Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-03057/USCOURTS-caDC-06-03057-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Benjamin Hoover
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 22, 2007 Decided December 21, 2007

No. 06-3056

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

CELICIA HOOVER-HANKERSON,

APPELLANT

06-3057

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

BENJAMIN HOOVER,

APPELLANT

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cr00188-01)

(No. 03cr00188-02)

Peter V. Taylor,appointed by the court, argued the cause for

appellant Celicia Hoover-Hankerson. Tony Axam, Jr.,Assistant

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Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant

Benjamin Hoover. With them on the briefs were A. J. Kramer,

Federal Public Defender, and Danny C. Onorato.

John C. O'Quinn,Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S.

Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With him

on the brief were Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney, and Roy W.

McLeese, III and Steven J. Durham, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: RANDOLPH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Celicia Hoover-Hankerson and

her brother, Benjamin Hoover, were convicted of conspiracy,

theft from programs receiving federal funds and fraud. They

were responsible for hundreds of false witness and investigator

vouchers submitted for payment to the District of Columbia

Superior Court. Indigent criminal defendants in the District are

entitled to appointed counsel under the Criminal Justice Act

(CJA). D.C. Code § 11-2601. Celicia was an attorney who

earned her living representing CJA eligible defendants. Her

brother was an investigator. When Celicia was practicing law,

a CJA attorney could pick up blank witness vouchers from the

Superior Court and sign them for witnesses she subpoenaed; the

witnesses would submit the vouchers and receive a fee of $40.00

per day. A CJA attorney also could sign vouchers so that

defense investigators would be paid from federal funds. 

Between October 1998 and February 2001, Celicia signed

out 2,087 witness vouchers. Her brother and another individual,

Troy Robinson, then distributed the vouchers to family members

or people living near the 1700 block of Euclid Street, none of

whom had been witnesses. The recipients signed the vouchers,

turned them in to the court office, kept some of the proceeds for

themselves, and paid the rest to Robinson and Benjamin. 

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I.

There is not the slightest doubt about the guilt of both

defendants. Celicia and her brother Benjamin present a large

number of issues on appeal, not all of which deserve discussion.

We will deal first with Benjamin’s contention that the district

court committed reversible error when it rejected his motion to

continue the trial. 

Benjamin filed his continuance motion just three days

before trial. He based it on the grounds that he had been unable

to meet with his attorney during the month before trial, and that

his attorney was preoccupied with another case. A month before

trial Benjamin’s pregnant fiancé experienced serious medical

problems. He was often at the hospital with her. This made it

difficult for him to meet with his attorney, a problem

exacerbated by the attorney’s participation in a lengthy trial.

Benjamin claims that the court’s refusal to continue the trial

deprived him of the effective assistance of counsel, in violation

of the Sixth Amendment. The question is whether the court’s

decision amounted to “an unreasoning and arbitrary insistence

upon expeditiousness in the face of a justifiable request for

delay.” Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1983) (internal

citation and quotation marks omitted). The court’s denial of a

motion to continue is reviewed for an abuse of discretion.

Among the factors to be considered is any prejudice the

defendant suffered. See United States v. Gantt, 140 F.3d 249,

256 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

Benjamin unquestionably faced difficult circumstances on

the eve of trial, but he had more than a year to meet with his

attorney and prepare his defense. He was indicted in May 2003

and his attorney entered an appearance shortly thereafter. In

November 2003, the court set a firm trial date of June 24, 2004.

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Benjamin and his attorney had ample time to prepare for trial,

and to consider whether to retain additional or alternative

counsel in light of the court’s trial calendar, which the court

urged him to do if he thought it was necessary. Benjamin chose

not to follow that course. In view of these considerations it was

within the court’s discretion to determine that Benjamin had

been given sufficient time to prepare for trial.

In addition, Benjamin has no convincing claim of prejudice.

See Gantt, 140 F.3d at 257. He says that his attorney was so

busy with another trial that he failed to investigate the conflict

that arose between his defense and that of his sister when she

called Troy Robinson as a witness. Had his attorney looked into

the matter, Benjamin continues, he would have filed a severance

motion. But Benjamin’s attorney did file a motion to sever in

November 2003. As the government points out, the motion

rested on the prospect of conflicting defenses. And as the

government also notes, Benjamin’s attorney demonstrated that

he was well aware of Robinson’s anticipated testimony. On the

eve of trial he renewed Benjamin’s severance motion and

specifically referred to Robinson. 

Benjamin also claims that he was prejudiced because his

counsel was too busy to present a motion in limine to prevent

Robinson from testifying. But shortly before Robinson testified,

Benjamin’s attorney did make, and the court rejected, arguments

in support of that position. Nothing presented to us suggests that

if the same arguments had been made in a pre-trial motion this

would have changed the outcome. 

II.

Celicia has two complaints about the district court’s

handling of voir dire. The first is that the court refused to allow

her to be physically present at bench conferences. She sees this

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as a violation of her right to be present at trial, which Federal

Rule of Criminal Procedure 43(a) and the Fifth Amendment

guarantee. 

