Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03062/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03062-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Charles E. Coughlin
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 6, 2009 Decided June 29, 2010

No. 09-3062

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

CHARLES E. COUGHLIN,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 09-3063

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00334-HHK-1)

Steven M. Klepper argued the cause for appellant. With

him on the briefs was John A. Bourgeois.

Amanda Winchester, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Roy W. McLeese

III and Susan B. Menzer, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: TATEL, GARLAND, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: The government accused

defendant Charles Coughlin of defrauding the September 11th

Victim Compensation Fund, which awarded him $331,034 for

damages he said he sustained as a result of the September 11,

2001 attack on the Pentagon. Coughlin was indicted on five

counts of mail fraud, one count of making a false and fraudulent

claim, and one count of theft of public money. A jury acquitted

him on three of the mail fraud counts, but was unable to reach

a verdict on the remaining counts. Coughlin argues that a retrial

on the remaining counts would run afoul of the Double Jeopardy

Clause, which “precludes the Government from relitigating any

issue that was necessarily decided by a jury’s acquittal in a prior

trial.” Yeager v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 2360, 2366 (2009)

(citing Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970)). 

We agree with Coughlin that the Double Jeopardy Clause

bars his retrial on the remaining mail fraud counts, and we

therefore direct their dismissal. We disagree, however, that a

retrial on the false claim and theft counts would require the

government to relitigate any issue that the jury necessarily

decided in Coughlin’s favor. Accordingly, the government may

retry him in a case limited to those counts. 

I

Coughlin, an officer in the United States Navy, was

working in the Pentagon when terrorists crashed a hijacked

plane into the building on September 11, 2001. In December

2003, Coughlin submitted (by fax and subsequent handdelivery) a claim to the September 11th Victim Compensation

Fund (VCF), which Congress created to compensate people who

were injured in the attacks of that day. Coughlin’s papers

averred that the plane struck the Pentagon seventy-five feet from

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where he was working and caused the ceiling over his desk to

collapse. He stated that he was hit by flying debris and that he

struck his head while participating in rescue efforts in a smokefilled area.

On January 22, 2004, Coughlin’s attorney, Walter Laake,

hand-delivered a claim application, with an attached cover letter,

to the VCF. On February 3, Laake mailed the VCF a corrected

version of the cover letter. Together, the papers stated that the

injuries Coughlin suffered on 9/11 caused him severe and

permanent disabilities. These included neck, head, and upper

back pain; restricted range of motion; and weakness and

numbness in his left arm and hand. Due to his injuries,

Coughlin said, he could no longer play certain sports, and his

medical needs forced him to take time off from work. As a

further consequence, he was no longer able to take care of

household maintenance tasks like painting, electrical wiring, and

installing a patio. Instead, he said, he had to pay others to do

these tasks, and he included a list of ten checks he had written

for that purpose. The application made clear, however, that

Coughlin was not seeking compensation for such replacement

services or any other economic damages. Letter from W. Laake

to VCF (Jan. 22, 2004) (Record Extract (R.E.) 2566). Rather,

explaining that Coughlin’s condition was “permanent and

painful,” the application averred that Coughlin sought $180,000

in compensation solely “for the personal injuries that he

suffered.” Id.

The VCF initially determined that Coughlin was ineligible

for compensation, in part because he had not sought medical

treatment within the time allowed by the Fund. On February 17,

2004, Coughlin appealed that determination, explaining the

delay and asking for a waiver of ineligibility that was available

to rescue workers. On February 20 and March 9, Coughlin

submitted additional materials, including certified medical

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records and a report from a physician. Thereafter, the VCF

reversed itself and, on April 14, informed him that he was

eligible for a “presumed award” of $60,000 -- which represented

“zero dollars of economic loss and $60,000 of noneconomic

loss.” Trial Tr. 35-36 (Mar. 16, 2009); see Letter from VCF to

Coughlin (Apr. 14, 2004) (R.E. 2843). The VCF advised

Coughlin that he could either accept that amount or seek an

appeal hearing. On April 30, Coughlin’s attorney sent the VCF

a letter seeking such a hearing. 

The appeal hearing took place on May 13, 2004. 

Coughlin’s attorney told the hearing officer that Coughlin was

seeking review for two reasons. The $60,000 presumed award

for non-economic loss was, he said, “unfair and inadequate and

in and of itself would give rise to a request for review.” Award

Appeal Hr’g Tr. 6 (May 13, 2004). But the presumed award was

also “an egregious error” because it “provided no compensation

for economic loss to the Claimant.” Id. at 5. The attorney

acknowledged that the failure to award compensation for

economic loss was not the VCF’s fault. As he explained: 

“[O]ne of the things that we didn’t spell out in the initial claim

and that the claim evaluator really didn’t have before him -- and

it was an oversight on my part . . . -- was the fact that there was

a past, present, and future loss of earnings component to this

claim, which was never even made initially.” Id. at 6-7; see id.

at 51-52 (reiteration by Coughlin’s attorney that the January 22

claim application “did not include the economic loss that we

presented to you today”). 

In support of his appeal, Coughlin submitted ten new

exhibits, nine of which addressed his economic loss. These

included a letter documenting the time he had taken off from

work for doctor appointments and physical therapy, which

Coughlin then translated into lost salary. He also offered 32

carbon copies of checks purportedly reflecting payments to

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others for household services he could no longer perform

himself. And he provided a six-page schedule setting out and

totaling his past and future economic claims. 

The VCF reached its final decision on June 1, awarding

Coughlin $331,034. The award was composed of $151,034 for

economic damages and the entire $180,000 he had requested for

non-economic injury. See Letter from VCF to Coughlin (June

2, 2004) (R.E. 2851).

On October 31, 2008, a grand jury indicted Coughlin,

charging that, “[f]rom in or about December 2003, and

continuing until in or about June 2004,” he “willfully and

knowingly devised, and intended to devise, a scheme and

artifice to defraud the VCF and to obtain money by means of

false and fraudulent pretenses and representations.” Indictment

¶ 6. The indictment alleged, inter alia, that Coughlin submitted

false and misleading information about his pre- and postSeptember 11 medical condition and about his loss of earnings.

The indictment contained five counts of mail fraud in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 -- one for each letter that Coughlin

sent or caused to be sent to the VCF while pursuing his claim. 

Count One was for the February 3, 2004 version of the cover

letter that Coughlin’s attorney had initially hand-delivered to the

VCF on January 22, 2004. Count Two was for Coughlin’s

February 17 appeal of the VCF’s initial ineligibility decision. 

Count Three was for the February 20 letter that enclosed

certified copies of Coughlin’s medical records. Count Four was

for the March 9 letter that enclosed additional exhibits that

Coughlin offered to support his rescue activities and physical

injuries. And Count Five was for Coughlin’s April 30 request

for an appeal hearing regarding the amount of the VCF award.

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The indictment also included two non-mail-fraud counts. 

