UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4142

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ANDREW ISAAC CHANCE,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District 

Judge. (8:10-cr-00760-AW-1)

Submitted: September 14, 2012 Decided: November 6, 2012

Before NIEMEYER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Baltimore, Maryland, Meghan 

S. Skelton, Staff Attorney, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC 

DEFENDER, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant. Kathryn Keneally, 

Assistant Attorney General, Frank P. Cihlar, Gregory Victor 

Davis, Elissa Hart-Mahan, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 

Washington, D.C.; Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, 

Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

In this appeal, Andrew Chance (Defendant) raises numerous 

evidentiary challenges to his convictions, following a jury 

trial, on one count of filing a retaliatory lien against a 

government employee, 18 U.S.C. § 1521, and three counts of

filing a false claim against the government, id. § 287. We 

affirm.

I.

The statutory section pertaining to the retaliatory lien 

count provides, in relevant part: 

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 [officer or employee of the United States], 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.

Id. § 1521. The statutory section pertaining to the false claim 

counts provides, in relevant part:

Whoever makes or presents to any person or officer in 

the civil . . . service of the United States, or to 

any department or agency thereof, any claim upon or 

against the United States, or any department or agency 

thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, 

or fraudulent, shall be imprisoned not more than five 

years and shall be subject to a fine in the amount 

provided in this title.
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Id. § 287.

With respect to the single count of filing a retaliatory 

lien against a government employee, the undisputed evidence at 

Defendant’s trial established the following. On or about July 

25, 2007, a federal jury convicted Defendant on one count of 

filing a false claim against the government based upon 

Defendant’s conduct of knowingly filing a federal income tax 

return which falsely claimed his entitlement to a refund in the 

amount of $306,753.00. See id. § 287. Defendant was sentenced 

to twenty-seven months’ imprisonment for such crime.

Approximately two months after his release from federal 

prison for such crime, on or about August 14, 2009, Defendant 

filed a UCC Financing Statement with the Maryland Department of 

Assessments and Taxation (the UCC Financing Statement), in which 

Defendant listed himself as the secured party and claimed that 

Steven Dunne (Dunne), the Assistant United States Attorney who 

had prosecuted him on the 2007 false claim charge, owed him 

$1,313,000,000.00 in tort damages. Defendant further claimed in 

the UCC Financing Statement that “Said Tort Claim becomes a 

perfected claim/lien after 90 days (billing time period), and 

said lien becomes an ‘account receivable,’ and the account 

receivable becomes the private property of the Claimant . . . .” 

(J.A. 832). Defendant paid the appropriate filing fee to file 

the UCC Financing Statement. The Maryland Department of 
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Assessments and Taxation accepted the UCC Filing Statement as 

filed and made it a publically available record.

Following Defendant’s arrest on the charges in the present 

case and after being advised of his constitutional right to 

remain silent, Defendant told the arresting officers that he 

filed the lien against Dunne because Dunne had “done [him]

wrong” by prosecuting him. (J.A. 537).

With respect to the three counts of filing a false claim 

against the government, the undisputed evidence at Defendant’s 

trial established the following. In April 2010, the United 

States Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) issued an employer 

identification number to the Andrew Chance Trust. In September 

2010, Defendant filed three federal income tax returns for tax 

years 2007, 2008, and 2009, which Defendant had signed under 

penalty of perjury. Each return listed the Andrew Chance Trust

as the taxpayer and listed the employment identification number 

that had been issued by the IRS to the Andrew Chance Trust in 

April 2010. 

For each of the three years at issue, the returns falsely 

reported trust income of $900,000.00, falsely reported 

$300,000.00 of such income had been withheld by the government, 

and falsely reported that a $300,000.00 refund was due to the

trust. Defendant admitted under oath at trial that he knew the

trust had not generated income of $900,000.00 for any of the 
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three years at issue. He also admitted that he knew the trust

did not have $300,000.00 in withholding in any account with the 

government for the same three years, but explained that the 

refund figures on the returns corresponded to a total of 

$900,000.00 that he believes he is owed in reparations because 

he is a descendant of slaves.

