Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03031/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03031-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ngozi Pole
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 6, 2013 Decided December 20, 2013 

No. 12-3031 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

NGOZI POLE, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:09-cr-00354-1) 

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued 

the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J. 

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Tony Axam Jr., Assistant 

Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance. 

Sonja M. Ralston, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Mythili 

Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney General, and Tracee Plowell, 

Trial Attorney. 

Before: TATEL and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

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TATEL,Circuit Judge: Imagine that you oversee the budget 

of a large Senate office, and you’re in a bind. Your boss, the 

Senator, has directed you to ensure that the budget is spent to 

zero every fiscal year, but the fiscal year is nearing its end, the 

office is on track to run a significant surplus, and the chief of 

staff seems unwilling to focus on the problem. How should you 

handle the situation? Appellant, who lived this hypothetical 

while serving as former Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s office 

manager, made the wrong choice. In an effort to spend down 

surpluses and simultaneously compensate hard work, Appellant 

awarded himself large unauthorized bonuses. For his efforts, he 

was convicted of five counts of wire fraud and one count of 

theft. On appeal, he argues that the district court wrongly 

excluded evidence, that he received ineffective assistance of 

trial counsel, and that the district court’s restitution order was 

excessive. Although we reject Appellant’s evidentiary 

arguments, we remand his colorable ineffective assistance 

claims and vacate and remand the restitution order because 

neither the jury nor the district court made factual findings 

sufficient to support the order. 

I. 

 Appellant Ngozi Pole began serving as Senator Edward M. 

Kennedy’s Washington, D.C. office manager in 1998 and 

remained in that position until 2007. During that time, Pole 

served under four chiefs of staff—Gerard Kavanaugh, Mary 

Beth Cahill, Danica Petroshius, and Eric Mogilnicki—and one 

interim chief of staff. Despite the government’s claim that “Pole 

[m]anaged the [o]ffice, [n]ot the [b]udget,” Appellee’s Br. 3, his 

role as office manager went far beyond ensuring that Senator 

Kennedy’s staff had an adequate supply of pencils. As part of 

his human resources portfolio, Pole was responsible for 

submitting “payroll action authorization” forms (PAAs), which 

raised or lowered the salaries of office employees. According to 

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the government, Pole needed approval from Kennedy or the 

chief of staff for any salary adjustments, but neither the Senator 

nor the chiefs of staff regularly reviewed PAAs prior to 

submission. As part of his budget portfolio, Pole served as the 

office’s point of contact for the Senate Disbursing Office, which 

sent periodic updates about how much money the office had left 

to spend. Because Senator Kennedy wanted the office to spend 

every last cent every fiscal year, Pole was responsible for 

keeping track of how much money remained and for making 

recommendations about how to reach the magic zero-balance 

point. 

Near the end of fiscal year 2001, the office was in danger of 

running a significant deficit. Though the office ultimately ended 

the year in the black, the deficit scare led Cahill, then chief of 

staff, to spend frugally in fiscal year 2002 even though the office 

also received an increased budget allocation that year. This 

combination of frugality and increased funds led to a surplus at 

the end of fiscal year 2002. 

With the office on track to run another surplus in fiscal year 

2003, Pole devised a plan to spend down the budget and make a 

little something for himself. His plan took advantage of a 

Kennedy office practice, condoned by the Senator and chiefs of 

staff, designed to circumvent an official Senate ban on employee 

bonuses. In order to award annual bonuses notwithstanding the 

ban, Kennedy’s office would, with the Senator’s or the chief of 

staff’s approval, submit PAAs that increased an employee’s 

salary for a period of time—two or three weeks or even a 

month—sufficient to produce the intended bonus. In order to 

award exit bonuses, the office took two approaches: employees 

targeted for bonuses were kept on the payroll either for a few 

weeks following their departure or for an indefinite period at a 

salary just high enough to cover the employee contribution for 

Senate-subsidized health care. Pole used his role in the PAA 

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submission process to grant various staffers—most notably 

himself—bonuses that neither the Senator nor the chief of staff 

authorized. Pole continued awarding these bonuses until January 

2007 when he gave himself an exit bonus before leaving to take 

a new position as Senator Sherrod Brown’s deputy chief of staff. 