Count Six charged Coughlin with making a false and fraudulent

claim in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 287. And Count Seven

charged him with theft of public money in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 641. 

After a month-long trial, a jury acquitted Coughlin on three

of the five mail fraud charges -- Counts Two, Three, and Five. 

It was unable to reach a verdict on the other four counts. On

April 15, 2009, the district court declared a mistrial.1

The government did not dispute that the Fifth Amendment’s

Double Jeopardy Clause barred it from retrying Coughlin on the

charges of which the jury acquitted him. It did, however, seek

to retry him on those counts as to which the jury was unable to

reach a verdict. Coughlin objected, invoking a prong of double

jeopardy analysis known as “issue preclusion” (also referred to

as “collateral estoppel”). As the Supreme Court explained in

Ashe v. Swenson, this prong bars the government from

prosecuting a defendant on a charge that depends on facts that

a previous acquittal on a different charge necessarily decided in

the defendant’s favor. 397 U.S. 436, 443-44 (1970). 

At the time of the April 15 mistrial, the rule in this Circuit

(and several others) was that Ashe did not bar retrial in a case

like Coughlin’s. In United States v. White, the Circuit had held

that, where the same jury acquits a defendant on some charges

and cannot reach a verdict as to others, the acquittals could not

have been based on a fact upon which the hung counts

depended. 936 F.2d 1326, 1329 (D.C. Cir. 1991). To conclude

otherwise, White said, would be to “assume that the jury acted

1

Coughlin’s wife had also been a defendant in the trial, charged

only with the count of theft of public money (Count Seven). After the

jury hung on that count, the government opted not to retry her. 

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inconsistently, reaching opposite findings on the same issue in

the different counts.” Id. Adhering to White, the district court

denied Coughlin’s double jeopardy motion. On June 8, 2009, a

new trial commenced on the two remaining mail fraud counts,

as well as on the false claim and theft counts. 

 On June 18, in the midst of the second trial, the Supreme

Court decided Yeager v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 2360 (2009). 

Yeager expressly overruled the decisions of those circuits,

including our own, that had held that a conflict between

acquittals and hung counts barred the application of issue

preclusion. 129 S. Ct. at 2365 (citing White, 936 F.2d 1326). 

Relying on Yeager, Coughlin promptly renewed his motion to

bar retrial. He argued that the only disputed issue at the first

trial was his fraudulent intent; that by acquitting him on some

mail fraud counts, the jury necessarily found that he had acted

in good faith when he sought money from the VCF; and that this

finding precluded liability on all of the remaining counts. On

June 30, the district court denied Coughlin’s motion, concluding

that, although his argument regarding the two mail fraud counts

was not “frivolous in the legal sense of that word, i.e. lacking a

legal basis or legal merit,” it failed to satisfy the Yeager test. 

Order at 3, United States v. Coughlin, No. 08-334 (D.D.C. June

30, 2009). As for the false claim and theft counts, the court said,

Coughlin’s double jeopardy argument simply “lack[ed] legal

merit.” Id. at 4. 

Coughlin then filed this appeal and an emergency motion to

stay the ongoing retrial. Although the appeal is interlocutory,

we have jurisdiction because denials of double jeopardy motions

fall within the collateral-order exception to the usual rule barring

review of non-final judgments. Abney v. United States, 431 U.S.

651, 657-59 (1977); United States v. Ginyard, 511 F.3d 203, 208

(D.C. Cir. 2008). A special panel of this court stayed the trial

pending the appeal. The panel found the stay warranted in light

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of the “unusual circumstances presented” by Yeager’s mid-trial

reversal of Circuit precedent, and in light of the district court’s

determination that Coughlin’s double jeopardy claim was not

frivolous, at least as to the mail fraud counts. Order at 1-2,

United States v. Coughlin, No. 09-3062 (D.C. Cir. July 8, 2009). 

II

We review de novo the district court’s determination that

issue preclusion does not bar Coughlin’s retrial. See United

States v. TDC Mgmt. Corp., 24 F.3d 292, 295 (D.C. Cir. 1994). 

In this part, we set forth the principles of issue preclusion. In

Part III we apply them to the two mail fraud counts as to which

the jury failed to reach a verdict, and in Part IV we apply them

to the false claim and theft counts upon which the jury also

hung.

In addition to barring retrial of a charge upon which a

defendant was acquitted, Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2365-66, “the

Double Jeopardy Clause precludes the Government from

relitigating any issue that was necessarily decided by a jury’s

acquittal in a prior trial,” id. at 2366. “To decipher what a jury

has necessarily decided,” Yeager reaffirmed, “courts should

‘examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account

the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and

conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict

upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to

foreclose from consideration.’” Id. at 2367 (quoting Ashe, 397

U.S. at 444). This “inquiry ‘must be set in a practical frame and

viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the

proceedings.’” Id. (quoting Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444).

Yeager also instructed how, in determining what the jury

decided on the acquitted charges, we should account for the fact

that the jury was unable to reach a verdict on other charges. The

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answer? Not at all. “[T]he jury’s inability to reach a verdict,”

the Court held, is “a nonevent.” Id. “Because a jury speaks only

through its verdict, its failure to reach a verdict cannot -- by

negative implication -- yield a piece of information that helps

put together the trial puzzle.” Id. Thus, in our analysis of why

the jury acquitted Coughlin on three of the mail fraud counts, we

must not “conjecture about possible reasons for [the] jury’s

failure to reach a decision” on the other two mail fraud counts

or on the false claim and theft counts. Id. at 2368. And, if we

determine that an issue necessarily decided in Coughlin’s favor

on the acquitted counts is an “essential element” of a hung

count, we must bar retrial on that count notwithstanding the

jury’s failure to reach a verdict. Id. at 2369. 

A few more points are worth emphasizing. The Court has

directed that our analysis of what the jury decided should be

conducted with “realism and rationality,” Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444,

and that we should not presume “that the jury may have

disbelieved substantial and uncontradicted evidence of the

prosecution on a point the defendant did not contest,” id. at 444

n.9 (internal quotation marks omitted). At the same time, if

multiple potential reasons for acquittal are evident in the record

of the trial, we will not presume that the jury acquitted on the

ground most favorable to the defendant. The question is what

the jury “necessarily” decided, Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2366; there

is no collateral estoppel if a different ground “could” have been

a rational basis for acquittal, Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444. Finally,

“the burden [is] on the defendant to demonstrate that the issue

whose relitigation he seeks to foreclose was [necessarily]

decided in the first proceeding.” Dowling v. United States, 493

U.S. 342, 350-51 (1990); see Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2368 n.6.

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III

The indictment in this case charged that, “[f]rom in or about

December 2003, and continuing until in or about June 2004,”

Coughlin willfully and knowingly devised a scheme to defraud

the VCF and to obtain money by means of false and fraudulent

pretenses and representations. Indictment ¶ 6. It further

charged that, “for the purposes of executing and attempting to

execute” this scheme, Coughlin caused to be delivered by the

U.S. Postal Service or Federal Express five pieces of mail,

which formed the bases for the five mail fraud counts. Id. ¶ 19. 