In conducting voir dire, the district court asked questions of

the group of potential jurors and had them record their answers.

Individual jurors whose answers required follow-up questioning

were brought to the bench where the court and counsel inquired

further. Celicia’s attorney asked if Celicia could be present at

the bench. The court refused but provided her with a headset so

that she could hear what transpired. She did not object. 

The district court’s decision to use a headset to protect the

defendant’s right to be present during a multiple-defendant trial

is not error, let alone plain error, which is the standard of review

when there has been no objection at trial. United States v. Roy,

473 F.3d 1232, 1237 (D.C. Cir. 2007). A defendant’s right to

participate in voir dire includes the opportunity “to observe and

hear juror responses made at the bench.” United States v.

Washington, 705 F.2d 489, 497 (D.C. Cir. 1983). The headset

fully preserved Celicia’s right in this regard. The district court

confirmed that the headset was operating and that she could hear

what was said. The court also noticed that she engaged in

conversations with her attorney throughout the process. It is

thus impossible to see how she was prejudiced. See id. at 498.

Celicia’s second complaint deals with her absence from the

courtroom. As voir dire continued, she began to feel sick to her

stomach. Her attorney asked that she be excused from the

courtroom. The court inquired whether she was waiving her

right to be present, to which her attorney responded “Yes, Your

Honor. She says yes.” Voir dire continued throughout the rest

of the day with Celicia absent for at least part of it. That

evening she went to Sinai Hospital for testing and was directed

to go to the Krieger Eye Clinic the next morning. She attended

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her eye appointment and did not come to court. The court again

asked whether Celicia waived her right to be present. Her

counsel responded that she was not pleased that she was missing

voir dire, “so she revoked [his] authority to waive her presence.”

The court stopped the proceedings at that point until she

returned. 

Celicia contends that her statements through counsel did not

effectively waive her right to be present. She relies on United

States v. Gordon for the proposition that in order to waive

presence, the defendant must make a personal, on-the-record

statement. 829 F.2d 119, 125-26 (D.C. Cir. 1987). This

misreads Gordon. Gordon was in custody outside of the

courtroom. Id. at 121-22. Given his absence and the lack of an

on-the-record waiver, the court could not determine whether his

waiver was “knowing and voluntary.” Id. at 126. The Gordon

court was careful to distinguish defendants who are not in

custody – that is, defendants like Celicia. See id. at 125 n.7. A

non-custodial defendant may waive his right to be present by not

showing up after the trial has begun. See, e.g., Crosby v. United

States, 506 U.S. 255, 259-61 (1993). Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 43(c)(1)(A) says precisely that. Whatever the rule is

prior to trial, we hold that when a defendant is in court during

voir dire and her attorney states that she wishes to leave and that

she is waiving her right to be present, that is an effective waiver

regardless whether the defendant orally seconds her attorney’s

statement to the court.

III.

Benjamin finds error in the court’s admission, over

objection, of a portion of Troy Robinson’s testimony. Celicia

called Robinson to establish that witness vouchers bearing her

name could have been distributed without her knowledge. The

government sought to impeach Robinson on cross-examination.

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1

Rule 103(a)(1) requires attorneys to state the specific ground

of their objection unless it is apparent from the context. It was

apparent here that Benjamin was claiming that Robinson’s testimony

about him did not go to Robinson’s credibility, as Rule 608 required.

In responding to Benjamin’s objection, the court recognized the

distinction between impeaching a witness under Rule 609 on the basis

of a prior conviction and attacking a witness’s credibility pursuant to

Rule 608 on the basis of the witness’s prior conduct. 

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a), the government

questioned Robinson about his convictions for theft, federal

program fraud, and wire fraud. Robinson pled guilty to a

separate, but nearly identical, conspiracy involving voucher

fraud with an attorney named Shola Ayeni. The government

also sought to attack Robinson’s credibility with other acts he

had committed. See FED. R. EVID. 608(b). In response to the

government’s questions about his connection with fraudulent

witness vouchers in the past, Robinson testified about engaging

in those acts with Benjamin. The court overruled Benjamin’s

objection that this testimony did not go to Robinson’s

credibility.1

We have serious doubt whether testimony that Benjamin

was involved in Troy Robinson’s other acts concerned

Robinson’s own “character for truthfulness or untruthfulness” as

required by Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b), but we need not

decide the issue. Even if the district court erred in permitting

the government to question Robinson about Benjamin’s

involvement, the error was harmless. See FED. R. CRIM. P.

52(a).

Two government witnesses, Antonio and Marvin Brown,

stated that Benjamin was present with Robinson when they

received witness vouchers. A third witness, Michael Taylor,

testified that Benjamin was present with Robinson and Celicia

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2

By comparison, between October 1998 and early February

2001 the average attorney signed only 61 witness vouchers. 

when he received witness vouchers at Celicia’s office. A fourth

witness, Beatrice Pearson, testified that Benjamin accompanied

Celicia when she signed out witness vouchers on several

occasions. The government also introduced significant

documentary evidence. Exhibit 9a indicated that Benjamin

received 246 witness vouchers signed by Celicia from

November of 1998 through January of 2001.2

 The total value of

the vouchers amounted to $9,820. Exhibit 7a-1 was introduced

as an example of a witness voucher signed by Celicia and turned

in by Benjamin. The government compared Exhibit 7a-1 to

Exhibit 29a – a time sheet from Benjamin’s place of

employment. The comparison of the two exhibits indicated that

Benjamin was working during the time period he claimed to be

appearing as a witness for Celicia’s trial. The documentary and

testimonial evidence suggests that Benjamin was an active

participant with Celicia in passing out and cashing fraudulent

witness vouchers. 

Given this overwhelming evidence of Benjamin’s

participation in the fraudulent scheme, any error in the court’s

allowing the government to cross-examine Robinson about

Benjamin’s involvement could not have affected the outcome of

the case. 

IV.

As to sentencing, Celicia argues that the district court erred

in calculating a loss amount. After the jury returned a guilty

verdict, the court instructed them to make a civil forfeiture

determination pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(C). The court

told them that “the Government is entitled to . . . the value of the

property that constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to

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3

The increase in the offense level raised the sentencing range

from 27-33 months to 33-41 months.

4

The concept of traceability applies here: if a defendant

purchased a house with his share of the loot from a bank robbery, the

house would be considered proceeds subject to forfeiture. 

the violations.” The jury returned a forfeiture verdict of $57,790

against Celicia. Celicia contended that the forfeiture verdict

should control the court’s loss determination under § 2B1.1 of

the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual. The court disagreed

and independently calculated the loss amount to be $74,588.42.

The effect of the court’s finding was to raise Celicia’s offense

level by eight levels instead of six. U.S. SENTENCING

GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2B1.1(b)(1) (2007).3

As Celicia sees it, the forfeiture verdict collaterally

estopped the court from recalculating the loss amount at

sentencing. We think not. For collateral estoppel to apply: “(1),

the same issue now being raised must have been contested by

the parties and submitted for judicial determination in the prior

case; (2), the issue must have been actually and necessarily

determined by a court of competent jurisdiction in that prior

case; and (3), preclusion in the second case must not work a

basic unfairness to the party bound by the first determination.”

Martin v. DOJ, 488 F.3d 446, 454 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

The “forfeiture and loss calculation[s] are distinct.” United

States v. Hamaker, 455 F.3d 1316, 1336 (11th Cir. 2006).

Forfeiture is a means of forcing a criminal defendant to disgorge

ill-gotten profits. The theoretical limit of forfeiture is the value

of the proceeds the defendant possesses from the illegal

activity.4

 Loss regards the “reasonably foreseeable pecuniary

harm that result[s] from the offense.” U.S. SENTENCING

GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2B1.1 cmt. (3)(A)(i) (2007). Loss

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5

The court relied on Antonio Brown, Marvin Brown, Michael

Taylor and Troy Robinson. Each of these witnesses established that

this was a widespread conspiracy focusing on the family of Celicia

and individuals living in the neighborhood around the 1700 block of

Euclid Street. The names listed on Exhibit 9a were individuals who

were either family members or living in that neighborhood. 

focuses on the harm the victim suffered, independent of what the

defendant gained. Hamaker, 455 F.3d at 1337. Though the two

calculations may at times yield the same outcome, they are not

identical.

Here the court’s forfeiture instruction, with its reference to

“property that constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable

to the violations,” was not entirely clear. Celicia suggests that

“proceeds” refers to everything taken from the government,

regardless of who ultimately possessed it. The government’s

statements to the jury support that view. An equally plausible

reading of “proceeds” is the value that Celicia personally

received from her criminal activity. One cannot be certain

which concept, if either, the jury applied in determining the

forfeiture verdict. Given the difference between the two

concepts, we cannot say that the issue of loss is the same issue

decided by the jury when it considered forfeiture. Collateral

estoppel therefore does not apply.

As an alternative argument, Celicia claims that the court’s

determination of loss was unreasonable. The court relied

primarily on Government Exhibit 9a, which presented a list of

1,668 allegedly fraudulent witness vouchers. The court took

into consideration the corroborating documentary and

testimonial5

 evidence when determining, by a preponderance of

the evidence, that the vouchers listed on Exhibit 9a were

overwhelmingly fraudulent. The court’s factual findings do not

rest on any clear error. 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e). The court

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As we have said, the defendants’ brief contains several

additional arguments that do not merit discussion. We have

considered these arguments and have rejected them. 

considered a wide variety of evidence all of which had

“sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable

accuracy.” United States v. Bras, 483 F.3d 103, 109 (D.C. Cir.

2007).6

Affirmed.

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