In total, Pole awarded himself $77,608.86 in unapproved 

bonuses. 

After Pole casually mentioned his exit bonus to Mogilnicki, 

chief of staff at the time, Mogilnicki became suspicious and 

requested all payroll records for all employees. Realizing the 

extent of Pole’s scheme, Mogilnicki contacted Gregory Craig, 

former senior aide and counselor to Senator Kennedy. Together 

they confronted Pole. According to Craig, Pole defended his 

actions, claiming that he had been denied raises he “felt he had 

been entitled to” and could have earned more in the private 

sector. Trial Tr. 58 (Jan. 25, 2011) (testimony of Gregory 

Craig). Craig and Mogilnicki referred the matter to the FBI, and 

Senator Brown dismissed Pole. 

Following the FBI investigation, Pole was charged with five 

counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and one 

count of theft of government property worth more than $1,000 

in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. Although the indictment alleged 

a scheme to defraud dating from July 2003, the five-year statute 

of limitations prevented the government from charging fraud for 

wire transfers occurring prior to December 15, 2004. At trial, 

the basic dispute was over whether Pole knew he needed 

authorization to award bonuses. Given Senator Kennedy’s 

instruction to spend the budget to zero and the absence of clear 

rules and procedures, Pole maintained that he had implicit 

authority to spend down the budget however he saw fit. 

Contesting this account, the government leaned on Pole’s own 

statements, as well as testimony from all five chiefs of staff, 

indicating that Pole knew that he needed approval for salary 

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adjustments. After the jury convicted Pole on all charges, the 

district court sentenced him to twenty months in prison and 

ordered him to pay $75,042.37 in restitution (the full $77,608.86 

the government asserts he stole minus some $2,500 that 

Mogilnicki managed to recover through the Senate Disbursing 

Office). 

On appeal, Pole challenges three evidentiary rulings, argues 

that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and insists 

that the district court miscalculated restitution. We consider 

each issue in turn. 

II. 

We begin with Pole’s argument that the district court 

wrongly excluded three pieces of testimonial evidence. When a 

defendant has preserved his objection to a district court’s 

evidentiary ruling, we review that ruling for abuse of discretion. 

United States v. Alexander, 331 F.3d 116, 121 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

We review unpreserved objections for plain error. United States 

v. Thompson, 279 F.3d 1043, 1048–49 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Either 

way, if we determine that the district court has erred in 

excluding particular evidence, we will reverse the conviction on 

that basis only if the error was not harmless. United States v. 

Baugham, 449 F.3d 167, 183 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (plain error); 

United States v. Coumaris, 399 F.3d 343, 347–50 (D.C. Cir. 

2005) (abuse of discretion). 

Pole first challenges the district court’s refusal to permit 

him to testify about the contents of certain budget memos. The 

issue arose when Pole testified that he “let Ms. Cahill know that 

the surplus numbers were high [in fiscal year 2002].” Trial Tr. 

67 (Jan. 26, 2011 Afternoon Session). Noting that some budget 

memos he sent Cahill had been entered into evidence, Pole then 

attempted to testify that the “place where I traditionally would 

put [the projected surplus] number is redacted so it’s hard to 

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see.” Id. The government objected, arguing that Pole should not 

be allowed to testify about redacted contents. Sustaining the 

objection, the district court stated only that the redacted contents 

are “not a part of the evidentiary record.” Id. at 68–69. 

Assuming the district court erred in excluding this 

testimony, and even if, as Pole insists, that error was of 

“constitutional dimension,” “it appears beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the 

verdict obtained.” United States v. Powell, 334 F.3d 42, 45 

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted). Pole was allowed to 

testify that he kept chiefs of staff informed about budgetary 

matters and in fact did testify that he “let Ms. Cahill know that 

the surplus numbers were high.” Thus, if the jury found that 

Pole generally lacked credibility, it would have had no reason to 

believe his assertions about what lay under the redactions; if the 

jury found Pole generally credible, it would have learned 

nothing new from the excluded testimony. Since any error in 

excluding this testimony was clearly harmless, we have no need 

to address the government’s dubious assertion that Pole failed to 

preserve this challenge, see Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(2), or its 

argument—advanced for the first time on appeal—that Pole’s 

testimony would have violated the Best Evidence Rule, see Fed. 

R. Evid. 1002; cf. United States v. Davis, 596 F.3d 852, 858 n.4 

(D.C. Cir. 2010) (noting that the government’s failure to make a 

“best evidence objection” at the district court deprived the 

defendant of an opportunity to demonstrate that a Best Evidence 

Rule exception applied). 

Pole next challenges the district court’s refusal to admit 

testimony from former Financial Clerk of the Senate Kenneth 

Wineman about a telephone conversation Wineman had with 

Kennedy. Wineman was prepared to testify that at some 

undetermined time he and Kennedy discussed the office budget 

and several payroll matters. According to Wineman, the Senator 

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indicated that Wineman could pass along follow-up information 

to Pole for delivery to Kennedy. Questioning the relevance of 

this testimony, Trial Tr. 150–53 (Jan. 25, 2011), the district 

court ultimately excluded it because it was duplicative of other 

evidence and likely to invite speculation. Id. at 154–55. 

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, the district court 

“may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is 

substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, 

confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting 

time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.” Fed. R. 

Evid. 403; see also Henderson v. George Washington 

University, 449 F.3d 127, 133 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (noting that our 

review of Rule 403 rulings is highly deferential). According to 

Pole, Wineman’s testimony had significant probative value 

because it would have: (1) helped demonstrate that “Kennedy’s 

office functioned as an art, not as a science”; (2) “countered 

government witness testimony that Pole failed to keep the chiefs 

of staff informed”; and (3) reflected Kennedy’s faith in Pole. 

Appellant’s Br. 47–48 (internal quotation marks omitted). But 

Wineman could not recall when the call occurred, Trial Tr. 161–

62 (Jan. 25, 2011), and Pole’s counsel indicated that he would 

not ask Wineman what specifically was discussed or whether he 

provided any follow-up information to Pole, id. at 153–55. 

Given this, the district court hardly abused its discretion in 

determining that the limited probative value of the testimony 

was substantially outweighed by the distraction that might have 

resulted had the jury been invited to speculate about what 

Kennedy said to Wineman and what, if anything, Wineman gave 

Pole to deliver to Kennedy. 

Pole also challenges the district court’s refusal to allow 

Wineman to testify about a telephone conversation with Pole 

that followed his conversation with Kennedy. Wineman was 

prepared to testify that Pole, after hearing about Wineman’s 

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conversation with Kennedy, indicated that he was “surprised 

that [Kennedy] wanted to get involved, but certainly we will do 

whatever he wants us to do.” Trial Tr. 166 (Jan. 25, 2011). 

Doubtful about the relevance of this testimony, the district court 

ultimately excluded it as inadmissible hearsay. Id. at 169. 

Pole insists that the testimony would have demonstrated his 

can-do spirit and willingness to comply with instructions. And 

perhaps Pole’s expression of surprise and willingness to comply 

would have been probative of his state of mind had he and 

Wineman discussed some matter relevant to this case. But 

because Wineman’s testimony about the Kennedy call was 

permissibly excluded, the jury would have had no way of 

knowing whether Pole’s expression of surprise and willingness 

to comply referred to spending down the budget (clearly 

relevant), ensuring that PAAs were signed with blue ink (clearly 

irrelevant), or something in between. Under these 

circumstances, even if the district court erred in excluding this 

testimony on hearsay grounds, and even if that error was 

constitutional in nature, we are confident beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the error had no effect on the outcome of the trial. 

III. 

 Next, Pole maintains that he received ineffective assistance 

of trial counsel. Specifically, he alleges that trial counsel should 

have (1) produced unredacted copies of Pole’s budget memos; 

(2) “through documentary evidence and additional discovery or 

otherwise” demonstrated that “Pole routinely issued exit 

bonuses without specific chief of staff approval”; (3) 

“demonstrate[d] that Cahill instructed Pole to spend the budget 

to zero, or to impeach her testimony that she did not do so”; and 

(4) attempted to impeach Petroshius by introducing evidence 

about employee bonuses she denied issuing and by 

“question[ing] Petroshius regarding a memoranda from Pole” 

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containing budgetary information she claimed never to have 

received. Appellant’s Br. 53–56. 

