Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-19-01720/USCOURTS-ca3-19-01720-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Clarence Hoffert
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

________________

No. 19-1720

________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

CLARENCE HOFFERT, 

Appellant

________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Criminal No. 2-18-cr-00073-001)

District Judge: Honorable Christopher C. Conner

______________

Argued: November 13, 2019

Before: JORDAN, SCIRICA, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges

(Filed: February 11, 2020 )

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Quin M. Sorenson [Argued]

Office of Federal Public Defender

100 Chestnut Street

Suite 306

Harrisburg, PA 17101

Counsel for Appellant

Jonathan P. Cantil [Argued]

Wei Xiang

Office of United States Attorney

138 Delaware Avenue

Buffalo, NY 14202

Counsel for Appellee

________________

OPINION

________________

SCIRICA, Circuit Judge

Clarence Hoffert appeals his convictions and sentences

under 18 U.S.C. § 1521 for filing false liens against five federal 

officers who were involved in denying Hoffert’s requests to be 

released from prison, where he is currently serving a lengthy 

sentence for prior convictions.1 Hoffert challenges both the 

 1 Hoffert was convicted and sentenced by the Court of 

Common Pleas of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania for 

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validity of § 1521—contending it is unconstitutionally vague 

and an overbroad restriction of protected speech—as well as 

the sufficiency of the evidence presented at his trial. The trial 

court rejected both challenges, concluding the statute is neither 

unconstitutionally vague nor overbroad and that the evidence 

could rationally support a guilty verdict. We will affirm.

I.

This case is the latest entry in a long and confusing saga 

relating to Clarence Hoffert’s current incarceration at SCIAlbion for convictions arising out of the Court of Common 

Pleas of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania in 2003. It has its roots 

in requests that Hoffert made for documents from various 

governmental entities years after he began serving his 

sentence. In September 2012, Hoffert asked the Clerk of Court 

for the Lebanon County Courthouse to provide him a copy of 

his original sentencing order, explaining that prison officials at 

SCI-Albion allegedly had difficulty “keeping their records in 

order” and that Hoffert, in his words, “would like to be able to 

prove to them what my minimum [sentence] is when the time 

comes that I shall be eligible for parole.” App’x 323. The Clerk 

of Court quickly responded with a copy of the sentencing 

order, but noted that “[i]f the SCI needs your paperwork to be 

resent to them, they must make the request by e-mail or fax.” 

App’x 325.

Shortly after getting a copy of his sentencing order, 

 

consecutive counts of rape (9 1⁄2 to 20 years), corruption of 

a minor (2 1⁄2 to 5 years), and endangering the welfare of 

children (40 months to 7 years), for a cumulative total of 

approximately 15 to 32 years in prison.

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Hoffert filed a request with the Right-to-Know Office of the 

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections under Pennsylvania’s 

Right-to-Know Law, 65 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 67.101 et seq., asking 

for the Department of Corrections to produce a sentencing 

order with a “seal stamped upon it,” along with other 

associated documents. App’x 342. The request was denied

with the explanation that such records “do not currently exist.”

App’x 344. Hoffert appealed to the Pennsylvania Office of 

Open Records, the Department of Corrections again searched 

its records and found nothing, and the Office of Open Records 

concluded in a final determination that “no responsive records 

exist within the Department’s possession, custody or control.” 

App’x 357–58. Hoffert was advised that he could appeal to the 

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania if he disagreed with the

final determination. 

Hoffert then filed a pro se § 1983 complaint in the 

United States District Court for the Western District of 

Pennsylvania, attaching as exhibits several documents relating

to his right-to-know request, including the final determination

denying his request. Hoffert asserted that he “ha[d] been 

incarcerated now for over ten years without the proper ‘Sealed’ 

documentation,” sought damages of $3,500 per day for his 

“initial and continued illegally held confinement,” and 

demanded his “unbiased and immediate release” from custody.