The district court sentenced Defendant to sixty-five 

months’ imprisonment with respect to the retaliatory lien count 

and to sixty months’ imprisonment on each of the three false 

claim counts to run concurrently with his sentence on the 

retaliatory lien count. This timely appeal followed in which 

Defendant challenges his convictions on various evidentiary 

grounds.

II.

Defendant first challenges all of his convictions on the 

ground that the district court abused its discretion by granting 

the government’s motion in limine to exclude the testimony of 

the following mental-health experts he offered to rebut the 

government’s evidence on the specific intent element of the 

retaliatory lien count and the false claim counts: (1) forensic 

psychiatrist Dr. Martin Brandes; (2) neuropsychologist Dr. 
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Victoria Starbuck; and (3) neurologist/neuropsychiatrist Dr. 

Richard Restak.1

Defendant’s challenge to his convictions is without merit. 

The law is well settled that a district court is afforded wide 

discretion in determining the admissibility of evidence at 

trial, United States v. Abel, 469 U.S. 45, 54 (1984), and “the 

district court’s evidentiary determinations should not be 

overturned except under the most extraordinary of 

circumstances,” United States v. Aramony, 88 F.3d 1369, 1377 

(4th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the 

government’s motion in limine to exclude the expert testimony of 

Drs. Brandes, Starbuck, and Restak. 

Of relevance to this issue, without objection by Defendant, 

the district court charged the jury as follows regarding the 

specific intent element of Defendant’s retaliatory lien count: 

“the defendant knew or had reason to know that such lien or 

encumbrance contained a materially false or fictitious statement 

 1 In deciding this issue on appeal, Defendant asks us to 

consider transcripts of testimony that the above named mentalhealth experts gave during his sentencing hearing in this case 

as well as written reports prepared by such proposed experts 

which the district court did not have prior to ruling on the 

government’s motion in limine. As the district court did not 

have the benefit of such material at the time it ruled on the 

motion, we will not consider such information in deciding this 

issue. 
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or representation.” (J.A. 720). Without objection by 

Defendant, the district court charged the jury as follows 

regarding the specific intent element of his false claim counts:

“that the defendant presented the claim knowing that it was 

false or fictitious as to a material fact.” (J.A. 722). Of 

relevance to this issue, the district court further instructed 

the jury without objection:

A claim is false if it was untrue when made and 

was then known to be untrue by the person making it or 

causing it to be made.

A claim is fictitious if it is not real or if it 

is done – or if it does not correspond to what 

actually happened and the person making it or causing 

it to be made knew that it was not real at the time it

was made.

* * *

An act is done knowingly if it is done 

voluntarily and purposefully and not done by mistake, 

carelessness or other innocent reasons. However, the 

government does not have to prove that the defendant 

knew of the relevant criminal provisions governing his 

conduct as long as it proves – the government – proves 

that the defendant knew the claim was false or 

fictitious.

(J.A. 724).

At trial, Defendant did not dispute that the events in this 

case occurred more or less as described by the government’s 

evidence. Defendant also did not raise a federal insanity 

defense under the Insanity Defense Reform Act (the IDRA), 18 

U.S.C. § 17, which act requires a defendant to prove by clear 

and convincing evidence “that, at the time of the commission of 
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the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of 

a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the 

nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts,” id.

§ 17(a).2 Rather, the crux of Defendant’s defense at trial was 

that his actions were the result of a confused and irrational 

mind. In support of this defense, Defendant sought to have Drs. 

Brandes, Starbuck, and Restak testify that he has a rigid 

personality style, is mentally inflexible, has certainty in the 

righteousness of his behavior, and is unwilling to consider 

alternative explanations. According to Defendant, the doctors’

testimony would negate the government’s evidence regarding the 

specific intent element of his charged crimes. Notably, prior 

to ruling on the government’s motion in limine to exclude Drs. 

