PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-4322

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL T. RAND,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western 

District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, 

Jr., District Judge. (3:10-cr-00182-RJC-DSC-1)

Argued: May 12, 2016 Decided: August 26, 2016 

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER and HARRIS, Circuit 

Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the 

opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Harris joined.

ARGUED: Seth Paul Waxman, WILMER CUTLER PICKERING HALE AND DORR 

LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Amy Elizabeth Ray, OFFICE 

OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Asheville, North Carolina, for 

Appellee. ON BRIEF: Stephen D. Councill, ROGERS & HARDIN LLP, 

Atlanta, Georgia; Claire J. Rauscher, WOMBLE CARLYLE SANDRIDGE 

AND RICE LLP, Charlotte, North Carolina; Brent J. Gurney, 

Jeannie S. Rhee, Kelly P. Dunbar, Matthew Guarnieri, WILMER 

CUTLER PICKERING HALE AND DORR LLP, Washington, D.C., for 

Appellant. Jill Westmoreland Rose, United States Attorney, 

Maria K. Vento, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.
2

GREGORY, Chief Judge:

Michael Rand was convicted of conspiracy, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 1349, and obstruction of justice, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3), (c)(1), and (c)(2), 

following his involvement in earnings mismanagement and improper 

accounting transactions while acting as chief accounting officer 

at Beazer Homes USA, Inc. Rand appeals several aspects of his 

convictions and sentence. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

In 2010, the government charged Michael Rand with 

accounting fraud based on his work at Beazer Homes USA, Inc. 

(“Beazer”), a home-building company, from 2000 to 2007 and with 

obstructing an investigation into Beazer’s mortgage origination 

practices. Rand, a certified public accountant, was Beazer’s 

controller and later its chief accounting officer from 1999 to 

2007. He reported to Beazer’s CEO and CFO.

The government’s accounting charges concerned earnings 

management: it believed that Rand attempted to adjust Beazer’s 

reported earnings over time so that Beazer would hit consensus—

that is, the quarterly earnings amount that Wall Street 

predicted. This practice involved “cookie jar” accounting with 

respect to Beazer’s reserve accounts, where funds are set aside 

for future expenditures or revenue. It is generally accepted 
3

that the amount put into a reserve account is what the company 

reasonably anticipates needing to meet the expected expense. It 

is not appropriate to increase or decrease funds in reserve 

accounts to understate or inflate its actual earnings. Instead, 

if a company determines that it does not need the reserve funds, 

those funds “are to be taken back as income as soon as [the 

company] know[s] that they are no longer required.” J.A. 1260.

The government attempted to prove that Rand manipulated the 

accounting to reduce earnings when Beazer was beating consensus. 

E.g., J.A. 3720 (“If you have more than 100k extra, hide it.”); 

id. at 3722 (“To achieve the ‘goal’ $ for this year, let’s 

squirrel $ away in places which will turn around in the next 

year; not be so ‘open.’”); id. at 1982-83 (“We may have $5 

million to squirrel away, so if you have ant [sic] ideas, let me 

know. Joavan’s cookie jar has no more room.”). This practice 

resulted in a misrepresentation of Beazer’s earnings in many 

quarters, including each quarter in fiscal year 2006.

The government also alleged that Rand improperly accounted 

for transactions involving model homes Beazer sold to and leased 

back from GMAC, an investment company. In 2005, Beazer sought 

to enter into model-home sale-leaseback agreements. Under these 

agreements, Beazer would sell model homes to investors and rent 

the homes back from the investors until the subdivision was 

complete and the model home could be sold to a third party.
4

Generally, a seller cannot count the transaction as a sale 

and recognize revenue until “all risks and rewards of ownership” 

are transferred to the buyer. J.A. 2056. A seller may not have 

any “continuing involvement” with the property for it to be 

counted as a sale. Id. A transaction is not counted as a sale 

if the seller retains the ability to share in the appreciation 

of the home after it is sold.

Deloitte & Touche (“Deloitte”) served as Beazer’s 

auditors. Rand consulted with Deloitte senior manager, Corbin 

Adams, about a potential sale-leaseback arrangement with GMAC. 

In December 2005, Rand sent Adams a draft Master Sale and Rental 

Agreement (“MSRA”) that did not include any provision for Beazer 

to benefit from later appreciation in the value of the homes. 

He later confirmed that Beazer would not be able to “participate 

in appreciation of [the] leased assets.” Id. at 2074. 

Meanwhile, Rand was assuring Beazer’s employees that Beazer 

would share in the upside—the future profits from appreciation 

in value before GMAC eventually sold them. The same day Beazer 

entered into the MSRA, a Property Management Agreement (“PMA”) 

between GMAC entities was executed, providing that Beazer would 

share in the upside of any consumer transactions. In the next 

nine months, Beazer entered into two more MSRAs, followed by 

PMAs, agreeing that Beazer would share in appreciation when the 
5

model homes sold. Beazer received $117 million for the model 

homes it sold and reported $24.8 million in total profit.

Finally, Rand was charged with obstruction of justice 

stemming from his allegedly deleting emails following a grand 

jury subpoena. In March 2007, the FBI began investigating 

Beazer for mortgage fraud. On March 23, 2007, a federal grand 

jury issued a subpoena requiring Beazer to retain all documents, 

including emails, related to mortgages or home sales.

On March 28, Beazer initiated an “email dumpster,” which 

would save all deleted emails from permanent deletion. 

Beginning March 29, all deleted emails were caught in this 

dumpster without the employee’s knowledge. At 2:58 p.m. on 

March 30, Beazer’s CEO Ian McCarthy sent a memorandum to Rand 

and other senior management notifying them that Beazer was 

providing documents in response to the subpoena and would be 

providing an updated document-retention memorandum. Around 4:20 

p.m., Deborah Danzig, an in-house attorney, sent an email to all 

employees in the corporate office, including Rand, with this 

memorandum, instructing them not to destroy any records. Danzig 

also testified that she told Rand directly that “he was required 

to keep everything and destroy nothing.” Id. at 975.