App’x 362. His complaint was dismissed in a report and 

recommendation adopted by the trial court, which held that

(1) Eleventh Amendment immunity prevented Hoffert from 

seeking damages from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;

and (2) claims for immediate release from illegal detention are 

not cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and must instead be 

addressed through a habeas corpus petition. See Hoffert v. 

Pennsylvania, No. 13-162, 2014 WL 4262166 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 

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27, 2014). We affirmed. See Hoffert v. Pennsylvania, No. 14-

3947 (3d Cir. Jan. 6, 2015) (non-precedential). 

Following the dismissal of his complaint, Hoffert filed 

an administrative tort claim with the Torts Branch of the 

United States Department of Justice’s Civil Division, seeking 

$7,396,800,000 ($1.6 million per day) for his allegedly 

unlawful incarceration, which he claimed was “beyond the 

lawful Decrees of the Laws of Commerce and without use of a 

compact/contract/agreement between the Claimant and the 

U.S. Inc.’s subcorporation, PENNSYLVANIA.” App’x 386–

93. An “affidavit” associated with the administrative tort claim 

elaborated on who was purportedly responsible for these 

damages by providing a long list of state and federal entities 

that had interacted with Hoffert, from the date of his arrest 

many years before to the more recent denial of his § 1983 

complaint. 

The Torts Branch denied Hoffert’s administrative tort 

claim. It determined that Hoffert’s claim was not compensable 

because the claim alleged wrongful acts or omissions by 

employees of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who were 

not federal employees and therefore fell outside the scope of 

the Federal Tort Claims Act. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1); 

Couden v. Duffy, 446 F.3d 483, 499 (3d Cir. 2006) (“The 

FTCA waives the federal government’s sovereign immunity as 

to negligent or wrongful actions by its employees within the 

scope of their official duties . . . .” (emphasis added)). Hoffert 

was informed that if he was dissatisfied with this decision, he 

could timely file suit in an appropriate United States District 

Court. Instead, Hoffert wrote a letter to the director of the Torts 

Branch disputing the decision and threatening to “add your [the 

director’s] name and Agency to my Form 95 Administrative 

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Tort Claim and file it to the superiors of the United States Inc. 

at the United Nations.” App’x 412. This letter was returned to 

Hoffert by a legal assistant at the Torts Branch with a brief 

explanation that the Torts Branch was no longer involved in 

the matter because it had denied the claim.2

Things came to a head soon after. On August 4, 2017, 

Hoffert filed a “Claim of Commercial Lien Affidavit [and] 

Notice of Non-Judicial Proceeding” in the Office of the 

Recorder of Deeds, Erie County, Pennsylvania, in which he

named five federal officials as lien debtors: (1) the magistrate 

judge who recommended dismissal of his § 1983 complaint; 

(2) the district court judge who adopted that recommendation 

and dismissed that complaint; (3) one member of the Third 

Circuit Court of Appeals panel that affirmed the dismissal of

the complaint; (4) the director of the Civil Division’s Torts 

Branch involved with the denial of Hoffert’s administrative 

tort claim; and (5) the legal assistant who responded to 

Hoffert’s letter disputing the denial of his administrative tort 

claim.

3 These individuals were “now being liened for a 

 2 During this time, Hoffert also submitted various filings to 

the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico, such as an 

“Affidavit Notice Demanding Setoff of Account,” in which 

he requested the Secretary’s “most expedient intervention 

at correcting the record by paying the bond to setoff the 

account charged against the legal fiction U.S. vessel 

Clarence Hoffert by the Lebanon County Court of Common 

Pleas,” among other things. The record does not indicate

whether Hoffert ever received a response to these 

entreaties.

3 Two Pennsylvania state officials were also named.

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minimum amount of $650,000 U.S. Dollars each” because they 

had allegedly failed to comply with Pennsylvania law, “chose 

to ignore the un-Constitutional sanctions imposed against 

[Hoffert],” committed “treason,” and had engaged in other 

purported transgressions. App’x 426. The liens were “intended 

to seize all real and movable property of the [seven] Lien 

Debtors,” as well as the property of their spouses and children. 