To prevail on his ineffective assistance of counsel claims, 

Pole 

must show two things: that his lawyer made errors “so 

serious that counsel was not functioning as the 

‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth 

Amendment,” and that counsel’s deficient performance 

was prejudicial, i.e., that there is a “reasonable 

probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional 

errors, the result of the proceeding would have been 

different.” 

United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 1512 (D.C. Cir. 1997) 

(quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 694 

(1984)). In this Circuit, we generally remand “colorable 

claim[s]” of ineffective assistance to the district court to make 

any necessary factual findings, United States v. Moore, 651 F.3d 

30, 85, 87 (D.C. Cir. 2011), “unless the record conclusively 

demonstrates that the defendant is or is not entitled to relief,” 

United States v. Fareri, 712 F.3d 593, 595 (D.C. Cir. 2013) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). “We do not reflexively 

remand, but neither will we hesitate to remand when a trial 

record is insufficient to assess the full circumstances and 

rationales informing the strategic decisions of trial counsel.” 

United States v. Mohammed, 693 F.3d 192, 202 (D.C. Cir. 2012) 

(internal citations and quotation marks omitted). 

 Here, Pole has alleged errors that, taken together, qualify as 

“colorable,” requiring remand under this forgiving standard. 

Had Pole’s counsel introduced unredacted memos 

demonstrating that Pole kept Cahill informed about surpluses, 

the jury might have found Pole a more credible witness. Had 

Pole’s counsel been able to demonstrate that Pole had authority 

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to issue exit bonuses without prior approval, Pole might have 

avoided conviction on the wire fraud count arising from his exit 

bonus and even convinced the jury that he reasonably believed 

he had authority to award himself unapproved annual bonuses. 

Had Pole’s counsel successfully impeached Cahill and 

Petroshius, Pole might have undermined their testimony that he 

needed their approval before making salary adjustments. 

To be clear, we conclude only that Pole’s claims of 

ineffective assistance are colorable, not that he has likely 

demonstrated ineffective assistance. Indeed, the government 

offers several plausible arguments suggesting that Pole has 

shown neither error nor prejudice. But given Pole’s allegations, 

and given that the trial record neither indicates why trial counsel 

made particular strategic decisions nor refutes the possibility 

that Pole suffered prejudice, we believe that the safest course of 

action is to allow the district court to address the claims—and 

the government’s responses—in the first instance. We leave it to 

the wise judgment of the district court to decide whether to hold 

an evidentiary hearing. 

IV. 

 Finally, Pole argues that the district court improperly 

inflated the amount of restitution he owes. Relying on the 

presentence report, the district court ordered Pole to pay the 

government $75,042.37, Pole’s total gains from all unauthorized 

bonuses he awarded himself minus the small amount Mogilnicki 

managed to recover. According to Pole, he should have been 

required to pay back only $11,233.24, the total gains from the 

five unauthorized bonuses underlying the counts of conviction 

minus what Mogilnicki recovered. We review restitution orders 

for abuse of discretion and any factual findings underlying those 

orders for clear error. United States v. Bryson, 485 F.3d 1205, 

1208 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

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 In their briefs, the parties primarily debate whether, under 

the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, 

courts can order restitution for all losses resulting from a scheme 

to defraud, where, as here, some of those losses occurred outside 

the statute of limitations. But we need not address this question 

because the restitution order in this case suffers from a more 

fundamental defect. Even though record evidence might have 

supported a scheme to defraud extending to conduct outside the 

statute of limitations, nothing in the record supports the 

government’s assertion that the jury or district judge actually 

found a scheme of such duration. 

As for the jury, neither the court’s instructions nor the 

verdict form indicates that the jury found a scheme to defraud 

that included conduct outside the statute of limitations. The 

instructions stated that “[i]t is not necessary that the government 

prove all of the details alleged concerning the precise nature and 

purpose of the scheme.” Final Jury Instructions 20. Even though 

the instructions went on to state that “[w]hat must be proved . . . 

[is] a scheme to defraud substantially the same as the one 

alleged in the indictment,” id., Pole asserts, without 

contradiction, that the jury received an edited version of the 

indictment that included no references to pre-statute of 

limitations conduct. Moreover, the verdict form listed five 

counts of wire fraud and asked the jury to determine for each 

whether “[o]n or about [the date of a charged wire transfer] . . . 

defendant executed and attempted to execute the scheme and 

artifice to defraud.” Verdict Form 1–3 (emphasis added). 

Nothing in this language suggests that in returning a verdict of 

guilty the jury necessarily found a scheme to defraud predating 

the earliest charged wire transfer. As a result, the jury’s decision 

to convict Pole provides no factual basis for the restitution 

order. 

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As for the district court, because it failed to make any 

factual findings regarding the duration of the scheme, we have 

no occasion to consider whether, under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 

530 U.S. 466 (2000), a jury must find the facts justifying the 

restitution amount, or whether the jury’s verdict on the offense 

of conviction authorizes the district court to impose—in 

accordance with statutory requirements—an amount of 

restitution justified by its own findings. Cf. Bryson, 485 F.3d at 

1208 (“The Government must prove at sentencing that its 

proposed restitution figure is supported by a preponderance of 

the evidence.” (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3664(e)). As Pole’s counsel 

sought to point out at sentencing, see Trial Tr. 76 (Mar. 30, 

2012), this Court has interpreted Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 32(i)(3)(B) to require the district court, at a 

minimum, to make specific factual findings resolving any 

“disputed portion of the presentence report or other controverted 

matter.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(B); see also United States v. 

McCants, 434 F.3d 557, 561–62 (D.C. Cir. 2006). To satisfy this 

requirement, the district court must provide “something more 

than conclusions.” Id. at 562 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

“The fact-finding requirement serves more than the purely 

ministerial function of transmitting accurate information to the 

Bureau of Prisons and Parole Commission; more importantly, it 

protects a defendant’s due process rights to be sentenced on the 

basis of accurate information, and facilitates appellate review by 

furnishing a clear record of the resolution of disputed facts.” Id. 

at 561–62 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Here, Pole clearly contested the duration of the scheme. 

See, e.g., Defendant’s Surreply to the Government’s Sentencing 

Memorandum at 24–25, 29–30. But without resolving this 

factual dispute, the district court adopted the presentence 

report’s recommendation: 

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I was the trial judge. I heard from Day One to the end 

of this trial, I heard all the testimony and there’s 

nothing inconsistent with the evidence adduced at trial 

in the presentence report, and the Court firmly believes 

that what’s set forth in those paragraphs is indeed the 

factual predicate necessary for the Court to find as a 

matter of fact the amount of . . . restitution. 

Trial Tr. 3/30/12 at 76–77. In our view, this statement is too 

conclusory to satisfy the requirements of Rule 32(i)(3)(B), as 

nothing in it resolves the factual assertions Pole raised. Thus, 

even if the district court could have constitutionally imposed 

restitution on the basis of its own findings (by a preponderance 

of the evidence) that the scheme to defraud included conduct 

outside the statute of limitations, it failed to do so. 

The government argues that vacating the restitution order 

would conflict with the approach taken in other circuits, which 

have held that “restitution may be ordered for all losses caused 

by a scheme and that the scheme’s scope encompasses at least 

what is outlined in the charging document.” Appellee’s Br. 45. 

In support, however, the government cites only cases where 

courts upheld restitution orders that, unlike here, rested on 

adequate findings, see, e.g., United States v. Brown, 665 F.3d 

1239, 1253 (11th Cir. 2011) (upholding a restitution order 

because district court fact-finding provided an adequate factual 

basis), or vacated restitution orders that, as here, suffered from 

factual or legal defects, see, e.g., United States v. Adams, 363 

F.3d 363, 366–68 (5th Cir. 2004) (vacating a restitution order 

because it was inconsistent with the “mutual understanding of 

the parties”). Moreover, insisting that restitution orders have an 

adequate factual basis imposes no significant limitation on 

restitution. The government can always ask the district court to 

craft a verdict form that ensures the jury is able to make factual 

findings sufficient to support a particular amount of restitution, 

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or, assuming no Apprendi problem, urge the court to resolve 

factual disputes at sentencing instead of simply relying on the 

presentence report. 

V. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we reject Pole’s evidentiary 

challenges, remand Pole’s ineffective assistance claims, and 

vacate and remand the restitution order for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered. 

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