Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03101/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03101-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jason Todd Reynolds
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 25, 2013 Decided March 26, 2013 

No. 11-3101 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

JASON TODD REYNOLDS, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:10-cr-00087-1) 

Gary E. Proctor argued the cause for appellant. On the 

brief were William B. Purpura Jr. and Marta K. Kahn. 

John P. Gidez, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause 

for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen 

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Suzanne Grealy 

Curt, and Jonathan P. Hooks, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Elizabeth H. Danello, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an 

appearance.

Before: KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, and EDWARDS and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges. 

USCA Case #11-3101 Document #1427299 Filed: 03/26/2013 Page 1 of 5
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Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Jason Reynolds was 

the chief financial officer of the National City Christian 

Church in Washington, D.C. (The church is operated in part 

through a National City Christian Church Foundation, but for 

our purposes the two appear interchangeable and we will refer 

only to the church.) In that capacity he swindled the church 

out of more than $850,000, much of it through arranging an 

increase in the church’s line of credit at Adams National 

Bank. 

Reynolds’s technique in increasing the line of credit led 

to charges of “aggravated identity theft” under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1028A. The technique appears comparatively simple. As 

chief financial officer he had access to digital versions of the 

signatures of at least four of the church’s officers. He used 

these to create a purported corporate resolution bearing the 

officers’ signatures and approving the increased borrowing, 

which resolution he then gave the bank. 

A jury convicted Reynolds of four counts of aggravated 

identity theft, one for each of the officers. It also found him 

guilty of bank and wire fraud, making a false statement on a 

loan application, four counts of tax evasion, and first-degree 

fraud under District of Columbia law. Section 1028A calls for 

a sentence of two years for each § 1028A violation. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1028A(a)(1). Such sentences are generally to run 

consecutively with sentences for other offenses, but may 

sometimes (as here) run concurrently with sentences for other 

§ 1028A violations. Id. § 1028A(b). On appeal, Reynolds 

argues that under a proper construction of § 1028A there was 

insufficient evidence to sustain his identity theft convictions; 

he also argues that the district court made two erroneous 

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evidentiary rulings. Only the identity theft claim calls for 

discussion in a published opinion. 

* * * 

Reynolds contends that the government was required to 

prove both that he stole the officers’ identity information and 

that the officers suffered individual harm beyond that suffered 

by the church. Because the government did not present 

evidence on those points at trial, says Reynolds, his 

convictions under § 1028A must be vacated. We review this 

claim for plain error: although Reynolds asked the district 

court for a judgment of acquittal on the § 1028A charges, his 

motion did not raise these arguments. See United States v. 

McCoy, 242 F.3d 399, 402 (D.C. Cir. 2001). 

We begin of course with the statutory language, United 

States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515 F.3d 1234, 1237 (D.C. Cir. 

2008), and if its meaning is plain and unambiguous as to the 

disputed issue, that is where we stop, Robinson v. Shell Oil 

Co., 519 U.S. 337, 340 (1997); see also Connecticut Nat’l 

Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54 (1992). Section 

1028A reads in relevant part: 

Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation 

enumerated in [18 U.S.C. § 1028A(c)], knowingly 

transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a 

means of identification of another person shall, in 

addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be 

sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years. 

18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1). The parties agree that Reynolds 

committed a felony enumerated in § 1028A(c), and Reynolds 

has abandoned on appeal his argument that a signature is not a 

“means of identification.” 

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This leaves Reynolds with statutory text that is clearly not 

on his side. While he argues that § 1028A applies only to 

“stolen” information, § 1028A(a)(1) explicitly covers a 

defendant who “uses” a means of identification without lawful 

authority. By contrast, two subsections of the immediately 

preceding provision, which sets forth various other identityrelated fraud crimes, refer specifically to identity information 

that has been “stolen.” See 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(2), (6). 

To the extent that there is a textual hook for Reynolds’s 

stolen-information argument, it is the requirement that the use 

be “without lawful authority.” But “use[] . . . without lawful 

authority” easily encompasses situations in which a defendant 

gains access to identity information legitimately but then uses 

it illegitimately—in excess of the authority granted. All 

circuits to consider the question have agreed on the principle. 

See, e.g., United States v. Lumbard, 706 F.3d 716, 725 (6th 

Cir. 2013); United States v. Ozuna-Cabrera, 663 F.3d 496, 

498-99 (1st Cir. 2011); United States v. Abdelshafi, 592 F.3d 

602, 607-08 (4th Cir. 2010). Reynolds concedes that he 

submitted the signature-bearing corporate resolution to the 

bank “without obtaining the express permission of the 

signature holders each time he used it,” Appellant’s Br. 10, 

and thus without authority, let alone lawful authority. Thus 

the statutory text seems to give Reynolds no hold. 

Accordingly Reynolds turns to § 1028A’s title—

“aggravated identity theft”—and to isolated statements in the 

legislative history referring to the stealing of information 

through computer hacking and the like. The statutory text 

being unambiguous, however, these tools cannot aid him. See 

Connecticut Nat’l Bank, 503 U.S. at 253-54; Bhd. of R.R 

Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 331 U.S. 519, 528 

(1947). Moreover, even if the statute itself were less clear, 

mention of particular examples in the legislative history—in 

all probability chosen for their vividness, poignancy, and 

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resonance with popular understandings—would provide no 

ground for narrowing its reach. See Pension Benefit Guar. 

Corp. v. LTV Corp., 496 U.S. 633, 649 (1990). We therefore 

reject Reynolds’s argument that § 1028A requires evidence 

that the defendant stole the identity information at issue. 

Reynolds’s second argument—that § 1028A applies only 

where the individuals whose means of identification were 

unlawfully used have suffered individual harm—has even less 

statutory support. It rests solely on occasional comments in 

the legislative history illustrating the types of harm that 

violative behavior may cause—the sort of example that 

proponents of a provision would naturally highlight. Again, 

the statute is clear, and these examples supply no basis for 

reading it narrowly. See id. 

Because both Reynolds’s arguments lack merit, we find 

no error—much less plain error—in the district court’s denial 

of his motion for a judgment of acquittal on the § 1028A 

charges.

* * * 

The judgment of the district court is 

 Affirmed. 

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