Between 5:55 p.m. on March 29 and 5:45 p.m. on March 30, 

2007, Rand deleted nearly 6,000 emails dating back to 1999. 

Some of the emails were responsive to the grand jury’s subpoena 
6

and contained evidence of mortgage fraud. Other emails that 

Rand deleted were related to the cookie-jar accounting scheme. 

Others still appeared irrelevant to either set of charges.

Shortly after the subpoena was issued, Beazer’s audit 

committee hired the law firm Alston & Bird to conduct an 

internal investigation. Mike Brown, a partner at Alston & Bird, 

interviewed Rand as part of that investigation. On June 15, 

2007, during their first interview, Rand told Brown that he had 

not destroyed or deleted any documents or emails since the 

investigation had begun. On June 26, 2007, Brown met with Rand 

again. Brown had learned that the email dumpster had recovered 

thousands of emails that Rand had attempted to delete. At that 

meeting, Rand initially provided that he did not delete any 

emails, but he eventually admitted that he might have deleted “a 

couple of emails” to reduce the size of his mailbox. Id. at 

1072. On further questioning, Rand said that he deleted “a 

series of emails” from one particular coworker on March 30. Id.

at 1073.

Beginning July 2008, the FBI conducted between six and 

eight interviews with Rand as part of a proffer. During these 

interviews, conducted by FBI Agent Douglas Curran and others, 

Rand admitted to manipulating Beazer’s earnings, admitted that 

that was illegal, and expressed remorse. Curran testified that 

he also asked Rand about the GMAC transaction, and Rand admitted 
7

that there was a “verbal side agreement to share in the 

appreciation of the model homes when they were ultimately sold.” 

Id. at 2780.

Curran also asked Rand about the email deletions. Curran 

testified that Rand admitted that “he was certain that by March 

27th he was for sure at the latest aware that there was a 

federal investigation in Charlotte.” Id. at 2784. Rand also 

admitted that he had spoken with Danzig and understood that the 

document-retention memorandum applied to him, when he “went back 

to his office and started performing mass deletions of emails.” 

Id. at 2784-85. Explaining that he was “essentially in a state 

of panic,” he deleted the emails because “[t]here were a lot of 

stressful events going on in his life at that time, and on top 

of that he was aware of the federal grand jury investigation 

that was focused in Charlotte and he did not want to be 

associated with that investigation in any way.” Id. at 2785. 

Rand admitted that he “understood that he was deleting evidence 

pertinent to the investigation” and “[h]e knew it was wrong.”

Id. at 2786.

Rand went to trial twice. Before the first trial, Rand 

sought leave to subpoena computer forensic evidence of Rand’s 

email deletions and records from Beazer’s accounting system to 

show Rand’s accounting was reasonable and justified and to 
8

contextualize and refute the prosecution’s accounting records. 

The district court denied both requests.

In the first trial, the government presented evidence of 

emails relevant to the grand jury’s investigation into Beazer’s 

mortgage division and that Rand deleted from his Beazer email 

account. Aaron Philipp, a computer forensics expert, testified 

that based on Beazer’s backup tapes, 3,272 emails were deleted 

between March 23 and 28, while another 5,936 were deleted on 

March 30, after the email dumpster was put into place.1

The jury deliberated for twenty hours and returned a split 

verdict, convicting Rand on seven counts and acquitting on four. 

A new trial was later granted due to juror misconduct.

In advance of the second trial, Rand again sought to 

subpoena Beazer to obtain records from its accounting system. 

Again, the district court denied the request. Rand also tried 

again to get the backup tapes from Beazer of the March 23-28 

email deletions, and this time, the court granted the request. 

Rand’s expert examined the data on the backup tapes and 

concluded that approximately 2,500 of the approximately 3,200 

emails that Philipp testified during the first trial were 

 1 To be clear, these are two categories of email deletions:

the backup tape analysis is separate from the electronic 

dumpster records. The backup tapes were relevant to alleged 

deletions that occurred between March 23 and 28, which were not 

charged in the second trial; the dumpster was put into place on 

March 28 and captured all deletions beginning March 29.
9

deleted between March 23 and March 28, 2007 (prior to the 

dumpster being in place), were not, in fact, deleted, explaining 

that “there [were] various technical explanations why Mr. 

Philipp could not find them on the tape the first time.” Id. at

719.

The government dropped Philipp from its witness list, 

halted all efforts to prove the March 23-28 deletions, and moved 

to strike parts of the indictment relating to those deletions. 

The government also moved to preclude Rand from introducing 

evidence or mentioning the false accusations at the retrial. 

The court granted the prosecution’s request ruling that the 

evidence was irrelevant and excludable under Federal Rule of 

Evidence 403 as distracting or confusing because the prosecution 

was no longer seeking to prove the March 23-28 deletions.

In addition to dropping the count tied most closely to the 

March 23-28 deletions, the government also abandoned its effort 

to prove Rand had committed securities fraud. It thus proceeded 

only with the conspiracy counts (counts 1 and 2), in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy) and 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (wire fraud 

conspiracy), and three obstruction of justice counts (counts 6, 

9, and 11), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3), (c)(1), and 

(c)(2). Rand was ultimately convicted on all five counts.

Prior to sentencing, Rand’s probation officer calculated a 

total offense level of 43 and an advisory guideline range of 
10

life based, in part, on the finding that the loss reasonably 

foreseeable to Rand was between $100 and $200 million. Rand 

objected to this loss calculation, and the district court 

conducted a full-day sentencing hearing. During the hearing, 

both parties presented expert testimony on the appropriate 

calculation of loss under U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 2B1.1 and, 

in particular, the effect on the value of Beazer’s stock of 

three separate announcements Beazer made to the market related 

to Rand’s offense conduct.

The district court adopted the government’s expert’s most 

“conservative methodology” and found a loss of $135 million.