Id. Hoffert claimed that each of these individuals was liable for 

$8,000,000 in damages, for a total of $56 million. Hoffert 

appears to have reached this sum through his interpretation of 

18 U.S.C. § 3571, which permits a court to fine defendants 

found guilty of a misdemeanor or felony offense. In his cover 

letter to the Recorder’s Office, Hoffert specifically requested 

that the liens be filed “as a Public Record.” App’x 423.

A few months after mailing the liens to the Recorder’s 

Office, Hoffert asked the United States Marshals Service to 

“serv[e] each lien debtor with a Distraint Warrant and to begin 

collection/liquidation of all their movable assets.” App’x 511. 

In response to this request, two marshals interviewed Hoffert 

on January 30, 2018, to discuss the various papers he had 

submitted with his liens and subsequent requests for service. 

During this interview, which was recorded, Hoffert

acknowledged that he wanted the marshals to seize and 

liquidate the property of the lien debtors. 

Nearly two months later, a federal grand jury indicted 

Hoffert, charging him with five counts of filing or attempting 

to file a false lien or encumbrance against the real or personal 

property of an officer or employee of the federal government, 

in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1521. Hoffert moved to dismiss the 

indictment, contending § 1521 was an unconstitutionally vague 

and overbroad restriction of protected speech. The trial court 

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denied the motion in a careful and thorough opinion.

At trial, the jury was presented with evidence showing 

that the document filed by Hoffert at the Recorder’s Office 

was, and was intended to be, a false lien or encumbrance. 

Jurors heard testimony from each named victim confirming 

that they did not know Hoffert, had no financial dealings with 

Hoffert, and did not owe Hoffert any amount of money. Hoffert 

also took the stand at trial, explaining that he had chosen not to 

file a habeas corpus petition because he had “watched guys sit 

ten years in court and their habeas corpus never came up.” 

App’x 219. He thus pursued a different strategy: “I just wanted 

the notoriety. I really wasn’t looking to get any type of 

monetary value out of anything. . . . I just wanted to show that 

we’re still being held without the proper paperwork.” App’x 

220. Hoffert also indicated that although he sought damages of 

$8 million from each victim under his reading of 18 U.S.C. § 

3571, which permits a court to impose criminal penalties, he 

nonetheless understood that only the government could bring 

criminal charges against a person. 

The jury convicted Hoffert on all five counts. He moved 

for a judgment of acquittal, arguing the evidence was not 

sufficient to sustain his convictions. The trial court denied his

motion, concluding that the record contained sufficient

evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict, and sentenced

Hoffert to 48 months of imprisonment consecutive to the 

sentences he was already serving. He now appeals, arguing that 

18 U.S.C. § 1521 is unconstitutional and that there was 

insufficient evidence to support his convictions.

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II.

Section 1521 makes it illegal to file a false lien against 

federal officials for the performance of their official duties:

Whoever files, attempts to file, or 

conspires to file, in any public record or 

in any private record which is generally 

available to the public, any false lien or 

encumbrance against the real or personal 

property of an individual described in 

section 1114, on account of the 

performance of official duties by that 

individual, knowing or having reason to 

know that such lien or encumbrance is 

false or contains any materially false, 

fictitious, or fraudulent statement or 

representation, shall be fined under this 

title or imprisoned for not more than 10 

years, or both.

18 U.S.C. § 1521. Hoffert asserts § 1521 is unconstitutional

because the scienter requirement “knowing or having reason to 

know” is vague and overbroad. As Hoffert challenges the

constitutionality of this criminal statute, our review is de novo. 

See United States v. Bergrin, 650 F.3d 257, 264 (3d Cir. 2011). 

We have jurisdiction over the final decision of the trial court 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

A.

We begin with Hoffert’s vagueness challenge to § 1521. 