The five mailings were: a February 3, 2004 version of the cover

letter that Coughlin’s attorney had first sent to the VCF the

previous month (Count One); Coughlin’s February 17 appeal of

the VCF’s initial decision that he was ineligible for

compensation (Count Two); a February 20 letter to the VCF that

enclosed certified copies of Coughlin’s medical records (Count

Three); a March 9 letter that enclosed additional exhibits that

Coughlin intended to present (Count Four); and Coughlin’s

April 30 request for a hearing on the amount of the VCF’s award

(Count Five). 

As noted above, the jury acquitted Coughlin on Counts

Two, Three, and Five. The question we consider here is

whether, in so doing, the jury necessarily decided facts in

Coughlin’s favor that constitute an essential element of the

remaining mail fraud counts, Counts One and Four. If so, the

Double Jeopardy Clause would preclude their reprosecution. 

This question has two parts: What facts were necessarily

decided by the jury’s acquittals on Counts Two, Three, and

Five? And, do those facts make up an essential element of the

remaining counts?

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A

To prove mail fraud, the government must show: “‘(1) a

scheme to defraud, and (2) the mailing of a letter, etc., for the

purpose of executing the scheme.’” United States v. Reid, 533

F.2d 1255, 1264 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (quoting Pereira v. United

States, 347 U.S. 1, 8 (1954)); see Carter v. United States, 530

U.S. 255, 261 (2000).2 To commit the offense, the defendant

must have fraudulent intent at the time of the charged mailing: 

that is, he must both have a fraudulent scheme in mind and

intend that the mailing further that scheme. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 1341 (providing that the defendant must have “devised or

intend[ed] to devise a[] scheme” to defraud and must have

caused an item to be delivered by mail “for the purpose of

executing such scheme” (emphasis added)); see also Schmuck

v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 715 (1989) (stating that the

“relevant question . . . is whether the mailing is part of the

execution of the scheme as conceived by the perpetrator at the

time” of the mailing (emphasis added)). The mailing, however,

may be “innocent in and of itself” and “need not be an essential

element of the scheme.” Schmuck, 489 U.S. at 710-11. “It is

sufficient for the mailing to be incident to an essential part of the

scheme . . . .” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Coughlin’s defense at trial was that he lacked fraudulent

intent because he had always acted in good faith. As his

attorney emphasized in closing argument, “the key element[]”

of the charges against him was “intent to defraud.” Trial Tr. 79

(Apr. 7, 2009). The district court advised the jury that Coughlin

2

See 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (providing that the offense is committed

by “[w]hoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or

artifice to defraud, . . . for the purpose of executing such scheme or

artifice . . . knowingly causes to be delivered” by the Postal Service or

a commercial interstate carrier any “matter or thing”).

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asserted he had “acted in good faith,” and instructed that “[i]f

the evidence in this case leaves the jury with a reasonable doubt

as to whether [Coughlin] acted in good faith, the jury must

acquit him.” Trial Tr. 86-87 (Apr. 8, 2009). Based on the

record before us, we conclude that, in acquitting Coughlin on

three counts of mail fraud, the jury necessarily found that he

lacked fraudulent intent when he mailed each of the three letters

referenced in those counts.

1. In opposing Coughlin’s double jeopardy motion in the

district court, the government contended that the jury might have

acquitted Coughlin not because it thought he had no “scheme to

defraud” in mind, but rather because it thought the three

“particular mailings” referenced in Counts Two, Three and Five

“were not in furtherance thereof.” Gov’t’s Opp’n to Def.’s

Renewed Mot. to Bar Re-Trial at 4 (June 24, 2009)

(underscoring in original). The jury could have thought this, the

government argued, because it could have viewed the three

mailings as merely “procedural” communications that contained

no misrepresentations. Id. at 4 & n.1. The mailing at issue in

Count Five, for example, was simply a form on which Coughlin

had checked a box indicating that he wanted a hearing on the

amount of his award.

The jury may well have thought there were no

misrepresentations in any of the three mailings at issue. But

even if it did, it could not have acquitted Coughlin on that basis. 

The law is clear that “innocent mailings -- ones that contain no

false information -- may supply the mailing element.” Schmuck,

489 U.S. at 715 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is also

clear that “the elements of mail fraud [may] be satisfied where

the mailings [are] routine,” id. -- or, to use the government’s

adjective, “procedural.” As the district court instructed the jury: 

“It is not necessary for the Government to prove that the items

mailed . . . contained any false or fraudulent statement . . . or

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contain[ed] any request for money . . . . The government must

prove . . . , however, that the use of the mails . . . further[ed] or

advanced or carried out in some way the scheme.” Trial Tr. 81

(Apr. 8, 2009).3 The government itself emphasized this point. 

There is “no requirement that the items that actually get mailed

be false,” the prosecutor said in closing argument. “All the

documents that got mailed could be perfectly true, as long as

they were used as part of a scheme to defraud.” Trial Tr. 11

(Apr. 7, 2009). Accordingly, the prosecutor assured the jury,

“this won’t be a big issue for you, because . . . [a]ll the

government has to prove is that things were mailed to the VCF,

and they were mailed for the purpose of advancing the scheme.” 

Id. 

Given the court’s instructions and the government’s

arguments, “a rational jury could [not] have grounded its

verdict,” Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2367 (quoting Ashe, 397 U.S. at

444), on the conclusion that the mailings were not sent in

furtherance of the fraudulent scheme -- if such a scheme existed

at the time of each mailing. If the jury believed Coughlin had a

fraudulent scheme in mind on February 17, 2004, the date of the

letter referenced in Count Two, it could not have doubted that

the letter furthered that scheme. The February 17 letter enclosed

a form appealing the VCF’s initial determination that Coughlin

was ineligible for compensation; without the letter, the alleged

scheme to defraud the VCF of money could not have continued. 

See Letter from VCF to Coughlin (Feb. 3, 2004) (R.E. 2831)

(explaining that, to appeal the ineligibility determination,

Coughlin must mail the appeal form to the VCF). Similarly, the

3

This instruction was slightly imprecise. The mailing need not

actually further the scheme. So long as it was mailed “for the purpose

of executing a fraudulent scheme,” a mailing satisfies the statute even

if “later, through hindsight,” it “may prove to have been

counterproductive.” Schmuck, 489 U.S. at 715.

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February 20 letter -- referenced in Count Three -- furthered the

alleged scheme because it contained certified copies of medical

records, a prerequisite for compensation under VCF regulations. 

See Trial Tr. 192 (Mar. 11, 2009). And the same is true of the

April 30 letter referenced in Count Five. If Coughlin had a

fraudulent scheme in mind on that date, the letter furthered it

because it sought a hearing at which he could argue for

increased compensation; without the mailing, he could have

collected no more than the $60,000 already awarded. 

