## United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________ Nos. 06-1928

___________ United States of America, * * Appellee, * * v. * * Tina Leigh Brown, * * Appellant. *

___________ Appeals from the United States Nos. 06-2091 District Court for the Eastern ___________ District of Arkansas. United States of America, * * Appellee, * * v. * * Shanna Carol Moore, * * Appellant. *

___________ Submitted: January 8, 2007 Filed: February 26, 2007

___________ Before WOLLMAN, BEAM, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________ BEAM, Circuit Judge.1 The Honorable James M. Moody, United St ates District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. -2- Tina Brown and Shanna Moore appeal their convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy. In this appeal, the sole issue is whether the district court 1 erred by refusing to give a good-faith jury instruction. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND Brown and Moore ran a mortgage broke r business called Guaranty Lending in Bryant, Arkansas. Mortgage brokers he lp (some) prospective home buyers obtain funding for home purchases. The mortgage broker obtains the loan application, assists with the loan contract, obtains the buyer's credit history and employment documentation, and ascertains whether th e buyer has adequate funds for the down payment. The mortgage broker transmits a ll of these documents in an application package to the prospective lending institution. The government charged Brown, Moor e and others for their alleged participation in a scheme to defraud lenders by submitting false information in order to get the institutions to lend more mone y than homes were worth. To accomplish this, Guaranty Lending submitted application p ackages to lenders that contained false and forged documents. At trial, co-defendants (associates w ho funneled business to Guaranty Lending), who had entered pleas of guilty to similar charges, testified that Brown and Moore involved themselves in the scheme by helping these associates forge and create support documents for the loan packages and directing them to falsify qualifying information on the applications. A Guar anty Lending employee also testified that Brown and Moore had asked her to forge documents and create false documents for-3- the application packages. Brown and Moore' s defense at trial was that they did not know that any of this wrongful conduct was occurring. They stated that employees or associates who testified to the contrary were lying. Brown and Moore also asserted that the lending companies were under an independent obligation to verify the truthfulness of the loan applications, sh ielding Brown and Moore from liability for any damage that occurred to the lende rs as a result of false information. At the close of the evidence, Brow n and Moore requested a good-faith jury instruction. The government objected, arguing that the proposed instruction misstated the law, and that Brown and Moore had not relied upon a good-faith defense at trial. The district court agreed with this latter point and declined to give the instruction. The district court also decided that the proposed instruction was unnecessary in light of the remainder of the instructions, which in structed the jury that in order to return a guilty verdict, it had to find that Brow n and Moore knowingly adopted the fabricated material or prepared it themselves.
Brown and Moore were convicted of cons piracy to commit wire fraud, as well as several counts of wire fraud. They were each sentenced to eighteen-months' imprisonment, and a joint and several restitution orde r for just under $500,000. On appeal, Brown and Moore challenge the distri ct court's denial of their proffered goodfaith instruction.
II. DISCUSSION We generally review the district court's jury instructions, and its decisions about whether or not to give proffe red instructions, for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Gladney , No. 06-1785, 2007 WL 284328, at *4 (8th Cir. Feb. 2, 2007); United States v. Ervasti , 201 F.3d 1029, 1041 (8th Cir. 2000) (reviewing a district court's refusal to give a good-faith instruc tion for an abuse of discretion).-4- Brown and Moore requested the following instruction:
One of the issues in th is case is whether defe ndants acted in good faith. Good faith is a complete defense to the charges of conspiracy and wire fraud if it is inconsistent with a willf ul criminal intent to defraud, which is an essential element of the charge. Evidence that defendant acted in good faith may be considered by you, together with all the other evidence, in determining whether or not the defendants acted with a willful criminal intent to defraud. The district court declined to give this instruction. However, the district court did instruct the jury that defendants had to act intentionally to join and participate in the conspiracy, that they must have volunt arily devised a scheme with the intent to defraud the lenders, and that to be convicted of wire fraud, the defendants had to act "knowingly and with the intent to deceive." In other words, the jury was instructed on more than one occasion that defendants had to have acted "knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally" in order to be found guilty of both the c onspiracy and the wire fraud counts. Jury instructions are acceptabl e if, taken as a whole, th ey adequately apprise the jury of the essential elements of the offe nses charged and the bur den of proof required of the government. United States v. Rice , 449 F.3d 887, 895 (8th Cir.), cert. denied , 127 S. Ct. 601 (2006). We find that the districtcourt's instructions adequately advised the jury of the elements of the offens es, the government's burden, and even the defendants' theory of defense, albeit without the actual words "good faith." United States v. Sanders , 834 F.2d 717 (8th Cir. 1987), is n early indistinguishable. In it, Sanders proffered, but was denied, a good-faith jury instruction in his trial for criminal conversion and making a false statement to a federal agency. Sanders argued that because he was accused of speci fic intent crimes, it was error for the district court to refuse to "direct the jury's attention with sufficient specificity" to the good-faith-5- defense, even though the court had correctly instructed the jury on willfulness, intent and the remaining elements of the crimes. Id. at 719. We disagreed, holding that the trial court did not err in denying the pro ffered instruction because the court had sufficiently instructed the jury that it mu st have found specific intent to defraud in order to convict. Id. Similarly, the district court' s instructions in this case amply described the specific intent necessary for Brown and Moore to be convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.
Brown and Moore cite Un ited States v. Casperson , 773 F.2d 216 (8th Cir. 1985), in support of their arguments. In it, we found that the trial court's specific intent instruction was not sufficient to cover the substance of the defendants' goodfaith defense, and that the trial court erred in refusing to give the proffered good-faith instruction. Id. at 223. Caspersonis distinguishable because we find that in this case, the instructions given adequately c overed the same ground that any good-faith instruction would have covered. "The essence of a good-faith defense is that one who acts with honest intentions cannot be convicted of a crime requiring fraudulent intent." United States v. Sherer , 653 F.2d 334, 338 (8th Cir. 1981). Based on th e instructions given in this case and the resulting jury verdict, the jury necessarily found that Brown and Moore did not act with honest intentions in their transactions with the lenders. The instructions given adequately insured that the ju ry appropriately considered this issue. Accordingly, we find that the district court did not err inrefusing to give the proffered good-faith instruction.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the district court.

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