A conviction violates due process if a criminal statute on which 

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the conviction is based “fails to provide a person of ordinary 

intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, or is so 

standardless that it authorizes or encourages seriously 

discriminatory enforcement.” United States v. Williams, 553 

U.S. 285, 304 (2008). “For the criminal context in particular, 

vagueness challenges ‘may be overcome in any specific case 

where reasonable persons would know their conduct puts them 

at risk of punishment under the statute.’” United States v. 

Ferriero, 866 F.3d 107, 124 (3d Cir. 2017) (quoting United 

States v. Moyer, 674 F.3d 192, 211 (3d Cir. 2012)). A criminal 

statute need only give “fair warning” that certain conduct is 

prohibited, Ferriero, 866 F.3d at 124, and “one who 

deliberately goes perilously close to an area of proscribed 

conduct shall take the risk that he may cross the line,” Boyce 

Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 340 (1952).

Section 1521’s scienter requirement, or one quite 

similar to it, is ubiquitous in the criminal law, see, e.g., United 

States v. Saffo, 227 F.3d 1260, 1268 (10th Cir. 2000)

(collecting statutes), and has withstood numerous vagueness 

challenges. In Gorin v. United States, the Supreme Court 

considered a vagueness challenge to the Espionage Act, which 

criminalized certain conduct when a defendant had “intent or 

reason to believe” that certain information would “be used to 

the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any 

foreign nation.” 312 U.S. 19, 27–28 (1941). In rejecting the 

challenge, the Court found “no uncertainty in this statute which 

deprives a person of the ability to predetermine whether a 

contemplated action is criminal,” and focused in particular on 

the “obvious delimiting words” of the scienter requirement, 

which “require[d] those prosecuted to have acted in bad faith.” 

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Id.4 We think it clear that if the scienter requirements 

challenged in Gorin and many other cases were not vague, then 

neither is § 1521.

Hoffert nonetheless contends that § 1521 is 

unconstitutionally vague because “entirely innocent persons” 

could be convicted under a “reason to know” standard.

Appellant Br. at 15. We disagree. Rather than permitting the 

conviction of innocent persons, § 1521 has a scienter 

requirement that defines the level of culpability for the offense 

and which has a settled legal meaning. A person has “reason to 

know” of a certain fact when “a person of ordinary intelligence 

. . . would infer that the fact in question exists or that there is a 

substantial enough chance of its existence that, if the person 

exercises reasonable care, the person can assume the fact 

exists.” See Reason to Know, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 

2019). As courts have uniformly recognized, a criminal statute 

 4

 Following Gorin, the courts of appeals have consistently 

rejected vagueness challenges to similar scienter 

requirements. See, e.g., Saffo, 227 F.3d at 1270 (rejecting 

challenge to “reasonable cause to believe” standard because 

the defendant could only have understood it to proscribe the 

sale of illegal pseudoephedrine); Casbah, Inc. v. Thone, 

651 F.2d 551, 561 (8th Cir. 1981) (rejecting challenge to 

statute criminalizing the sale of items that a seller 

“reasonably should know” will be used as drug 

paraphernalia); United States v. Featherston, 461 F.2d 

1119, 1121–22 (5th Cir. 1972) (rejecting challenge to 18 

U.S.C. § 231’s “knowing or having reason to know”

requirement because the statute was “sufficiently definite 

to apprise men of common intelligence of its meaning and 

application”).

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employing a “reason to know” standard requires an individual 

to proceed with reasonable care and to “open his eyes to the 

objective realities” of a given course of conduct. Casbah, 651 

F.2d at 561; see also Fla. Businessmen for Free Enter. v. City 

of Hollywood, 673 F.2d 1213, 1219 (11th Cir. 1982) (“The 

‘reasonably should know’ standard does not punish innocent 

or inadvertent conduct. . . .”). With respect to § 1521, the only 

court of appeals to have so far construed the statute has 

similarly held that “[u]nder § 1521, . . . a defendant can be 

guilty even if he honestly believed that he filed a proper lien so 

long as the belief was not a reasonable one.” United States v. 