In short, all of these mailings would have furthered a

fraudulent scheme -- if there were one -- and it would not have

been rational for the jury to have thought otherwise or to have

believed Coughlin thought otherwise. Accordingly, the

government’s argument does not support the conclusion that the

jury acquitted Coughlin without determining that he did not

have a fraudulent scheme in mind at the relevant times.

2. On appeal, the government offers a slightly different, but

still unpersuasive, theory for why the jury might have acquitted

Coughlin of three counts of mail fraud yet still believed that he

had a fraudulent scheme at the time of each of the three

mailings. The government argues that, while it may have

satisfied the jury that Coughlin had a “scheme or artifice to

defraud” at all relevant times, it may have failed to prove that he

made those three mailings “for the purpose of executing” that

scheme. 18 U.S.C. § 1341. To fill out this theory, the

government suggests that the jury could have found that

Coughlin’s VCF claim was only partially fraudulent, that is, he

“may have been entitled to some compensation but . . . lied

about certain specific aspects of his request for compensation,”

such as the extent of his injuries. Appellee’s Br. 44. The

acquitted mailings, the government maintains, “could have been

viewed by the jury as possibly directed at an entirely legitimate

effort to obtain some compensation, rather than as an intentional

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and bad-faith effort to go beyond that to obtain compensation to

which appellant was not entitled.” Id.

As we discuss in Part IV, we agree with the government’s

premise that the jury may have thought the scheme was

“narrower than the government alleged.” Id. at 51. That is,

Coughlin may have intended to defraud the government with

respect to certain aspects of his request for compensation, but

had good faith with respect to others. But we do not think that

a rational jury could have believed both that Coughlin had a

fraudulent scheme in mind on the date of a particular mailing,

and that he nonetheless intended that mailing to further only a

legitimate purpose. 

For example, if the jury believed Coughlin had in mind a

scheme to defraud the VCF of even a small amount of money on

the date of the letter referenced in Count Two, it could not have

doubted that the letter -- which was necessary to render

Coughlin eligible for any money at all -- was mailed “for the

purpose” of advancing that scheme. Not surprisingly, neither

Coughlin nor the government suggested otherwise at trial, and

the jury would have had no reason to believe it could have

acquitted on that ground. The same is true of the letters

underlying Counts Three and Five, both of which plainly would

have furthered the alleged scheme. See supra Part III.A.1. 

In sum, the government has offered no valid reason to

attribute the three acquittals to anything other than a finding that

Coughlin lacked fraudulent intent -- i.e., that he neither had a

fraudulent scheme in mind nor intended the mailings to advance

such a scheme -- at the times referenced in those counts. As we

cannot identify such a reason either, we conclude that the jury

necessarily found Coughlin lacked fraudulent intent when he

mailed the letters at issue in Counts Two, Three, and Five.

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B

The remaining question in this Part is whether the jury’s

finding regarding Coughlin’s intent with respect to the acquitted

counts precludes proof of an essential element of the two mail

fraud counts as to which the jury hung. We conclude that it

does. 

Count One charged that, on February 3, 2004, “for the

purposes of executing and attempting to execute” his alleged

fraudulent scheme, Coughlin mailed the VCF a version of his

initial cover letter seeking compensation. Indictment ¶ 19. 

Count Four charged that, on March 9, he mailed certain exhibits

to the VCF for the same purposes. But if Coughlin had no

fraudulent scheme in mind on February 17, February 20, or

April 30 -- the dates at issue in the acquitted counts -- there was

no basis for concluding that he had one in mind on February 3

or March 9 either. The government did not proffer at trial -- and

does not suggest on appeal -- any evidence or theory to support

the proposition that Coughlin harbored a fraudulent scheme on

February 3 (Count One), abandoned it on February 17 and 20

(Counts Two and Three), revived it on March 9 (Count Four),

and abandoned it again prior to seeking a hearing on April 30

(Count Five). Nor can we identify any record support for such

a bouncing ball of a mail fraud scheme. 

Accordingly, in rendering a verdict on the acquitted counts,

the jury necessarily decided that Coughlin lacked fraudulent

intent during the entire period encompassed by the charged

mailings -- including those mailings cited in the hung counts. 

And because fraudulent intent is an essential element of those

counts, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars their retrial. Yeager,

129 S. Ct. at 2369. 

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17

IV

 We now examine Counts Six and Seven, the false claim and

theft of public money charges. The government does not

dispute Coughlin’s contention that -- on the allegations of this

case -- the false claim and theft counts also require proof of

fraudulent intent at the relevant times. See Appellee’s Br. 1-2,

53-59 (acknowledging that both counts “stemmed from

[Coughlin’s] alleged scheme to defraud”). But while we thus

treat fraudulent intent as an essential element of both counts for

the purposes of this case,4

 it is not essential that Coughlin had

such intent at every point between December 2003 and June

2004, the period encompassed by the indictment. 

As the district court correctly instructed, a “claim is

fraudulent if any part of it is known to be untrue and made . . .

with the intent to deceive the governmental agency to which it

was submitted.” Trial Tr. 82 (Apr. 8, 2009). Likewise, the court

instructed that theft merely requires that Coughlin -- with the

requisite intent -- stole money with “a value in excess of

$1,000.” Id. at 83. The government told the jury the same

thing.5

 It is therefore sufficient for the government to prove that

4

Of course, theft of public money “need not [always] be

accomplished by false pretenses or other fraudulent means,” United

States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1302 (D.C. Cir. 1984); breaking

into Fort Knox would do the trick. Nor need we decide whether

specific intent to defraud is a sine qua non of every case under the

false claim statute. Compare United States v. Montoya, 716 F.2d

1340, 1345 (10th Cir. 1983) (suggesting that it is), with United States

v. Maher, 582 F.2d 842, 847 (4th Cir. 1978) (holding that it is not);

see also United States v. Grainger, 346 U.S. 235, 241-44 (1953);

United States v. Catton, 89 F.3d 387, 392 (7th Cir. 1996). 

5

See Trial Tr. 13 (Apr. 7, 2009) (“[F]or false claims . . . you don’t

have to believe that the entire claim was false. All the government has

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18

Coughlin had the requisite fraudulent intent at the time he made

part of a false claim, even if that part did not constitute the

entirety of the amount he was seeking over the period charged

in the indictment. Such proof also suffices for the theft count

because the indictment alleged that Coughlin carried out his

theft by means of the same false claim. 

We now proceed to consider whether proving this essential

element would require “relitigating any issue that was

necessarily decided by [the] jury’s acquittal” on the three mail

fraud counts. Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2366. We conclude that it

would not.

A

The indictment charged a fraudulent scheme that ran from

December 2003 through June 2004. As we held in Part III, the

jury’s acquittal on the last of the five mail fraud counts (Count

Five) necessarily means it found that Coughlin did not have the

requisite fraudulent intent on April 30, the date of that mailing. 

