Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01572/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01572-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mary Ray
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued November 7, 2016

Decided November 29, 2016

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

GARY S. FEINERMAN, District Judge*

No. 16-1572

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

MARY RAY,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United 

States District Court for the 

Northern District of Indiana, 

South Bend Division.

No. 3:14CR078-001

Jon E. DeGuilio, Judge.

Order

The only appellate issue in this criminal case is whether the evidence supports the 

jury’s verdicts that Mary Ray committed wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §1343, by diverting money from the assets of her elderly father-in-law Norman. Ray also was convicted of embezzling funds from a federal program and making false statements on her tax returns; 

she does not contest her sentences for those crimes. Imprisonment comes to 84 months 

in total, allocated across the 11 counts of conviction. Ray did not file a motion for acquit-

 

* Of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.

Case: 16-1572 Document: 33 Filed: 11/29/2016 Pages: 2
No. 16-1572 Page 2

tal under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29, so only plain error could lead this court to reverse the 

wire-fraud convictions. See United States v. Irby, 558 F.3d 651, 653 (7th Cir. 2009).

The evidence at trial shows that in 2013 Ray persuaded her father-in-law (then 84 

years old) to give her a power of attorney to manage his funds, worth more than 

$600,000. He did so because he deemed her financially prudent, while he thought his 

other relatives to be spendthrifts. Ray concealed from Norman the fact that she, too, 

could not be trusted with money and had recently been fired from her job after being 

caught embezzling (which she did to cover gambling debts). Ray led Norman to believe 

that she and her husband “were financially okay”; she did not tell him that the couple 

had filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and that she was no longer employable.

The power of attorney required Ray to manage Norman’s money without compensation, though it allowed her to reimburse reasonable expenses and make herself gifts 

limited to $10,000 annually. Between March 2013 and October 2014 Ray withdrew about 

$605,000 from accounts over which Norman and Ray were joint signatories and placed 

them in accounts subject to her sole control. She then gambled away much of this money, writing checks against these accounts or withdrawing funds from ATMs located in 

casinos.

A jury could conclude both that Ray hatched a scheme to defraud Norman and that 

she implemented this scheme using the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, such 

as the communications lines that permit ATMs to check account balances and dispense 

cash. The evidence permitted the jury to find that Ray deceived Norman about how she 

planned to use the money and deliberately exceeded her authority under the power of 

attorney. Her conduct also permitted the jury to infer that she intended to defraud 

Norman. Ray asserts that Norman gave her oral permission to use money for her benefit (and her husband’s) if it was needed—but Norman, who testified that he could not 

recall making such a statement and could scarcely recall events from day to day, added 

that he did not view gambling as a need and would never have authorized either the 

power of attorney or these withdrawals had Ray told the truth. No more is necessary 

for conviction. See, e.g., United States v. Henningsen, 387 F.3d 585, 589 (7th Cir. 2004); 

United States v. Leahy, 464 F.3d 773, 787–89 (7th Cir. 2006).

AFFIRMED

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