Williamson, 746 F.3d 987, 994 (10th Cir. 2014). So instead of

being vague, § 1521’s use of “reason to know” reveals nothing 

more complicated than that Congress intended for lien filers to 

proceed with reasonable care as to the falsity of a lien.

Further undermining Hoffert’s vagueness challenge is

that § 1521 limits criminal liability to those situations where 

someone knows or has reason to know of a lien’s falsity, which 

makes the statute less vague, not more. A person who files a 

lien is protected from criminal sanction if he or she acted 

reasonably under the circumstances as to its falsity, thus 

allowing individuals to conform their conduct accordingly. See 

Posters ‘N’ Things, Ltd. v. United States, 511 U.S. 513, 526 

(1994) (“[A] scienter requirement may mitigate a law’s 

vagueness, especially with respect to the adequacy of notice 

. . . that [the] conduct is proscribed.”) (quoting Vill. of Hoffman 

Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 499 

(1982)). For similar reasons, we must also reject Hoffert’s 

contention that § 1521’s use of a “reason to know” standard is 

vague because it relies on a “reasonableness” standard. “The 

mere fact that a penal statute is so framed as to require a jury 

upon occasion to determine a question of reasonableness is not 

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sufficient to make it too vague to afford a practical guide to 

permissible conduct.” United States v. Ragen, 314 U.S. 513, 

523 (1942).

5

Finally, Hoffert argues that his conduct—in contrast to, 

say, espionage—is not “inherently unlawful in some way,” 

because filing liens is a normal part of everyday commercial 

activity. Reply Br. at 4–5. Hoffert’s premise is flawed—he did 

not just file a lien, but rather a false, retaliatory lien against 

federal officials—but whatever the case, this distinction is 

immaterial. The dispositive question for whether a statute is 

unconstitutionally vague is not the “inherent” lawfulness of 

certain conduct, but whether “reasonable persons would know 

their conduct puts them at risk of punishment under the 

statute.” Ferriero, 866 F.3d at 124. We find that nothing in the 

statute prevented Hoffert from knowing that his course of 

conduct put him at risk of punishment. Section 1521 is not 

vague, and any individual “desirous of observing the law will 

have little difficulty in determining what is prohibited by it.” 

Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U.S. 343, 348 (1918).

B.

We now turn to Hoffert’s other facial challenge under 

the First Amendment. “In the First Amendment context, . . . a 

law may be invalidated as overbroad if ‘a substantial number 

 5 Because § 1521’s scienter requirement is clear in its 

language and provides a guide to conduct, Hoffert’s 

argument about whether the trial court erred when it 

instructed the jury on a “good faith” defense is irrelevant. 

Regardless of whether the defense is available under § 

1521, the statute is not vague either way.

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of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the 

statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.’” Ferriero, 866 F.3d at 125 

(quoting United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473 (2010)). 

A law must be “substantially overbroad” to be 

unconstitutional, Williams, 553 U.S. at 303, and the “mere fact 

that one can conceive of some impermissible applications of a 

statute is not sufficient to render it susceptible to an 

overbreadth challenge,” Members of City Council of L.A. v. 

Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 800 (1984). Invalidation 

for overbreadth is “‘strong medicine’ that is not to be ‘casually 

employed.’” Williams, 553 U.S. at 293 (quoting L.A. Police 

Dep’t v. United Reporting Publ’g Corp., 528 U.S. 32, 39 

(1999)). 

Determining whether a statute is unconstitutionally 

overbroad is a two-step process. “The first step in overbreadth 

analysis is to construe the challenged statute,” followed by the 

second step of evaluating whether the statute, as construed, 

“criminalizes a substantial amount of protected expressive 

activity.” Williams, 553 U.S. at 293, 297. Section 1521’s 

construction is straightforward: it is illegal to file a false lien 

against federal officials on account of the performance of their 

official duties when the filer knows or has reason to know the 

lien is false. Section 1521 thus prohibits a relatively narrow 

band of activity.

Although Hoffert must show § 1521 criminalizes a 

substantial amount of protected speech, he cites no authority or 

evidence to indicate that it does.

6 Indeed, there is much cutting 

 6 Hoffert cites Tyler v. University of Arkansas Board of 

Trustees, 628 F.3d 980 (8th Cir. 2011), and Augustin v. City 

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against it. “[T]he First Amendment does not shield fraud,”

Illinois, ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., Inc., 538 

U.S. 600, 612 (2003), and we have previously remarked on the 

“unique problem” that false liens pose, which allow the 

perpetrator to “file the lien with relative ease” while requiring 

the victim to “go through a complicated ordeal, such as to seek 

judicial action, in order to remove the lien.” Monroe v. Beard, 

536 F.3d 198, 209 (3d Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (rejecting First 

Amendment challenge to confiscation of prisoner legal 

materials used to file false liens). Given the fraudulent nature 

of false liens and the low social value of filing them, we 

conclude that § 1521 does not restrict a substantial amount of 

protected speech.

III.

Hoffert also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence 

to sustain his conviction, which we review de novo. See United 

States v. Freeman, 763 F.3d 322, 343 (3d Cir. 2014). “[T]he 

critical inquiry on review of the sufficiency of the evidence to 

support a criminal conviction . . . is whether, after viewing the 

evidence in the light most favorable to the 

prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

United States v. Caraballo-Rodriguez, 726 F.3d 418, 424–25 

 

of Philadelphia, 897 F.3d 142 (3d Cir. 2018), in support of 

this argument. But Tyler involves the filing of a claim with 

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not a 

false lien, and Augustin addresses municipal liens and does 

not involve the First Amendment. Both cases fall far short 

of showing § 1521 criminalizes a substantial amount of 

protected speech.

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(3d Cir. 2013) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 

(1979)). A jury’s verdict must be upheld unless it falls below 

the threshold of “bare rationality.” Coleman v. Johnson, 566 

U.S. 650, 656 (2012).

Hoffert’s sufficiency challenge again centers on the 

mens rea element of § 1521. He asserts his conviction is 

unsupported by the record because “[n]o witness testified and 

no evidence showed that Mr. Hoffert knew that the lien was 

false when filed.” Appellant Br. at 18. But as the trial court 

noted, Hoffert had engaged in an extensive course of conduct 

to challenge his state convictions, repeatedly ignored advice to 

file habeas corpus petitions, sought $7.3 billion in damages for 

his confinement, and even threatened to “add” the director of 

the Tort Branch to his administrative tort claim after it was 

denied. As for the lien itself, it sought $8 million from each of

five federal officials under Hoffert’s calculation of criminal 

penalties under 18 U.S.C. § 3571, even though he conceded 

that only the government could seek to impose such penalties. 

And when asked why he filed the liens, Hoffert responded that 

he did not file them to recover money but rather to expedite 

what he perceived to be an unduly slow habeas corpus process. 

He even went so far as to state that he “just wanted the 

notoriety,” “wasn’t looking to get any type of monetary value 

out of anything,” and “just wanted to show that we’re still 

being held without the proper paperwork.” App’x 220.

Given the circumstantial evidence of Hoffert’s 

intentions and his own admissions at trial about his mental 

state, we conclude that the jury could have rationally 

concluded that Hoffert filed the liens “knowing or having 

reason to know that such lien[s] or encumbrance[s] [were]

false.” 18 U.S.C. § 1521; see also Caraballo-Rodriguez, 726 

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F.3d at 432 (“Unless the jury’s conclusion is irrational, it must 

be upheld.”). Accordingly, we will not disturb the jury’s 

verdict. 

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the trial 

court’s judgment of convictions and sentences.

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