trials of the two codefendants on the grounds that the defendants were alleged to have 

participated in the same series of acts constituting the offenses. 

The record is clear that the facts underlying the offenses 

involved in this case were the same. The trial court did not 

abuse its discretion in refusing to sever the trials of the two 

defendants under these circumstances. See United States v. Neal, 

692 F.2d 1296, 1305 (10th Cir. 1982) (grant or denial of severance 

under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14 lies within sound 

discretion of the trial court) . 

The trial court admitted evidence of Allen's prior conviction 

in the presentation of the government's case against defendant. 

Because defendant was charged with embezzlement as a result of 

Allen's prior offense, the evidence of that prior offense was 

clearly relevant in the case against defendant. The probative 

value of this evidence and its necessary character in proving the 

case against defendant clearly outweighed any prejudicial value to 

the defendant. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. The trial court therefore 

did not err in admitting evidence of Allen's conviction in 

defendant's trial. 

AFFIRMED. 

-2-

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 88-2851 Document: 01019961093 Date Filed: 01/23/1990 Page: 2