Id. at 3279. Based in part upon that finding, the district 

court calculated the total offense level of 51, resulting in an 

adjusted offense level of 43 and an advisory guideline sentence 

of life in prison. After considering the appropriate sentencing 

factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), the district court sentenced 

Rand to 120 months in prison.

This appeal followed.

II.

Rand first argues that the exclusion of evidence 

surrounding the false email accusations hampered his 

constitutional right to present a defense in three distinct 

ways: he was prevented from explaining the circumstance of his 
11

confession; he was unable to show that certain statements were 

not misleading; and he could not effectively cross-examine 

certain witnesses.

We “review[] evidentiary rulings implicating constitutional 

claims de novo.” United States v. Williams, 632 F.3d 129, 132 

(4th Cir. 2011). Thus we review Rand’s claim regarding the 

circumstances of a confession under this standard. See Crane v. 

Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683 (1986).

Nevertheless, “a defendant’s right to present a defense is 

not absolute: criminal defendants do not have a right to 

present evidence that the district court, in its discretion, 

deems irrelevant or immaterial.” United States v. Prince–Oyibo, 

320 F.3d 494, 501 (4th Cir. 2003); see also Crane, 476 U.S. at 

689–90 (noting that the “Constitution leaves to the judges who 

must make these decisions wide latitude to exclude evidence that 

is repetitive . . ., only marginally relevant or poses an undue 

risk of harassment, prejudice, [or] confusion of the issues”

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, as to 

Rand’s other two arguments, we review for abuse of discretion, 

as they are “better framed” as “evidentiary argument[s].” See

United States v. Malloy, 568 F.3d 166, 177 (4th Cir. 2009). 

While his argument is “couched in terms of his due process right 

to defend himself, the crux of his complaint is that he was not 
12

allowed to present a particular defense.” Id. (citing United 

States v. Uzenski, 434 F.3d 690, 708–09 (4th Cir. 2006)).

Ultimately, harmless error review applies: “[Arizona v.]

Fulminante[, 499 U.S. 279 (1991),] enumerated the wide variety 

of constitutional errors subject to harmless error analysis,” 

including the “erroneous exclusion of a defendant’s testimony 

regarding the circumstances of a confession.” Sherman v. Smith, 

89 F.3d 1134, 1137 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc) (citing Crane, 476 

U.S. at 691). “That analysis requires a reviewing court to 

quantitatively assess the effect of the error ‘in the context of 

other evidence presented’ at trial.” Id. at 1138 (quoting 

Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 308).

Here, the district court did not permit testimony that some 

of the March 23-28 email deletion accusations turned out to be 

false, concluding that such evidence was irrelevant or confusing 

or distracting for the jury, as the government would not be 

presenting evidence as to that timeframe. Rand argues that this 

unconstitutionally impinged his ability to present a complete 

defense. Had he been allowed, Rand would have introduced the 

following:

At the June 26 interview, Rand acknowledged deleting 

some junk emails, as well as innocuous emails with a 

colleague. He also truthfully denied deleting emails 

with high-level Beazer personnel. However, Brown, 

having just learned of the forensic analysis by 

Philipp, accused Rand of “false[ly]” denying mass 

email deletions. Beazer in turn fed that information 
13

to the prosecution. In a later reverse proffer, the 

prosecution told Rand it had forensic evidence that he 

had deleted accounting-related emails. It was that 

reverse proffer and the weight of alleged evidence 

purportedly showing Rand had mass-deleted deleted 

emails the week following the subpoena that prompted 

Rand’s statements to the government.

Rand Br. 23 (internal citation omitted) (alteration in 

original). We find no error, constitutional or otherwise, in 

the district court’s ruling to exclude this evidence.

First, Rand was not “stripped of the power to describe to 

the jury the circumstances that prompted his confession.” 

Crane, 476 U.S. at 683.2 While a case may “stand or fall on [the 

defendant’s] ability to convince the jury that the manner in 

which the confession was obtained casts doubt on its 

credibility,” id. at 689, the district court did permit Rand to 

“testify as to why he was induced into proffering,” J.A. 2664. 

He was allowed to “truthfully respond to what was in his mind at 

the time.” Id. The only thing Rand could not do was make 

“reference to the fact that years later some of the information 

 2 The government argues that Crane is inapplicable, as Rand 

is not asserting that his will was overborne by deliberately 

coercive behavior. We find this argument unavailing as such a 

reading of Crane is too narrow. In Crane, the Supreme Court 

held that “the blanket exclusion of the proffered testimony 

about the circumstances of petitioner’s confession deprived him 

of a fair trial.” 476 U.S. at 690. The Court provided that 

“entirely independent of any question of voluntariness,” a 

defendant may introduce the same evidence at trial “to convince 

the jury that the manner in which the confession was obtained 

casts doubt on its credibility.” Id. at 689.
14

he was confronted with turned out to be false.” Id. Rand did 

ultimately delete nearly 7,000 emails, including the 800 emails 

deleted between March 23 and 28, despite their not being at 

issue in the second trial. Further, as the government argues, 

only a few slides of the PowerPoint that they presented to Rand 

during the reverse proffer dealt with email deletion, and even 

fewer contained any incorrect information.

Rand also argues that the district court’s ruling 

specifically impacted Count 9, which charged him with “knowingly 

and corruptly engag[ing] in misleading conduct” during the June 

26, 2007, interview with Brown.3 Rand Br. 31-32 (citing J.A. 