Brandes, Starbuck, and Restak from testifying as expert 

witnesses for the defense, the district court only had the 

benefit of such doctors’ written reports to explain the 

substance of their proposed testimony.3

 

 2 The IDRA further specifies that “[m]ental disease or 

defect does not otherwise constitute a defense.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 17(a).

3 After the district court granted the government’s motion 

in limine and after the government had presented the majority of 

its evidence against Defendant at trial, Defendant requested 

that the district court allow Drs. Brandes, Starbuck, and Restak 

to testify in court outside the presence of the jury. Upon the 

district court’s denial of such request, Defendant moved to 

proffer additional written reports by Drs. Brandes, Starbuck, 

(Continued)
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In granting the government’s motion in limine to exclude 

the expert testimony of Drs. Brandes, Starbuck, and Restak, the 

district court wrote a thorough, detailed, and well-reasoned

memorandum opinion. The crux of the district court’s reasoning 

in granting the motion was that the conclusions about Defendant 

offered by his proposed mental-health expert witnesses fall into 

the category of defenses that Congress intended to preclude 

under the IDRA, which act “expressly prohibits the use of any 

‘[m]ental disease or defect’ as a defense unless it demonstrates 

that the defendant ‘was unable to appreciate the nature and 

quality or the wrongfulness of his acts,’” United States v. 

Worrell, 313 F.3d 867, 872 (4th Cir. 2002) (quoting 18 U.S.C. 

§ 17), “leav[ing] no room for a defense that raises ‘any form of 

legal excuse based upon one’s lack of volitional control’ 

 

and Restak. The district court denied this request also, 

characterizing both requests as nothing more than an attempt to 

take a second bite at the apple. According to the district 

court, allowing Defendant to proffer the live testimony of his 

proposed expert witnesses and submit additional reports at such 

a late point in the trial would severely prejudice the 

government by giving it “little time to find and prepare its own 

expert witnesses, [while] Defendant has had the advantage of 

hearing the [g]overnment present its case-in-chief and the 

majority of its evidence against Defendant.” (J.A. 490). In 

the present appeal, Defendant does not challenge the district 

court’s denial of these requests. Accordingly, we do not 

consider any information offered by Defendant in such requests 

in deciding whether the district court abused its discretion in 

granting the government’s motion in limine. 
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including ‘a diminished ability or failure to reflect adequately 

upon the consequences or nature of one’s actions,’” id. (quoting 

United States v. Cameron, 907 F.2d 1051, 1061 (11th Cir. 1990)). 

We fully agree with the district court’s reasoning in granting 

the government’s motion in limine, as set forth in the district 

court’s memorandum. See United States v. Chance, 2011 WL 

5826675 (D.Md. November 17, 2011) (memorandum opinion). 

Accordingly, we rely on such reasoning to hold the district 

court did not abuse its discretion in granting such motion.

III.

Defendant challenges his retaliatory lien conviction on the 

basis that the district court abused its discretion by granting 

the government’s motion in limine to exclude the testimony of J. 

Kimon Yiasaides (Yiasaides), his proposed expert witness on the 

use of bonds and liens in this case and commercial disputes. 

Notably, Defendant did not provide the district court with a 

report from this proposed expert.

The district court granted the government’s motion in

limine with respect to Yiasaides on the basis that his expertise 

was irrelevant and unnecessary to the case considering the 

relatively simple concepts at issue with respect to whether 

Defendant filed a false lien against a federal prosecutor. 

Additionally, the district court concluded that such expert 
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testimony would likely only confuse or mislead the jury, and 

that if it became evident during trial that jurors required 

specialized knowledge to understand the evidence or determine a 

fact in issue, it would reconsider its ruling. The district 

court never deemed it necessary to reconsider its ruling.

Having reviewed the relevant materials on this issue, 

including the record and the parties’ briefs, we hold the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the 

government’s motion in limine to exclude the expert testimony of 

Yiasaides.

IV.

We have carefully reviewed Defendant’s remaining 

assignments of error, including his argument that the district 

court improperly restricted his cross-examination of Dunne and 

his argument that the district court improperly restricted the 

redirect examination of himself as a witness, and find such 

assignments of error to be without merit.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED