Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-04121/USCOURTS-ca8-05-04121-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mark Louis Peters
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-4121

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Minnesota.

Mark Louis Peters, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 17, 2006

Filed: September 14, 2006

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.

Mark Louis Peters appeals from his conviction for bank fraud in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 1344 and counterfeited securities in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 513(a). The

charges arose in connection with a counterfeit check in the amount of $90,700 payable

to Peters and delivered to his home. He endorsed the check and deposited it into his

account at Bremer Bank; Peters contends that he did not know that the check was

counterfeit. Some two months later, the bank advised him that the check was

counterfeit and he offered to repay it if he was responsible, but the bank did not

pursue the offer. Nearly three years later, the FBI arrested him, and he was indicted

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The Honorable Ann D. Montgomery, United States District Judge for the

District of Minnesota.

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and convicted on both counts. Peters argues that the district court1

 erred in denying

his motions for acquittal and for a new trial because the government failed to

introduce sufficient evidence of criminal intent. We affirm.

I.

A commercial delivery service came to Peters's home in January 2002 and

delivered a $90,700 check, payable to Peters and P&M, Inc. P&M was a company

that Peters had started, but it was not registered or doing any business. Peters had

opened a savings account with a ten dollar deposit on November 26, 2001, in his name

"d/b/a P&M," or doing business as P&M, so that he could conduct transactions in both

names. The $90,700 check was purportedly drawn by National States Insurance

Company, a life and health insurance company. After asking bank officials whether

the check would clear, Peters deposited it into the P&M account at the Bremer Bank

on January 29, 2002. Within two weeks of depositing the check, he withdrew or

moved to his checking account almost half of the funds. As Peters later told an FBI

agent, he felt like he had won the lottery when he received the check, and he

speculated that it represented an insurance settlement from a minor automobile

accident that he had while working in Arkansas in February 2001. Peters, however,

had not been injured in that accident; he had filed no insurance claim, and his

employer's only claim was one for property damage filed with a different insurance

company, St. Paul Fire & Marine. 

In early March 2002, Bremer Bank contacted Peters to notify him that Royal

Banks, which held National States' account, was returning the check. Peters expressed

surprise to the bank officer that the check was not valid, explaining that he thought the

check was a settlement related to the Arkansas automobile accident. Peters also said

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that he did not recognize the name of the insurance company. He offered to repay

Bremer Bank at the rate of $100 per week if he was responsible, but the bank never

accepted that offer. When he called the bank in May to ask about the status of his

account, the bank did not return his calls or notify him that it had not suffered any loss

because Royal Banks had waited too long to return the check, entitling Bremer Bank

to reject the return under the Uniform Commercial Code. On June 1, 2002, Peters

received a letter from Bremer Bank notifying him that it had determined the check was

counterfeit. 

FBI agents arrested Peters on January 6, 2005, two and a half years after the

bank made its determination that the check was counterfeit. Peters told the FBI that

the check was an insurance settlement from the Arkansas accident, although he

acknowledged that he had not been injured in the accident. At trial, the manager from

the insurer that provided coverage for Peters's employer at the time of the accident

testified that the insurer makes no payment unless a claim is filed, and when it does

so it receives a release from the injured party showing satisfaction of the claim. He

testified further that checks in the $90,000 range typically are issued to cover serious

bodily injury or loss of income from permanent injuries, neither of which Peters

experienced in the February 2001 accident. 

Ralph Broeker, a fraud manager for Royal Banks with fifty years of experience

in the banking business, identified the check as counterfeit. Broeker testified that the

counterfeit check was created from a legitimate check written by National States

Insurance Company and made payable to Professional Radiology in the amount of

$4.43. Broeker testified that the person who created the counterfeit check would have

needed a legitimately issued check, a computer and high-quality printer, suitable

software, and supplies such as check stock ink. He further testified that he had no

proof that Peters had these materials or knew how to counterfeit a check and that,

early in the investigation, he may have told an FBI agent that Peters could have been

the victim in the matter. 

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II.

We review de novo the district court's denial of a motion for judgment of

acquittal. United States v. Hively, 437 F.3d 752, 760 (8th Cir. 2006). We view the

evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict and draw all reasonable

inferences in the government's favor, upholding the conviction as long as "there is an

interpretation of the evidence that would allow a reasonable-minded jury to find the

defendant[] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." United States v. Vig, 167 F.3d 443,

447 (8th Cir. 1999). Thus, we must uphold the jury's verdict even where the evidence

"rationally supports two conflicting hypotheses" of guilt and innocence. United States

v. Serrano-Lopez, 366 F.3d 628, 634 (8th Cir. 2004) (internal quotations and citations

omitted). We will reverse the jury's verdict only if the jury "must have had a

reasonable doubt concerning one of the essential elements of the crime." United

States v. Sandifer, 188 F.3d 992, 995 (8th Cir. 1999).

We review the denial of a motion for a new trial for abuse of discretion. United

States v. Rodriguez, 812 F.2d 414, 417 (8th Cir. 1987). The district court should grant

a new trial only if "the evidence weighs heavily enough against the verdict that a

miscarriage of justice may have occurred." Id. Absent a "clear and manifest" abuse

of discretion, we uphold the district court's ruling on a motion for a new trial. Id.

A.

Peters argues that the district court should have entered a judgment of acquittal

or granted a new trial on the bank fraud count because the government produced

insufficient evidence that Peters knew the check was counterfeit and thus failed to

prove the criminal intent element of the charge. To convict Peters of bank fraud, the

government had to prove that Peters "knowingly" executed or attempted to execute

"a scheme or artifice--(1) to defraud a financial institution; or (2) to obtain any of the

moneys, funds, credits, assets, securities, or other property owned by, or under the

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custody or control of, a financial institution, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses,

representations, or promises." 18 U.S.C. § 1344. 

Peters contends that the evidence establishes only that he unexpectedly received

a check and deposited it, innocently assuming the money was an especially generous

insurance settlement for a work-related auto accident he had a year earlier. He argues

that no reasonable jury could have found that this evidence proved the criminal intent

element for bank fraud where the government failed to bring direct evidence that

Peters knew that the check was counterfeit or had the ability to create or obtain a

counterfeit check. 

The government is permitted to and often does prove a defendant's criminal

intent with circumstantial evidence. See United States v. Idriss, 436 F.3d 946, 950

(8th Cir. 2006). Direct evidence of a defendant's mental state frequently is

unavailable, United States v. Londondio, 420 F.3d 777, 786 (8th Cir. 2005), and the

jury "is entitled to scrutinize and make reasonable inferences from defendant's conduct

and from all facts surrounding the incident in question." United States v. Pitts, 508

F.2d 1237, 1240 (8th Cir. 1974). Examples of circumstantial evidence from which a

jury reasonably can infer criminal intent include the defendant's "furtive conduct,"

attempts to abandon the counterfeit material, and "false exculpatory statements." Id.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the government's evidence

showed that Peters deposited a check for $90,700 into his bank account and that this

check, precisely addressed and payable to Peters and delivered to his home, was

counterfeit. When Peters deposited the check into his existing savings account, the

account balance was $6. In the months before Peters deposited the counterfeit check,

Bremer Bank statements showed similarly low balances in his other accounts. Peters

told a bank officer and, later, an FBI agent that he thought the check was an insurance

settlement from an accident he was involved in a year earlier in a vehicle leased by his

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employer. He admittedly had suffered no injury and filed no claim in the accident,

however, and his employer's property damage claim was not filed with National

States, a life and health insurance company. During the weeks after he deposited the

counterfeit check, Peters spent approximately half of the $90,700 to pay creditors and

make purchases. When the bank notified him that the check was counterfeit, he

responded with an offer to repay the money. 

Drawing all reasonable inferences favorable to the government, a reasonable

jury could find that Peters knew the sizable check from an insurance company with

which he had never filed a claim was counterfeit. When Peters presented that check

to the bank for deposit into his account, he represented that he was entitled to the

money. See United States v. Ponec, 163 F.3d 486, 489 (8th Cir. 1998). A reasonable

jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that, by presenting that large

counterfeit check to a bank for deposit into his nearly empty account and spending

nearly half the money in the next few weeks, Peters knowingly executed a scheme to

obtain money from a financial institution by fraudulent representations in violation of

the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1344. 

Possibly, the evidence is susceptible to conflicting interpretations. As Peters

points out, he engaged in no furtive conduct; he openly deposited the check into his

Bremer Bank account. The government's own banking witness testified that he may

have told the FBI that Peters could be the victim in the matter, although this was early

in the investigation. Moreover, Peters's statements to the bank officer and to the FBI

agent that the check was a settlement from the 2001 auto accident are consistent with

each other. Nonetheless, the jury reasonably could have interpreted those

explanations as false exculpatory statements because of the sheer implausibility of

Peters's belief that an uninjured individual who never filed a claim could be entitled

to $90,700 from an insurance company unknown to him. Similarly, Peters's prompt

offer to repay the money upon notification that the check was counterfeit could show

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intent to deal fairly with the banks, but a reasonable jury also could interpret that offer

as an attempt to distance himself from the counterfeit material. 

While the evidence arguably could support Peters's theory that he unreasonably

but innocently deposited the $90,700 check, and spent half of it, on the assumption

that it was a fortuitously large insurance settlement from his minor accident the year

before, the jury's contrary interpretation of that evidence is reasonable. Where a

reasonable-minded jury could have found evidence sufficient to convict, we will not

disturb the verdict just because a different jury might have reached a different

conclusion. See Serrano-Lopez, 366 F.3d at 634. The government's evidence of the

implausibility of Peters's notion that he was entitled to the money as an insurance

settlement, coupled with his use of nearly half the funds within two weeks, was

sufficient to permit a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Peters knowingly

executed a scheme to obtain money from the banks by false representations.

Accordingly, Peters was not entitled to a judgment of acquittal on the bank fraud

count. 

Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in denying Peters's motion for a

new trial, because the evidence does not weigh heavily enough against the jury's

verdict to render Peters's conviction a miscarriage of justice. As discussed above,

although certain interpretations of the evidence support Peters's theory of the case, the

jury had more than sufficient evidence to infer that Peters knew the check was

counterfeit and falsely claimed entitlement to it in a scheme to obtain money from

Bremer Bank and Royal Banks. The district court did not err in denying Peters's

motions for judgment of acquittal and new trial with respect to his bank fraud

conviction.

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B.

Peters next argues that the district court should have entered a judgment of

acquittal or granted a new trial on the counterfeited securities count because the

government produced insufficient evidence that Peters knew the check was counterfeit

or had the ability to create or obtain a counterfeit check and thus failed to prove the

criminal intent element of the charge. To convict Peters of counterfeited securities,

the government had to prove that Peters, with "intent to deceive," made, uttered, or

possessed a counterfeited security, that is, a falsely made check purporting to be

genuine. 18 U.S.C. § 513(a), (c).

As with the bank fraud charge, the government was permitted to prove the

intent element of the counterfeited securities charge with circumstantial evidence,

which is often the only available evidence of a defendant's mental state. See

Londondio, 420 F.3d at 786. Again viewing the evidence in the light most favorable

to the verdict and drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor, a reasonable jury

could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Peters's attribution of the $90,700 to

an insurance settlement for a minor accident was false and that he knew that the large,

precisely addressed check from an insurance company with which he had no prior

dealings was counterfeit. A reasonable jury could conclude further that, by presenting

that counterfeit check to Bremer Bank for deposit into his nearly empty account and

quickly spending nearly half the money, Peters uttered or possessed a counterfeit

security with intent to deceive in violation of the counterfeited securities statute, 18

U.S.C. § 513(a). Because the government's evidence was sufficient to allow a

reasonable jury to convict Peters of counterfeited securities, he was not entitled to a

judgment of acquittal on that count.

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Peters's motion

for a new trial on the counterfeited securities count. The same evidence that supports

the jury's conclusion on the bank fraud count also supports its finding that Peters was

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guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of counterfeited securities where he deposited, and

substantially spent, a check that he knew was counterfeit into his bank account. The

interpretations of the evidence that support Peters's theory of the case do not weigh

so heavily against the verdict as to render the conviction a miscarriage of justice. 

For the above reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

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