Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05135/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05135-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Mary A. Walker
Appellant

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

MARY A. WALKER, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

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FILED 

Ucited StateS Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

OCT 15 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-5135 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. 89-CR-34-E) 

Curtis J. Biram, Biram & Kaiser, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Tony M. Graham, United States Attorney, and Gordon B. Cecil, 

Assistant United States Attorney, for the Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before McKAY, McWILLIAMS, and TACHA, Circuit Judges. 

TACHA, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 89-5135 Document: 01019311231 Date Filed: 10/15/1990 Page: 1 
The defendant-appellant Mary Walker appeals her conviction on 

I"'" 

~-- six counts of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. We 

affirm. 1 

The defendant was employed by Parrish & Clark, Inc. and Four 

Stars Motor Parts, Inc. as an accounts payable clerk from 1973 

until 1987. She began embezzling from her employer in 1979. The 

defendant would present a false invoice and a check made out to 

the supplier named in the invoice. After the check was signed, 

the defendant would mark out the supplier's name and insert her 

own. She would then deposit the check in her personal checking 

account or cash it at a grocery store or busines.s. 

The check would pass through normal banking channels. The 

employer's bank would send the employer a bank statement and the 

cancelled checks through the mails. These documents would be 

delivered to the defendant after the envelope had been opened by 

the company president or the office manager. The defendant would 

reconcile the bank statements and place the documents in an 

unlocked filing cabinet in the main office. She normally left her 

name on the checks, although she occasionally erased her name on a 

cancelled check and inserted a supplier's name. From 1979 until 

February 1987, the defendant altered 400 to 450 checks totalling 

approximately $180,000. The defendant realtered only 12 to 20 of 

1 After exam~n~ng the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); lOth Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5135 Document: 01019311231 Date Filed: 10/15/1990 Page: 2 
involve conditional guilty pleas. In Hashagen, Curry, and Moore, 

the defendants filed notices of appeal following jury verdicts of 

guilty but before sentencing occurred. The notices of appeal did 

not specify the exact issues the defendants intended to address on 

appeal. Each of these courts emphasized that the parties and the 

court had received notice of the defendant's intent to appeal, not 

that they had received notice of the particular issues the 

defendant would address on appeal. We therefore hold that a 

premature notice of appeal filed after a guilty verdict is 

returned but before sentencing ripens when the judgment is 

formally finalized even if the notice of appeal does not specify 

the issues to be raised on appeal. Walker's notice of appeal 

ripened and this court was therefore conferred with jurisdiction 

when the district court entered judgment on October 3, 1989. 

We next consider the defendant's contention that the evidence 

presented at trial was insufficient to convict her of mail fraud. 

In particular, she contends that the bank statements and cancelled 

checks received by the defendant's employer in the mails were not 

sufficiently related to the embezzlement scheme to satisfy the 

mailing element of the crime of mail fraud. 

The government argues the defendant failed to preserve this 

issue for appellate review. The defendant moved for judgment of 

acquittal based on this argument at the close of the government's 

case-in-chief. The trial court denied this motion. The defendant 

then presented evidence in her own behalf. She did not renew her 

motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of all evidence 

introduced at trial. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5135 Document: 01019311231 Date Filed: 10/15/1990 Page: 3 
This court has repeatedly held that a defendant who moves for 

a judgment of acquittal at the close of the government's case must 

again make this motion at the close of the entire case if he 

introduces evidence in his defense. By presenting such evidence, 

the defendant is deemed to have withdrawn his or her motion and 

thereby to have waived any objection to its denial. United States 

~Morris, 623 F.2d 145, 152 (lOth Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 

1065 (1980); United States~ Guerrero, 517 F.2d 528, 530 (lOth 

Cir. 1975). This court will therefore reverse the district 

court's judgment only if there is a manifest error and it is 

necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice. Guerrero, 571 F.2d 

at 531; Corbin ~United States, 253 F.2d 646, 648 (lOth Cir. 

1958). 

Our review of the record in this case reveals no manifest 

error. The Supreme Court recently addressed what the government 

must prove to establish the mailing element of the crime of mail 

fraud. Schmuck~ United States, 109 S. Ct. 1443, reh'g denied, 

109 s. Ct. 2091 (1989). The Court held that the mailing element 

is satisfied if the mailings are incident to an essential part of 

the scheme to defraud. .. The mailings need not be an essential 

element of the scheme. Id. at 1449-50. 

Defendant did testify that she did not intend to rely on the 

u.s. mails to carry out her scheme. The jury, however, could have 

reasonably inferred from the evidence that Walker relied on her 

employer's habitual failure to review the cancelled checks mailed 

to the company president or the office manager by the bank. She 

was also able to conceal her fraudulent scheme because she was the 

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Appellate Case: 89-5135 Document: 01019311231 Date Filed: 10/15/1990 Page: 4 
individual responsible for reconciling the bank statements and 

filing the cancelled checks. The jury reasonably concluded that 

the defendant's receipt of the mailed bank statements and 

cancelled checks were incident to an essential part of the scheme: 

preventing the discovery of the fraud. We therefore AFFIRM the 

district court's judgment entered October 3, 1989. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5135 Document: 01019311231 Date Filed: 10/15/1990 Page: 5