Moreover, because the government did not suggest -- either

through argument or evidence -- that Coughlin had previously

harbored such a scheme but had abandoned it by April 30 (or

that he had repeatedly abandoned and revived it in “bouncing

ball” fashion), the jury’s acquittal on Count Five necessarily

means it found that he lacked the requisite intent prior to that

time as well.

It does not follow, however, that Coughlin necessarily

lacked the requisite intent after April 30. In finding that no

to prove . . . is that a claim was false either entirely or in part. So even

if you found that only part of it was false, he still . . . would be guilty

[of] that offense.”); id. at 14 (noting that Coughlin was charged with

knowingly “stealing . . . money in excess of $1,000”). 

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19

fraudulent scheme existed on or before April 30, the jury did not

necessarily decide anything about Coughlin’s state of mind after

that date. To put it another way: if the jury believed that

Coughlin only made fraudulent misrepresentations at the May

13 hearing, it could still have acquitted him of mail fraud

regarding the April 30 mailing. Indeed, if that were the jury’s

belief, it could only have convicted him for the April 30 mailing

if it had no basis for distinguishing between his pre- and postApril 30 intent, and hence viewed the May 13

misrepresentations as proof of fraudulent intent stretching back

to April 30. But while the government had neither theory nor

evidence for temporally distinguishing Coughlin’s intent during

the period from December 2003 through April 2004, it had both

to support the conclusion that something new arose thereafter.

According to the government, the jury could have partially

rejected the charges in the indictment by determining that,

through April 2004, Coughlin sought only compensation to

which he believed he was entitled. In finding that Coughlin

lacked fraudulent intent during that period, the jury could have

determined that he had been physically injured in the attack on

the Pentagon and that, through April, he was only seeking

compensation for such physical injuries in good faith. 

Nonetheless, the government continues, its trial team presented

the jury with a basis for concluding that, by the time of the May

13 hearing, Coughlin was seeking additional compensation --

specifically, for economic injury -- to which he knew he was not

entitled. And a rational jury could have believed that Coughlin

committed fraud on that date by submitting false evidence of

such injury.

This contention is consistent with the arguments the

government made at trial. The prosecutor began her opening

statement by describing the manner in which she alleged

Coughlin had initially schemed to falsely persuade the VCF that

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20

the events of 9/11 caused him to suffer a physical disability. 

The “evidence will show you,” the prosecutor said, “that

[Coughlin] was injured long before 9/11,” Trial Tr. 14 (Mar. 10,

2009), that he “created and manipulated the evidence to make it

appear that he suffered a significant injury on 9/11, when he

knew that wasn’t the case,” id. at 16, and that this manipulation

included the submission of false medical information through

the mail, id. at 26. But once those false submissions led to

reversal of the ineligibility determination, the prosecutor

continued, “the question” was not whether Coughlin would

receive an award but “how much.” Id. at 27. “So, defendant

Charles Coughlin schemed to increase the amount of his award. 

At the hearing on May 13th, 2004, he submitted receipts and

copies of check carbons that he claimed represented payments

to others for services that he could no longer perform. As you

will hear, this was not completely true.” Id. (emphases added). 

That a rational jury could have believed there was fraud at

the May 13 hearing, even if it found there was none before, is

also consistent with the evidence at trial. The January 22

application letter that Coughlin’s attorney first sent the VCF

expressly stated that “[t]here is no claim for loss of income or

loss of past or present earnings in this case.” Letter from W.

Laake to VCF (Jan. 22, 2004) (R.E. 2641). Rather, the letter

made clear that Coughlin’s “claim is for the personal injuries

that he suffered.” Id. He sought precisely $180,000 -- $5,000

a year, multiplied by a life expectancy of 36 additional years --

“for what he has suffered and what he is likely to suffer for the

rest of his life.” Id. 

By the time of the May 13 hearing, however, Coughlin’s

claims had expanded. As his attorney explained to the hearing

officer, Coughlin was now seeking review of the VCF’s $60,000

award for two reasons. Award Appeal Hr’g Tr. 5-6 (May 13,

2004). First, as a measure of non-economic loss it “amounts to

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21

approximately $1,690 a year,” which was “unfair and inadequate

and in and of itself would give rise to a request for review.” Id.

But that amount was also “an egregious error” because it

“provided no compensation for economic loss to the Claimant.” 

Id. at 5 (emphasis added). As the attorney acknowledged,

however, this was not the VCF’s fault: “[O]ne of the things that

we didn’t spell out in the initial claim and that the claim

evaluator really didn’t have before him -- and it was an

oversight on my part . . . -- was the fact that there was a past,

present, and future loss of earnings component to this claim,

which was never even made initially.” Id. at 6-7. That is, the

attorney reiterated at the end of the hearing, the January 22

application “did not include the economic loss that we presented

to you today.” Id. at 51-52. 

Coughlin submitted nine new exhibits in support of his new

claim for economic loss on May 13. One was a statement from

Coughlin’s employer -- a statement that Coughlin, himself, had

written -- representing that his salary was $150,000 and that he

had been forced to take 90 hours off from work for medical

appointments relating to the injuries he suffered on 9/11. Letter

from J. Sayres to VCF (undated) (Record Material Tab E); see

Trial Tr. 18 (Apr. 6, 2009). A second was a detailed schedule of

“past economic losses” and “future economic losses.” R.E.

2797-802. To calculate past economic losses, the schedule

multiplied the hours that Coughlin said he missed for medical

appointments by the hourly value of his $150,000 salary. To

estimate losses due to future appointments, it applied the same

hourly value. 

The schedule also listed payments that Coughlin said he had

made for such tasks as painting, window washing, and putting

up Christmas lights. This, he said, was work he would have

done himself but for his injuries. To substantiate these

payments, Coughlin for the first time included what he

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22

represented were carbon copies of the original checks. The

payments formed the basis for his estimates of the cost of future

replacement services for which he now sought compensation. 

At trial, the government contended that Coughlin’s

economic submissions at the May 13 hearing were fraudulent. 

It offered evidence that Coughlin’s yearly salary -- the basis for

the calculation of the value of his lost time -- had never been

$150,000. See Trial Tr. 22-26 (Apr. 6, 2009). It elicited

testimony that most of the injury-related absences from work

claimed by Coughlin had never happened, and that the few that

had took much less time than he indicated in that calculation. 

Trial Tr. 28-32 (April 6, 2009). A special agent also testified

that much of the financial information Coughlin submitted to

support his estimate of the cost of future replacement services

did not match up with bank records. The agent said Coughlin

listed checks that were actually for lower amounts, were made

out to different payees, or did not exist at all. Trial Tr. 4-43

(Mar. 25, 2009). So, too, many of the carbons Coughlin

submitted did not match the checks that actually passed through

his bank account. See, e.g., id. at 25-27 (testimony that checks

corresponding to carbons indicating payment for windowwashing services were actually made out to a swim club and an

income-tax preparer). In total, the government contended that

more than a third of the 32 check carbons submitted on May 13

were “fake.” Trial Tr. 47-50 (Apr. 7, 2009).

To summarize: Although the jury’s acquittals necessarily

decided that Coughlin lacked fraudulent intent prior to May, that

did not preclude proof of an essential element of the false claim

and theft counts. What was essential for those counts was proof

that he had the requisite intent when he made false submissions

before the end of June, the close of the period specified in the

indictment. Because the evidence regarding the May 13 hearing

would have permitted a rational jury to convict him on those

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23

counts while acquitting him on the (earlier) mail fraud counts,

the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar reprosecution.

B 

 Coughlin offers several arguments to rebut the contention

that the jury could have acquitted him on the mail fraud counts

without also deciding facts that preclude retrial on the false

claim and theft charges. None persuade us.

1. Coughlin maintains that we must bar retrial on Counts

Six and Seven because he presented the defense of good faith --

which the jury necessarily accepted with respect to the acquitted

counts -- as a defense to all of the charges against him. See

Appellant’s Br. 48-49. We agree that if the jury believed

Coughlin acted in good faith with respect to all of the

submissions he made to the VCF, he could not be retried on any

of them. But it does not follow that, because the jury believed

Coughlin was acting in good faith at the time of some of his

submissions, it had to have believed that was so with respect to

each of them. 

Coughlin never made such an argument to the jury. Instead,

in his closing, Coughlin’s attorney carefully countered the

government’s evidence with respect to each individual

accusation of fraud or falsity, one by one. The failure to argue

that everything rose and fell together was for good reason. 

Coughlin would hardly have wanted the jury to think that good

faith was an all-or-nothing defense in the opposite sense -- that

if the jury found bad faith with respect to any one of the

statements that Coughlin made, it would necessarily have to

convict him on all seven counts. 

Nor did the government suggest that conviction depended

upon a conclusion that Coughlin’s claims were offered wholly

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24

in bad faith. We have already noted that it told the jury that

“you don’t have to believe that the entire claim was false.” Trial

Tr. 13 (Apr. 7, 2009); see supra note 5. More directly, the

prosecutor told the jury that it could convict even if it found that

Coughlin had good faith with respect to some of his

submissions. “You may very well believe he was hurt,” the

government acknowledged, but “[w]hat we’ve proven to you

with evidence is that he lied to the VCF” about other matters. 

Trial Tr. 43, 44 (Apr. 8, 2009). 

2. Coughlin also contends that, because the indictment

described a single fraudulent scheme that assertedly lasted from

December 2003 through June 2004, the jury could not have

found a narrower scheme that did not begin until May 2004. We

agree with the defendant that, for the government to prevail on

the “narrower scheme” theory on appeal, it must have presented

the jury with the possibility of finding such a scheme at trial. 

See Ashe, 397 U.S. at 445; Sealfon v. United States, 332 U.S.

575, 579-80 (1948). But as we noted above, the government did

tell the jury that Coughlin made new false claims at the May 13

hearing -- claims relating to economic damages -- that were in

addition to the allegedly false claims he had previously made

regarding physical injuries. And the trial evidence provided a

basis for this distinction. See supra Part IV.A.6

The fact that the indictment alleged a singular “scheme” did

not (and does not) bar the government from making the

narrower-scheme argument.7

 To the contrary, it is both common

6

These circumstances distinguish the various circuit court

opinions Coughlin cites for the proposition that the government may

not retry him on a theory not presented at the first trial.

7

We also note that, unlike the mail fraud statute, there is no

“scheme” requirement in the text of either the false claim or the theft

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25

and appropriate for the government to allege a broader scheme

yet prove a narrower one. In United States v. Miller, for

example, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that “the Fifth

Amendment’s grand jury guarantee is violated when a defendant

is tried under an indictment that alleges a certain fraudulent

scheme but is convicted based on trial proof that supports only

a significantly narrower and more limited, though included,

fraudulent scheme.” 471 U.S. 130, 131 (1985) (footnote

omitted). By alleging a larger scheme, the Court held, the

government does not lock itself into proving every part of that

scheme. Rather, it can rest on any part that suffices to establish

the elements of the crime charged. See id. at 131, 135-36.

In accord with this principle, the circuit courts have

approved convictions for mail fraud where the government

proved only a (legally sufficient) subset of the bad acts with

which it initially charged the defendant. As this court has noted,

“it is not an infrequent practice in mail fraud cases to allege the

full scheme to allow for contingencies of proof, but many times

the prosecution or the court reduces the number of counts and

restricts the proof to sufficient representative counts to present

the substance of the offense.” United States v. Jordan, 626 F.2d

928, 930 (D.C. Cir. 1980).8

 Nor is it unusual for the circuits to

statute. Compare 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (requiring that the defendant

devised or intended to devise a “scheme or artifice to defraud”), with

id. § 287 (requiring only that the defendant presented a “claim upon

or against the United States . . . knowing such claim to be false,

fictitious, or fraudulent”), and id. § 641 (requiring only that the

defendant “embezzle[d], st[ole], purloine[d], or knowingly convert[ed]

to his use . . . any . . . money, or thing of value of the United States”).

8

See Jordan, 626 F.2d at 930 (upholding conviction for mail

fraud scheme where the indictment alleged that the proceeds of the

scheme were $110,000, but the government proved only $4,000-

$5,000 in fraudulent checks); United States v. Kuna, 760 F.2d 813,

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26

affirm a conspiracy conviction where the conspiracy is initially

charged to cover a specified period, but subsequently proved

only with respect to a portion of that period.9

The facts at issue in Miller, also a prosecution under the

mail fraud statute, are particularly instructive here. The

indictment charged a single scheme to defraud Miller’s insurer

by claiming a loss due to a purported burglary, a scheme that

allegedly began in July 1981 and ran until October 1981. See

471 U.S. at 131-32 & n.2. The indictment alleged that one

“part” of the scheme involved Miller’s consent to the burglary,

and that a “further part” involved his fraudulent inflation of the

amount of property lost in the crime. Id. at 132 & n.2. 

816-19 (7th Cir. 1985) (affirming conviction on five counts of mail

fraud beginning in August 1980, notwithstanding that the district court

acquitted the defendant on other counts involving earlier mailings

because it “rejected the government’s theory that [he] had intended at

the outset to defraud his investors”). 

9

See United States v. Jackson, 627 F.2d 1198, 1202, 1212-13

(D.C. Cir. 1980) (upholding conviction where the indictment alleged

a conspiracy to distribute heroin from June 24 through August 16,

1977, notwithstanding that the government failed to prove the

defendant’s complicity in a conspiracy prior to June 27); United States

v. Portela, 167 F.3d 687, 694, 699-702 (1st Cir. 1999) (affirming

conviction where the indictment alleged a single conspiracy lasting

through July 1996, but the district court found that it ended in May

1995); United States v. Ailsworth, 138 F.3d 843, 848-50 (10th Cir.