52). Rand relies on his view of the government’s theory of 

Count 9 from the first trial—that is, before the government 

discovered that the bulk of the March 23-28 emails were not 

deleted. Under this view, Rand explains that the government’s 

“original theory of count 9” was that Rand told Brown that he 

had deleted some emails that “he believed were largely junk, 

‘similar to advertisements for the drug Viagra,’ as well as some 

emails from particular ‘non-essential’ Beazer employees.” Id.

at 32 (citing J.A. 38). After the interview, Brown received 

information that Rand had deleted “a large number of e-mails 

 3 Rand notes that Count 11 incorporated by reference these 

allegations, and so this argument also applies as exculpatory as 

to Count 11.
15

involving” the current and former CFOs and the CEO. J.A. 322-

323. On receiving this information, Brown returned and 

confronted Rand with this information, but Rand “offered no 

corrections.” Id. As Counts 9 and 11 required proof of corrupt 

intent, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3), (c)(2), Rand argues that “[h]ad 

the jury learned that [he] truthfully denied the March 23-28 

email deletions at the interview, the jury may have concluded, 

in view of Rand’s overall conduct at the interview, that Rand 

did not intend to mislead Brown or to hinder a grand jury 

investigation.” Rand Br. 33.

We agree with the government that Rand’s argument falls 

short here. At the second trial, Brown was only asked to 

testify about the deletions on March 30, which “unquestionably 

occurred.” Gov’t Br. 49 (referring to J.A. 1070). And again, 

even if not as in as great a number as previously thought, Rand 

did still delete a certain number of emails between March 23-28. 

Thus we do not find that the district court abused its 

discretion in excluding this evidence based on its relevance 

weighed against potential juror confusion—the evidence was 

“irrelevant to the crime charged.” See Malloy, 568 F.3d at 177. 

Moreover, during both trials, Brown testified about Rand’s 

constantly shifting position. E.g., J.A. 1072-73 (“[H]e 

initially said that he did not delete any emails); id. at 1073 

(“When we asked him about the week of the 23rd, I think he told 
16

us that he might have deleted a couple of emails in this manner 

[to clear out his inbox]. Mostly related to Viagra or some type 

of -- sort of spam emails, but nothing else.”); id. at 1074 

(describing how Rand “revise[d] his answers” and eventually told 

Brown that “he deleted a series of emails from Cory Boydston 

during one of those two weeks”). We can hardly say with any 

certainty that a jury would have found Rand’s “overall conduct” 

during the interview did not show an intent to mislead.4

Finally, we find any error harmless. While any 

harmlessness assessment should be sensitive to the “indelible 

impact a full confession may have on the trier of fact, 

Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 313 (Kennedy, J., concurring), we do not 

find that Rand’s explanation as to the circumstances of his 

confession would have countered the charges in light of the 

overwhelming evidence at trial. Rand did in fact delete the 

vast majority of the emails he was accused of deleting, 

including one quarter of those during March 23 to 28. Rand had 

the opportunity to present a vigorous defense, cross-examine the 

 4 Rand also argues that the excluded evidence went to 

Brown’s credibility and bias, as Brown had a leading role in the 

investigation and “had a substantial personal stake in ensuring 

that his own mistakes . . . did not derail the prosecution.” 

Rand Br. at 33. He also argues that the evidence was relevant 

because he would have cross-examined other witnesses about their 

knowledge of the veracity of his “confession,” and exclusion 

prevented him the opportunity to ask whether and how these false 

accusations biased their views. We find these arguments too 

speculative to survive harmless error review.
17

government’s witnesses, and, albeit in a slightly limited way, 

explain “what was in his mind” during his various interviews. 

J.A. 2664. We do not find that Rand was ultimately prejudiced 

by the omission.

III.

Rand next argues that several of the district court’s other 

evidentiary rulings were improper. The Court reviews these 

decisions for abuse of discretion. United States v. Richardson, 

607 F.3d 357, 368 (4th Cir. 2010) (citing United States v. 

Fowler, 932 F.2d 306, 311 (4th Cir. 1991)). An abuse of

discretion can occur “when the court uses an erroneous legal 

standard or bases its decision on clearly erroneous facts.” Id.

(citing United States v. Under Seal (In re Grand Jury), 478 F.3d 

581, 584 (4th Cir. 2007)).

Rand first argues that the district court abused its 

discretion in quashing his Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 

17(c) subpoena to Beazer. Rule 17(c) permits a defendant to 

issue a subpoena duces tecum to compel the production at trial 

of “books, papers, documents, data, or other objects.” Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 17(c)(1). A district court “may quash or modify” the 

subpoena “if compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive,” 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 17(c)(2).
18

Rule 17(c) “is not intended to provide a means of pretrial 

discovery; rather, its primary purpose is simply ‘to expedite 

the trial by providing a time and place before trial for the 

inspection of subpoenaed materials.’” Richardson, 607 F.3d at 

368 (quoting United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 689-99 

(1974)). In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court held that 

the requesting party bears the burden of showing

(1) that the documents are evidentiary and relevant; 

(2) that they are not otherwise procurable reasonably 

in advance of trial by exercise of due diligence; (3) 

that the party cannot properly prepare for trial 

without such production and inspection in advance of 

trial and that the failure to obtain such inspection 

may tend unreasonably to delay the trial; and (4) that 

the application is made in good faith and is not 

intended as a general “fishing expedition.”

418 U.S. at 699-700 (footnote omitted). The Court distilled 

this showing into three requirements: “(1) relevancy; (2) 

admissibility; [and] (3) specificity.” Id. at 700; see

Richardson, 607 F.3d at 368.

Rand argues that the Nixon test applies only to subpoenas 

issued to the prosecution not to those issued to third parties. 

Instead, Rand contends that the standard explicit in the rule 

itself—unreasonable or oppressive—is the proper standard. While 

the Nixon Court noted that the special prosecutor suggested that 

the “evidentiary requirement” of the heightened standard did 

“not apply in its full vigor” for subpoenas to third parties, 

418 U.S. at 700 n.12, the Court determined that it “need not 
19

decide whether a lower standard exists” because the district 

court’s refusal to quash the subpoena was proper regardless. 

Id.

We have previously applied the Nixon test to third-party 

subpoenas, e.g., Richardson, 607 F.3d 357; In Re Martin Marietta 

Corp., 856 F.2d 619, 621 (4th Cir. 1988), but have not 

specifically considered how the evidentiary requirement should 

apply in that context. Thus, the issue appears to be one of 

first impression. See Legal Servs. Corp. v. Velasquez, 531 U.S. 

533, 557 (2001) (“Judicial decisions do not stand as binding 

‘precedent’ for points that were not raised, not argued, and 

hence not analyzed.”). No circuit court appears to have applied 

the explicit standard apart from the Nixon standard, and Rand 

cites only a handful of district courts that have done so. See

United States v. Al-Amin, No. 1:12-CR-50, 2013 WL 3865079, at *8 

(E.D. Tenn. July 25, 2013) (noting that application of the lower 

standard “is a distinct minority view”). Nonetheless, Rand 

argues that the purpose for the heightened standard as to the 

government—to not allow bypass of Rule 16 through Rule 17—does 

not apply in the case of third parties. And application of the 

higher standard is inconsistent with Rule 17(c)’s basic purpose 

of “implement[ing] the Sixth Amendment guarantee that an accused 

have compulsory process to secure evidence in his favor.” In Re 

Martin Marietta Corp., 856 F.2d at 621 (citing California v. 
20

Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485 (1984)). Rand contends that in 

document-intensive cases such as this one, requiring a defendant 

to specify precisely what he wants hinders this guarantee.

We decline to adopt a lower standard for third-party 

subpoenas under Rule 17(c) and find that the district court 

applied the correct standard. In Nixon, the Supreme Court 

reiterated that the subpoena duces tecum “was not intended to 

provide a means of discovery for criminal cases.” 418 U.S. at 

698 (citing Bowman Dairy Co. v. United States, 341 U.S. 214, 220

(1951)). Importantly, the Court did not cabin this purpose to 

discovery from the government. See id. Moreover, Rule 17(c) is 

available to both the defense and prosecution. As to Rand’s 

argument that the defense is hampered by the application of the 

Nixon standard, one court has noted, “The right to defend 

oneself does not extend to using the power of the Court to 

compel third parties to provide information that may not even be 

admissible at trial or at a hearing or that is merely 

‘investigatory.’” Al-Amin, 2013 WL 3865079, at *7 n.3. 

Finally, the Nixon standard is not at odds with our 

interpretation of the explicit standard in Rule 17. A subpoena 

should be quashed as unreasonable or oppressive if it is 

“irrelevant; abusive or harassing; overly vague; or excessively 

broad.” In re Grand Jury, John Doe No. G.J.2005-2, 478 F.3d at 

585 (internal citations omitted) (considering a grand jury 
21

subpoena and citing in part United States v. Loe, 248 F.3d 449, 

466 (5th Cir. 2001), which applied this standard in the context 

of a third-party trial subpoena). These map on quite well to 

the Nixon standard of relevance, admissibility, and specificity. 

See Nixon, 418 U.S. at 700.

As we find that the district court applied the correct 

standard, we also find that the ruling was not an abuse of 

discretion. Rand’s request to Beazer was to produce “accounting 

entries, budgets, budget entries, and financial reports for 

seven categories of reserve accounts over an eight-year period—

the timeframe of the alleged conspiracy.” Rand Br. 43-44. Rand 

argues that these reports would have enabled him to show the 

reasonableness of the reserve adjustments looking more broadly 

at Beazer resources and over a period of time. We find that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Rand 

failed to limit his request to entries in issue in the 

prosecution’s case and to justify his broad request, instead 

finding it more of a fishing expedition, frowned upon by Nixon.

We further decline to find error as to Rand’s other two 

evidentiary claims. First, the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in prohibiting Rand’s accounting expert from 

testifying about work papers prepared by Beazer’s independent 

auditors at Deloitte. The district court permitted him to 

“offer his own opinion as to the legitimacy of [the] entries,” 
22

but that he could not “bootstrap that opinion by the Deloitte 

and Touche work papers which the court [did] not find reliable,” 

as the court found that the Deloitte witness, Adams, said that 

“he was not provided sufficient information” to make those 

conclusions himself. J.A. 2475, 2479-80. The district court

did not abuse its discretion, especially where not all evidence 

relating to the Deloitte work papers was excluded and Rand was 

“free to call any of the auditors who did the work” to have them 

testify about their findings. See Gov’t Br. 55.

Additionally, the district court did not err in allowing 

the government to have Beazer employees testify as lay witnesses 

about the propriety of complex accounting transactions without 

calling an accounting expert to testify. Citing Federal Rules 

of Evidence 701 and 702, Rand contends that lay witnesses may 

not offer opinions about matters of “technical” or “other 

specialized knowledge” requiring expert proof and that the 

government needed an expert to explain accounting principles 

such as setting reserve levels and analyzing historical costs 

and projections of future costs.

We have previously affirmed the admission of lay-opinion 

testimony in a securities-fraud case. United States v. Offill, 

666 F.3d 168, 177 (4th Cir. 2011). Under plain error review, we 

held that the district court “acted well within its broad 

discretion” in admitting testimony including that the 
23

defendant’s actions were “fraudulent,” “securities 

manipulation,” and “illegal.” Id. at 177-78. While Rand 

attempts to distinguish Offill by pointing out that the 

government presented expert testimony in addition to the lay 

witnesses who testified, here, Rand had opportunity to crossexamine these lay witnesses to expose the apparent falsity of 

their testimony, as well as having his own expert testify. 

Furthermore, “[i]f the government proves that a defendant was 

responsible for financial reports that intentionally and 

materially misled investors, the statute is satisfied. The 

government is not required in addition to prevail in a battle of 

expert witnesses over the application of individual [Generally 

Accepted Accounting Practice] rules.” United States v. Ebbers, 

458 F.3d 110, 125-26 (2d Cir. 2006).

IV.

Rand takes issue with the government’s statements in its 

rebuttal closing argument concerning Rand’s wealth, Rand’s 

decision not to testify, and the government’s vouching for its 

own witness. See Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 615 

(1965) (unconstitutional to comment on defendant’s silence); 

United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 239 (1940) 

(class prejudice); United States v. Lewis, 10 F.3d 1086, 1089 

(4th Cir. 1993) (bolstering).
24

As this issue raises questions of law, we review it de 

novo. United States v. Collins, 415 F.3d 304, 307 (4th Cir. 

2005).5 Nevertheless, the claims are still subject to harmless 

error review. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 22 (1967); 

Sherman, 89 F.3d at 1137 (noting that harmless error review 

applies to errors such as improper comment on defendant’s 

silence). That is, “[w]ith respect to claims of prosecutorial 

misconduct, an appellant must show that the remarks were 

improper and that they ‘prejudicially affected the defendant’s 

substantial rights so as to deprive the defendant of a fair 

trial.’” United States v. Baptiste, 596 F.3d 214, 226 (4th Cir. 

2010) (alteration in the original) (quoting United States v. 

Adam, 70 F.3d 776, 780 (4th Cir. 1995)). We have previously 

laid out factors to consider in determining whether improper 

remarks require reversal:

(1) the degree to which the prosecutor’s remarks have 

a tendency to mislead the jury and to prejudice the 

accused; (2) whether the remarks were isolated or 

 5 The government argues that plain-error review applies as 

not all of these issues were raised contemporaneously to the 

alleged error. See United States v. Brainard, 690 F.2d 1117, 

1123 n.7 (4th Cir. 1982) (“A motion for a mistrial after the 

summation is not, however, a substitute for an objection at the 

time the prejudicial comments are made.”). But see United 

States v. Williams, 106 F.3d 1173, 1176 (4th Cir. 1997) (noting 

that either a “contemporaneous objection to the prosecutor’s 

statements and [a] motion for a mistrial” will suffice). Here, 

Rand objected to the prosecution’s bolstering of Curran and made 

a timely motion for a mistrial based on class prejudice and 

Rand’s silence.
25

extensive; (3) absent the remarks, the strength of 

competent proof introduced to establish the guilt of 

the accused; (4) whether the comments were 

deliberately placed before the jury to divert 

attention to extraneous matters [; ] . . . (5) whether 

the prosecutor’s remarks were invited by improper 

conduct of defense counsel [;] . . . and (6) whether 

curative instructions were given to the jury.

Id. (quoting United States v. Wilson, 135 F.3d 291, 299 (4th 

Cir. 1998)) (alterations in original). On all three of these 

potential misconduct claims, Rand makes little attempt to 

contend with any of these factors and fails to argue that any 

error was not harmless. Accordingly, we affirm the district 

court’s denial of a mistrial.

As to Rand’s class prejudice argument, Rand acknowledges 

that in closing, his counsel made reference to a bag of gold:

“You remember the story about the Emperor With No 

Clothes? In that story a weaver said to the Emporer 

[sic], if you give me a bag of gold, I will make you 

an invisible suit of clothes. . . . That’s what this 

case is like, accounting entries, after accounting 

entries whizzing by that you can’t put together, and 

don’t add up.”

J.A. 3008-09. Rand argues, however, that the government 

impermissibly expanded the analogy in rebuttal.

At the outset of its rebuttal, the government referred to 

Rand’s wealth: “You just heard a story alright. It took a lot 

of gold. A lot of gold. The defendant’s lawyers, all of them, 

his experts, a lot of gold.” Id. at 3010; see also id. at 3012 

(referring to Rand as “rich” in discussing testimony from Rand’s 
26

wife); id. at 3019 (referring to Rand’s experts as being paid 

$650 an hour to provide testimony helpful to Rand); id. at 3023 

(“So you can go live in the story like the Emporer [sic] with no 

clothes and listen to the story that was bought with gold, or 

you can look at the facts.”).

We cannot find, as the government urges, that no error 

occurred as the remarks were not a reference to Rand’s wealth, 

only to the fact that Rand’s case was “built on the testimony of 

compensated expert witnesses, none of whom had any personal 

knowledge of what Rand did or did not do.” Gov’t Br. 62. These 

conclusions are but two sides of the same coin. See United 

States v. Farinella, 558 F.3d 695, 700-01 (7th Cir. 2009) 

(finding prosecutorial misconduct where the government argued to 

the jury about not “let[ting] the defendant and his high-paid 

lawyer buy his way out of this”).

Nonetheless, considering the factors above, we conclude 

that any error did not affect Rand’s substantial rights. The 

remarks may not have been “isolated,” Baptiste, 596 F.3d at 226, 

and no curative instructions were given, id. But we find no 

evidence that the remarks were deliberately made to focus on 

“extraneous matters,” id.; instead they were founded in, and 

even inspired by, Rand’s closing—even if they ultimately 

exceeded the scope of that context. Furthermore, given the 

strength of the evidence presented throughout the trial, we do 
27

not find that the comments overly misled the jury or prejudiced 

Rand. Id.

Considering Rand’s second argument that the prosecution 

improperly commented on his decision not to testify, the right 

of a defendant in a criminal trial “to remain silent unless he 

chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will” is 

guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 

8 (1964); see U.S. Const. amend. V; and the Constitution 

“forbids either comment by the prosecution on the accused’s 

silence or instructions by the court that such silence is 

evidence of guilt,” Griffin, 380 U.S. at 615. We ask, “Was the 

language used manifestly intended to be, or was it of such 

character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it 

to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify?” 

United States v. Francis, 82 F.3d 77, 78 (4th Cir. 1996) 

(quoting United States v. Anderson, 481 F.2d 685, 701 (4th Cir. 

1973)).

Here again, we affirm the district court. In explaining 

Rand’s earlier confession, the government described Rand’s 

argument as “[t]he FBI is lying. And I [Rand] lied to the FBI 

because I was desperate.” J.A. 3010. Returning to this idea, 

the government said,

“But then he also said, but wait, I also lied to 

the FBI because I was desperate. How those things fit 
28

together I [the prosecutor] didn’t understand, maybe 

you did.

So I heard that the FBI lied, I also heard that 

Mr. Rand lied because he was desperate. Why was he 

desperate? He didn’t say. Nor could he really, 

because your lawyer can’t talk about your own beliefs, 

they can just make arguments.”

Id. at 3012. The district denied the motion for a mistrial, as 

it found that the jury could conclude that the “he” was 

referring to Rand’s counsel’s silence, as counsel had just 

spoken and claimed in argument that Rand made the confession 

only because Rand was desperate. We do not find this conclusion 

in error. While Rand argues that the jury would have understood 

that the “he” was referring to Rand as “[t]he rebuttal argument 

repeatedly referred to Rand’s theory about why Rand was 

desperate,” Rand Br. 55 (referencing the government’s repeated 

use of “I”), we do not find this to be the “necessar[y]” 

conclusion the jury would draw. See Francis, 82 F.3d at 78.

Finally, Rand argues that the government improperly vouched 

for Curran’s credibility. In rebuttal, the government argued 

that if Curran lied, “he’s risking perjury. He’s risking the 

loss of his career. There’s a federal judge sitting right there 

going to put him in jail--.” J.A. 3011. Rand immediately 

objected to this argument, and the district court sustained the 

objection, but Rand contends that this was insufficient as the 

court did not direct the jury to disregard it or give a curative 
29

instruction. Cf. United States v. Forlorma, 94 F.3d 91, 95 (2d 

Cir. 1996) (considering one of various factors and finding “we 

cannot be confident that the judge’s unexplained ruling 

dispelled the misperception that was likely caused by the 

baseless argument”). The government importantly notes, however, 

that although he objected, Rand did not ask for a curative 

instruction, either at the time or later in the jury charge.

Again, we find any error harmless. Rand himself 

acknowledges that Curran was “extensively cross-examined about 

discrepancies between his trial testimony, his contemporaneous 

notes of Rand’s proffer sessions, and his later write-up of 

those notes.” Rand Br. 56. While Rand argues that, had the 

jury doubted Curran’s testimony, it might have found reason to 

doubt Rand’s confession as well, we do not find that the jury’s 

determination of guilt or innocence “hinged entirely on the 

credibility” of Curran such that any improper remarks affected 

Rand’s substantial rights. See United States v. Gracia, 522 

F.3d 597, 606 (5th Cir. 2008). Instead, given the overwhelming 

evidence, including Curran’s testimony, supported in part by 

Brown’s testimony and the physical evidence in the record, we 

find the context of the error harmless.
30

V.

Rand finally challenges his sentence as procedurally 

unreasonable, arguing that the district court erred in 

determining the loss calculation by failing to apply the 

principles from Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U.S. 

336 (2005). As Rand objected at sentencing, the Court reviews 

improper calculation of a guideline range de novo. United 

States v. McManus, 734 F.3d 315, 318 (4th Cir. 2013). 

Meanwhile, “[t]he determination of loss attributable to a fraud 

scheme is a factual issue for resolution by the district court, 

and we review such a finding of fact only for clear error.” 

United States v. Keita, 742 F.3d 184, 191 (4th Cir. 2014) 

(citation omitted).

U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 2B1.1 sets the offense level 

for certain fraud offenses and requires an increase based on the 

loss caused by the offense conduct, in accordance with a table 

in § 2B1.1(b)(1). An application note instructs that “in a case 

involving the fraudulent inflation or deflation in the value of 

publicly traded security,” loss should be calculated based on 

how the price of a security changed, “after the fraud was 

disclosed to the market.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 Application Note 

3(F)(ix).
31

At sentencing, the parties debated which of Beazer’s three 

public disclosures qualified as the date on which the “fraud was 

disclosed to the market”:

June 27, 2007: Beazer announced that Rand had been 

fired for “destroy[ing] documents” and that an 

investigation was ongoing involving mortgage 

origination and “related matters.” J.A. 4624.

August 10, 2007: Beazer announced that its 

investigation “has discovered that [Rand] may have 

caused reserves . . . to have been recorded . . . in 

excess of amounts that would have been appropriate,” 

but that the “investigation is ongoing” and that 

Beazer did not “believe that the amounts . . . are 

quantitatively material.” Id. at 4626.

October 11, 2007: Beazer summarized the findings of 

its investigation, quantified the effects of Rand’s 

reserve adjustments, explained the GMAC issue, and 

informed the public that Beazer would restate its 

financials. Id. at 4606-07.

The court determined that the fraud was disclosed in June 

and August and that the loss to investors following those dates 

was $135 million. Accordingly, the district court calculated an 

offense level of 51 for a guidelines range of life imprisonment, 

capped by the statutory maximum. The parties agreed that if the 

October date were used, the resulting loss would be $0. Had the 

district court used the loss amount following the October 

disclosure, Rand’s offense level would have been 19, with a 

range of 30 to 37 months. The court ultimately varied downward 

from the guidelines range of life imprisonment and imposed a 

ten-year sentence.
32

Drawing from principles in civil securities cases, Rand 

argues that the proper date to consider was the October 

disclosure. In the civil context, the Supreme Court has held 

that to sustain a damages claim for civil securities fraud under 

15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b) and 78u–4, a plaintiff must show “a causal 

connection between the material misrepresentation and the loss.” 

Dura Pharms., 544 U.S. at 342. In so holding, the Dura Court 

rejected the notion that stock overvaluation resulting from socalled “fraud-on-the-market” may form the basis for a 

plaintiff’s damages award in a private securities action. Id.

at 341–43. That is, a shareholder’s claim that he bought stock 

at a price that was artificially inflated due to fraud does not 

state a claim for loss. Id.

The Second and Fifth Circuits have suggested that the Dura

loss-causation principles apply to criminal securities fraud 

cases. In United States v. Olis, 429 F.3d 540 (5th Cir. 2005), 

the Fifth Circuit indicated, “The civil damage measure should be 

the backdrop for criminal responsibility both because it 

furnishes the standard of compensable injury for securities 

fraud victims and because it is attuned to stock market 

complexities.” 429 F.3d at 526 (citing Dura Pharms., 544 U.S. 

at 341–43). Olis cited several out-of-circuit cases, including 

various “cook the books” scenarios, and noted with approval that 

“each case takes seriously the requirement to correlate the 
33

defendant’s sentence with the actual loss caused in the 

marketplace, exclusive of other sources of stock price decline.” 

Id. at 547 (citing United States v. Snyder, 291 F.3d 1291 (11th 

Cir. 2002); United States v. Bakhit, 218 F. Supp. 2d 1232, 1238 

(C.D. Cal. 2002); United States v. Grabske, 260 F. Supp. 2d 866, 

869-71 (N.D. Cal. 2002)). In United States v. Rutkoske, 506 

F.3d 179 (2d Cir. 2007), the court stated, “[W]e see no reason 

why considerations relevant to loss causation in a civil fraud 

case should not apply, at least as strongly, to a sentencing 

regime in which the amount of loss caused by a fraud is a 

critical determinant of the length of a defendant’s sentence.” 

506 F.3d at 179; cf. United States v. Nacchio, 573 F.3d 1062, 

1078 (10th Cir. 2009) (“Courts in criminal cases have sought 

guidance from civil damage measures in considering an estimate 

of loss from the defendant’s unlawful conduct.” (citing Kevin P. 

McCormick, Untangling the Capricious Effects of Market Loss in 

Securities Fraud Sentencing, 82 Tul. L. Rev. 1145, 1153 (2008) 

(“Faced with a myriad of new issues never encountered before in 

the criminal context, the courts have turned to civil 

jurisprudence for answers.”))) (considering profits for 

sentencing).6

 6 The Fifth and Second Circuits nevertheless cautioned 

against a strict application of Dura. E.g., United States v. 

Gushlak, 728 F.3d 184, 196 n.9 (2d Cir. 2013) (“Although we rely 

(Continued)
34

Meanwhile, the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits have 

declined to apply Dura in the context of criminal sentencing. 

The Ninth Circuit, for example, has found the Dura Court’s 

concern not relevant in criminal sentencing:

[I]n a private civil fraud action, a court gauges loss 

from the perspective of the plaintiff-victim, i.e., 

whether the plaintiff can show the amount and cause of 

loss he sustained. Because a civil plaintiff bears 

the burden to show loss, it is logical to require that 

the plaintiff show that any loss he sustained was 

attributable directly to devaluation caused by 

revelation of the defendant’s fraud. It likewise 

follows that a plaintiff’s mere allegation that he 

purchased overvalued stock is insufficient to state a 

claim, because the allegation does not by itself 

establish that the plaintiff personally incurred loss 

commensurate with the overvaluation.

In criminal sentencing, however, a court gauges the 

amount of loss caused, i.e., the harm that society as 

a whole suffered from the defendant’s fraud. Whether 

and to what extent a particular individual suffered 

actual loss is not usually an important consideration 

in criminal fraud sentencing. Therefore, where the 

value of securities have been inflated by a 

defendant’s fraud, the defendant may have caused 

aggregate loss to society in the amount of the fraudinduced overvaluation, even if various individual 

victims’ respective losses cannot be precisely 

determined or linked to the fraud. As a result, the 

principle underlying the Dura Pharmaceuticals Court’s 

reluctance to allow mere overvaluation as a basis for 

establishing loss is generally not present in the 

criminal sentencing context, and we are not persuaded 

that it would be appropriate to expand the Dura 

 

on authorities from each of these contexts to establish certain 

general principles, we are mindful of important differences that 

counsel against using authorities from these different contexts 

interchangeably.”).
35

Pharmaceuticals rule to the criminal sentencing 

context.

United States v. Berger, 587 F.3d 1038, 1044 (9th Cir. 2009)

(internal citations omitted); see also United States v. 

Georgiou, 777 F.3d 125, 146 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 

401 (2015); United States v. Peppel, 707 F.3d 627, 644-45 (6th 

Cir. 2013).

We find the reasoning of the Berger court convincing and 

adopt it here. Accordingly, we decline to adopt the Dura

principles in the criminal context. The district court thus 

committed no clear error in determining the loss amount, and we 

affirm the sentence.

Even assuming we found Dura’s principles applicable, the 

district court’s finding would still stand. In Peppel, the 

Sixth Circuit affirmed the amount-of-loss determination where 

class actions had been filed alleging false inflation, newspaper 

articles reported the allegations, and “less than a month later, 

an announcement was made informing the investing public as 

follows: ‘MCSi . . . today announced that it has learned of an 

investigation of the Company by the [SEC] and has received a 

subpoena from the SEC seeking production of documents . . . .’” 

Peppel, 707 F.3d at 644 (alterations and omission in original). 

The court determined that “[i]nformation concerning Peppel’s 

fraud was thus generally available to the investing public.” 
36

Id. Similarly here, we find that Beazer’s June and August 

announcements sufficiently put investors on notice of fraud. We 

are unmoved by Rand’s invocation of Loos v. Immersion Corp., 762 

F.3d 880, 890 (9th Cir. 2014), as amended (Sept. 11, 2014) 

(considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim in 

a civil case and holding that “the announcement of an 

investigation, without more, is insufficient to establish loss 

causation”). As in Peppel, here “it does not take a strong 

inference to connect the publication of this information to the 

near-immediate” losses to investors. 707 F.3d at 644.7 

Accordingly, we affirm the loss finding and Rand’s sentence as 

procedurally reasonable.

VI.

For the foregoing reasons, the district court is

AFFIRMED.

 7 We are unpersuaded by the government’s alternative theory 

for affirming based on a rebuttable presumption in place at the 

time of Rand’s sentencing. When Rand was sentenced, the 

guidelines provided that loss to investors should be calculated 

based on stock changes in a 90-day period after the fraud was 

disclosed. U.S.S.G § 2B1.1 cmt 3(F)(ix). As this is no longer 

the presumption in the current guidelines, and both parties, 

their experts, and the district court agreed that such a method 

was unreliable in this case, we decline to use this approach.