1

 The Honorable Donald E. O’Brien, United States District Court for the

Northern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 01-3035

___________

Kelly Preston, *

 *

Petitioner - Appellant, *

 * Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Northern

* District of Iowa.

United States of America, *

* [PUBLISHED]

Respondent - Appellee. *

*

__________

Submitted: October 9, 2002

 Filed: November 27, 2002 

___________

Before MURPHY, BEAM, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Kelly Preston appeals from the district court’s1

 order dismissing his 28 U.S.C.

§ 2255 motion. Preston argues that his convictions for federal mail fraud cannot stand

because the element of materiality was not submitted to the jury. After de novo

review, we affirm. See United States v. Apker, 174 F.3d 934, 937 (8th Cir. 1999)

(standard of review).
2

 The jury verdict was affirmed on appeal. United States v. Preston, 187 F.3d

644 (8th Cir. 1999) (unpublished table decision).

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In September, 1998, a jury convicted Preston of three counts of federal mail

fraud in connection with the operation of a telemarketing business.2

 Preston and a

partner had devised a scheme by which customers responding to nationally-placed

advertising were induced to authorize a fee, usually $79, to be withdrawn

electronically from the customers’ bank accounts in exchange for an unsecured major

credit card. The customers were never told that Preston could not guarantee a credit

card or that additional application fees would be required to apply for even a secured

card. 

On October 19, 1999, Preston filed a motion to vacate, set aside or correct his

sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He claimed, among other issues, that his

convictions should be overturned because the district court failed to specifically

instruct the jury that it must determine whether the fraudulent conduct went to material

matters in the scheme to defraud. In support of his argument, Preston cited Neder v.

United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), which was issued while his direct review was

pending. In that case, the Supreme Court held that materiality is an essential element

of federal mail fraud. See id. at 25.

The district court sustained the government’s motion to dismiss Preston’s §

2255 motion, holding, inter alia, that the jury instructions sufficiently addressed the

materiality element. The district court subsequently granted a Certificate of

Appealability limited to the Neder issue. Our review under Neder is potentially twofold. First, we must determine whether, as claimed by Preston, the district court’s

instruction failed to submit the element of materiality to the jury. If we find the

instruction deficient, we then apply harmless error review. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 4,

7-15 (holding that harmless error test set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18
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(1967), applies where the district court failed to submit the element of materiality to

the jury).

The district court’s Instruction Number 5 substantially tracked the Eighth

Circuit’s model instruction in effect at the time. As relevant to this appeal, Instruction

Number 5 described federal mail fraud as a knowing and willful scheme to defraud

“by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises.” The

model instruction has since been revised and now, consistent with Neder, requires that

the scheme be conducted by means of material false representations, promises, etc.

Preston argues that the absence of the qualifier “material” in the jury instruction used

in his trial resulted in a constitutionally deficient verdict.

We agree with the district court that the issue of materiality was sufficiently

represented in the jury instructions. In addition to the language quoted above, element

one of the instruction incorporated the indictment which expressly referenced

materiality. After describing in general terms how “customers were induced into

authorizing the electronic withdrawal of funds by the false and fraudulent promises,

representations and pretenses, and the willful omission and concealment of material

facts, made or caused by the defendants” (emphasis added), the indictment, as set out

in element one, goes on to “specifically” identify fraudulent conduct allegedly

engaged in to carry out the scheme. This included false guarantees of an unsecured

credit card in return for a $79 fee and concealment of the fact that, at best, customers

would receive a packet containing a secured credit card application which required

additional fees and made no guarantee of acceptance. Thus, the language of the

indictment, incorporated into element one, expanded the scope of the jury’s required

findings for conviction and offered examples of conduct which might meet that

expanded definition.
3

 These definitions are consistent with those reaffirmed by the Supreme Court

in Neder: “[i]n general, a false statement is material if it has ‘a natural tendency to

influence, or [is] capable of influencing, the decision of the decisionmaking body to

which it was addressed.’” Neder, 527 U.S. at 16 (quoting United States v. Gaudin,

515 U.S. 506, 509 (1995)).

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 We need not determine whether the above, in and of itself, would be

constitutionally sufficient after Neder because the instruction used in Preston’s case

also included a definitional section which addressed materiality. As relevant here, the

jury was instructed that “[a] statement or representation is ‘false’ when it is untrue

when made or effectively conceals a material fact.” A “material fact” was then defined

as “a fact that would be important to a reasonable person in deciding whether to

engage or not to engage in a particular transaction.”3

 

We conclude that Instruction Number 5, read in its totality, fairly and

adequately informed the jury that any fraudulent representations, promises, or

omissions relied upon in convicting Preston were required to be material. In this

respect, we note that this case is markedly different than Neder where the trial court

explicitly instructed the jury that they were not to consider the materiality of the

alleged fraudulent statements or omissions and that materiality determinations were

a matter of law for the court. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 6, 16 n.1.

Even were we to find Instruction Number 5 deficient, Preston’s appeal would

still fail under harmless error review. The evidence supporting materiality in this case

was overwhelming as the charged false statements went to the essence of the scheme

to defraud. Preston apparently did not contest the materiality issue at trial nor has he

proposed any scenario by which a jury could rationally find in his favor on the

materiality issue. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 17 (“[W]here a reviewing court concludes

beyond a reasonable doubt that the omitted element was uncontested and supported
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by overwhelming evidence, such that the jury verdict would have been the same absent

the error, the erroneous instruction is properly found to be harmless.”). 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court.

BEAM, Circuit Judge, concurring.

I concur in the result reached by the court because I fully agree with its

conclusions concerning harmless error. I am inclined, however, to believe that

Instruction 5 permitted the jury to find mail fraud through a representation that "is

untrue when made," nothing more. After Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999),

this is a misstatement of the law. Accordingly, I do not agree that the jury was

adequately informed on this issue. This was, however, harmless error.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.