1998) (upholding conviction where the indictment alleged a

conspiracy between March 1993 and March 1994, but the evidence

only established that the defendant participated in a conspiracy on

November 19, 1993); United States v. Bowers, 739 F.2d 1050, 1053

(6th Cir. 1984) (affirming conviction where the government’s

evidence “showed a conspiracy with fewer people, of shorter duration

and in a smaller area than charged” in the indictment (internal

quotation mark omitted)).

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27

Although the government proved only the latter, the Court

upheld Miller’s conviction, rejecting the argument that the

difference between the scheme asserted and proved necessarily

constituted a “fatal variance” requiring reversal. Id. at 131-33. 

Coughlin’s indictment followed the same pattern. Although

Coughlin is correct that “[t]he one and only Indictment allege[d]

one and only one scheme,” Appellant’s Reply Br. 17, that

indictment alleged a scheme of many parts. Moreover, in

alleging those parts, it drew the same kind of line that we draw

here: the line between Coughlin’s claims for physical injuries

on the one hand and for economic injuries on the other. For

example, the indictment charged that it “was part of the scheme”

that on December 19, 2003, Coughlin “falsely claim[ed] that he

suffered a partial permanent disability from the [9/11] attack,”

and “a further part of the scheme” that on January 22 and

February 3, 2004, he “provid[ed] false and misleading

information regarding his pre-September 11th and postSeptember 11th medical condition.” Indictment ¶¶ 8, 10. But

the indictment also alleged that fraud regarding economic injury

was a part of the scheme. In that regard, it charged that it was

yet “a further part of the scheme that on or about May 13,

2004,” Coughlin submitted “manufactured copies of checks

falsely claiming that they represented payments to others for

performing household activities,” as well as “schedules relating

to losses of past earnings, knowing full well that such losses had

not been incurred.” Indictment ¶¶ 16, 17. Indeed, not only did

the indictment distinguish physical from economic injury, it did

so temporally -- it did not specify any misrepresentations

relating to economic injury as having been made before May 13.

Thus, while Coughlin is correct that the indictment’s

“singular alleged scheme” was also “incorporated into Counts

Six and Seven,” Appellant’s Reply Br. 15; see Indictment ¶¶ 20,

22, what we have just said about the scheme’s multi-part nature

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28

renders this observation irrelevant. Indeed, when we focus

specifically on the text of the false claim and theft counts, the

line between physical and economic injury stands out in high

relief. Count Six charged that Coughlin’s false claim “contained

false and fraudulent assertions concerning [Coughlin’s] medical

condition and physical abilities . . . and false and fraudulent

assertions concerning alleged economic losses resulting from

those injuries.” Indictment ¶ 21 (emphasis added). Similarly,

Count Seven charged that Coughlin unlawfully obtained money

from the United States based on “false, fraudulent and

misleading . . . representations concerning [Coughlin’s] physical

condition . . . and the economic damages [he] . . . incurred and

anticipated incurring as a result of the injuries [he] purportedly

sustained.” Id. ¶ 23 (emphasis added). And, as the Supreme

Court has repeatedly held, the government is entitled to prove

criminal acts in the disjunctive, notwithstanding that the

indictment charges them in the conjunctive. See Griffin v.

United States, 502 U.S. 46, 56-60 (1991); Miller, 471 U.S. at

136; Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420 (1970).10

In sum, the fact that the indictment charged a scheme

lasting from December 2003 through June 2004 did not prevent

the government from attempting to prove narrower schemes of

10Indeed, under Circuit precedent, “[t]he correct method of

pleading alternative means of committing a single crime is to allege

the means in the conjunctive.” United States v. Lemire, 720 F.2d

1327, 1345 (D.C. Cir. 1983); see Joyce v. United States, 454 F.2d 971,

976 (D.C. Cir. 1971) (stating that, “[t]o charge the offense in the

disjunctive (as it appears in the strict language of the statute), that the

accused did one thing ‘or’ the other, would make the indictment bad

for uncertainty, so it is necessary to connect them with the conjunctive

‘and’”). See generally Orin Kerr, The Strange Practice of Indicting in

the Conjunctive, THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY (Sept. 25, 2009, 1:23

PM), http://volokh.com/posts/1253899387.shtml (questioning the

practice).

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29

different temporal durations during that period. And as we

explained in Part IV.A, the government did just that, offering

evidence that after April 2004 Coughlin embarked on an effort

to fraudulently obtain economic damages. The wording of

Counts Six and Seven supported -- and could support on retrial

-- a conviction on that basis. 

3. Coughlin further argues that the jury could not have

distinguished the pre- and post-April 30 evidence in the way the

government suggests. Although the indictment charged that on

May 13 he submitted altered copies of “checks to support a

claim for the replacement cost of household services for his

reduced physical abilities,” Coughlin argues that “the May 13

hearing was not the first time that [he] made this claim.” 

Appellant’s Br. 56-57. Rather, his January 22, 2004 application

likewise listed such replacement services -- albeit, in a lesser

amount and without the supporting check carbons that the

government maintained he subsequently altered.

The problem with this argument is that, although the

January application did state that Coughlin had paid for

replacement services, it made clear that he was not making a

claim for such economic losses. Rather, at that time his “claim

[wa]s for the personal injuries that he suffered” -- for which he

sought $180,000. Letter from W. Laake to VCF (Jan. 22, 2004)

(R.E. 2565). Indeed, as Coughlin’s attorney later told the

hearing officer, that was the case until May 13. Award Appeal

Hr’g Tr. 5-7, 51-52 (May 13, 2004). Accordingly, Coughlin’s

January replacement-cost submissions were not material to his

claim at that time. And because the jury was repeatedly and

correctly advised that only “material” misrepresentations were

relevant,11 its acquittals on mail fraud counts relating to dates

11See Trial Tr. 78 (Apr. 8, 2009) (court’s instruction that an

essential element of mail fraud is that the “defendant knowingly

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30

before May 13 did not necessarily mean that Coughlin had made

no false economic submissions before that date.12

At oral argument, Coughlin contended that, because the

purpose of his April 30 mailing was to request a hearing on

economic as well as non-economic damages, it is unlikely the

jury would have decided that he had no fraudulent intent on

April 30 without also deciding that he lacked such intent on May

13. This argument is not without force, but it does not prevail. 

It is true that, by acquitting him of mail fraud on April 30, the

jury decided that Coughlin’s effort to obtain some compensation

for economic loss was not -- at that time -- made in bad faith. 

But the government submitted evidence from which a jury could

have found that thereafter he developed an intention to

fraudulently overstate his economic losses. For example,

Coughlin testified that he did not start putting together the

schedule outlining his economic damages until a few days

before the May 13 hearing. Trial Tr. 150-51 (Apr. 1, 2009). 

And there is no dispute that his May 13 submissions contained

devised . . . a scheme to defraud and to obtain money by means of

materially false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises”)

(emphasis added); id. at 80 (defining materiality); Trial Tr. 12-13

(Apr. 7, 2009) (government’s statement that Coughlin’s

misrepresentations “have to be [of] material facts” and that a false

representation is not material if “he is not going to get more money or

less money based on” that representation); see also Neder v. United

States, 527 U.S. 1, 25 (1999) (holding “that materiality of falsehood

is an element of the federal mail fraud . . . statute[]”).

12Even if the January replacement-cost submissions were

material, Coughlin’s May 13 submissions contained economic-loss

calculations that he had never previously presented -- as we note in the

next paragraph. A rational jury could have found that the earlier

submissions were legitimate without necessarily so finding with

respect to the later ones.

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alleged economic losses that he had never previously

presented.13 Thus, the jury could have found that Coughlin

lacked fraudulent intent in seeking to obtain some legitimate

economic damages on April 30, without also finding that he did

not make fraudulent claims about his economic losses at a later

date.

The Supreme Court has instructed that we are to focus only

on what the jury “necessarily” decided, and to refrain from

barring a retrial if a “rational jury could have grounded its

verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks

to foreclose from consideration.” Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2367

(quoting Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444). Here, a rational jury could

have grounded its mail fraud acquittals upon the absence of

fraudulent intent with respect to claims Coughlin made as of

April 30, without believing that he also lacked such intent with

respect to claims he made on May 13.14

13See, e.g., Past Economic Losses (R.E. 2798) (claiming a loss of

$7,031 from work missed for doctor and physical therapy

appointments, a figure never previously offered); Future Economic

Losses (R.E. 2800) (claiming future losses for such appointments of

$7,969 annually, a figure also not previously offered). 

14Coughlin further contends that the evidence the government

offered to prove guilt on Count Seven demonstrates that it could only

have been operating under an “all-or-nothing” theory throughout. 

Appellant’s Br. 58. Coughlin makes this inference because the

government did not present evidence regarding how the VCF

calculated his final award of $331,034 (beyond indicating that

$180,000 was for non-economic damages and $151,034 was for

economic damages). But Coughlin’s inference -- that the absence of

such evidence means the government did not “actually assert[] the

alternate theory of the ‘narrower scheme,’” Appellant’s Reply Br. 16

-- is belied by the prosecutor’s express language. As we have already

observed, the prosecutor argued that there was new fraud on May 13,

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4. Next, Coughlin urges us to reject the government’s

“narrower scheme” argument on the ground of waiver. As he

correctly notes, the United States did not make that argument in

the opposition it filed to Coughlin’s renewed double jeopardy

motion in the district court. Gov’t’s Opp’n to Def.’s Renewed

Mot. to Bar Re-Trial at 4-6. Nor was it the basis of the district

court’s decision.

It is well settled that “this court can affirm a correct

decision even if on different grounds than those assigned in the

decision on review.” Skinner v. Dep’t of Justice, 584 F.3d 1093,

1100 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Although “absent exceptional circumstances” we generally will

not do so “on grounds that were not raised in the district court,”

id., the circumstances here are exceptional. Coughlin’s renewed

motion came on June 21, 2009, in the midst of the second trial

and just three days after the Supreme Court decided Yeager. 

The government had only three days -- without benefit, as

Coughlin acknowledges, of trial transcripts -- to file its response. 

See Appellant’s Reply Br. 19. Its failure to assert the narrowerscheme argument in its opposition is therefore excusable.

Moreover, the government did raise the argument shortly

thereafter when, on July 6, it filed an opposition to Coughlin’s

request for a stay of trial in this court. Appellee’s Mot. to

Summarily Dismiss and Opp’n to Appellant’s Emergency Mot.

to Stay Proceedings at 25-27, United States v. Coughlin, No. 09-

3062 (D.C. Cir. July 6, 2009). Coughlin was thus aware early

on that the government would press the narrower-scheme

argument on appeal. Indeed, he addressed it in his initial brief

and at greater length in his reply brief. The extent of briefing is

a factor we look to in “exercising [our] discretion” to entertain

and that the jury could convict without believing the entire scheme

was fraudulent. See supra Part IV, IV.A, IV.B.1. 

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arguments not addressed by the district court. See Texas Rural

Legal Aid, Inc. v. Legal Servs. Corp., 940 F.2d 685, 697 (D.C.

Cir. 1991). And we can identify no prejudice to the defendant

from our considering the narrower-scheme argument

notwithstanding the government’s failure to raise it in its June

24, 2009 response.15

 5. Finally, Coughlin seeks protection in two cases in which

the Supreme Court held that issue preclusion barred retrials. 

The first case is Ashe v. Swenson, in which six poker players

were robbed by a group of masked men. 397 U.S. at 437-38. 

Ashe was first tried and acquitted of robbing one of the six

players. “Because the only contested issue at the first trial was

whether Ashe was one of the robbers,” the Court “held that the

jury’s verdict of acquittal collaterally estopped the State from

trying him for robbing a different player during the same

criminal episode.” Yeager, 129 S. Ct. at 2366-67 (citing Ashe,

397 U.S. at 446). The second case is Sealfon v. United States,

in which Sealfon was tried and acquitted of the charge of

conspiring to defraud the United States by presenting false

invoices to a government board. 332 U.S. at 576-77. 

Thereafter, he was tried on the charge of aiding and abetting a

man named Greenberg in presenting the same invoices. Because

there was no evidence at the first trial that Sealfon could have

conspired with anyone other than Greenberg, the Court

concluded that his acquittal necessarily meant that he did not aid

and abet Greenberg in presenting the invoices. Id. at 579-80.

15The only prejudice Coughlin identifies arises not from the

government’s failure to make the argument in its response to the

double jeopardy motion, but rather from its alleged failure to present

a narrower-scheme theory to the jury. But as we have detailed above,

the government’s trial presentation on that score was sufficient. See

supra Part IV.A, B.2.

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For reasons that by now should be clear, this case is unlike

Ashe or Sealfon. At Coughlin’s first trial, a unitary scheme to

defraud the VCF was not the only contested issue; there was

also the question of whether he had fraudulent intent with

respect to any part of his claim. Nor was the evidence limited

to a unitary scheme; there was also evidence supporting the

accusation that Coughlin made new fraudulent representations

at the May 13 hearing. Accordingly, neither Ashe nor Sealfon

advances Coughlin’s cause.16

V

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s

denial of Coughlin’s double jeopardy motion with respect to

Counts One and Four, and direct the district court to dismiss

those counts. With respect to Counts Six and Seven, we affirm

the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion. 

Reversed in part and affirmed in part.

16Coughlin also presses upon us the Fifth Circuit’s decision on

remand in Yeager, 334 Fed. App’x 707 (5th Cir. 2009), and this

Circuit’s decision in United States v. Bowman, 609 F.2d 12 (D.C. Cir.

1979), both of which are inapposite for the same reasons as Ashe and

Sealfon. 

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