IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-20626

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

JEFFREY STERN, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:19-CR-450-1

Before DAVIS, SMITH, and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Jeffrey Stern has been charged with conspiring to defraud the United 

States, four counts of willfully filing false tax returns, six counts of aiding and 

assisting in the preparation and presentation of false tax returns, two counts 

of witness tampering, and one count of obstructing justice. The magistrate 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

October 24, 2019

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 19-20626

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judge ordered that Stern be detained pending trial, and the district court 

affirmed. Stern appeals the detention order. 

“Absent an error of law, we must uphold a district court order [of 

detention] if it is supported by the proceedings below, a deferential standard of 

review that we equate to the abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. 

Rueben, 974 F.2d 580, 586 (5th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). “On appeal, the question becomes whether the evidence as 

a whole supports the conclusions of the proceedings below.” Id. (citation 

omitted). 

After a careful review of the record, we conclude that the evidence as a 

whole supports the district court’s detention order. At the detention hearing, 

the lead case agent from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) testified that the 

evidence from his investigation showed that Stern was engaged in a thirteenyear scheme to defraud the IRS. He further testified that Stern, even after

being civilly audited and made to pay fines and penalties in 2010, continued to 

defraud the IRS and modified the scheme to avoid detection by issuing false 

tax documents and fraudulent checks. The evidence also showed that Stern 

hid his law firm’s client and financial files in a storage unit that was rented 

under an illegal alien’s name. After Stern learned that he was under a federal 

criminal investigation, he requested case runners (Marcus Esquivel and 

Frederick Morris) to destroy any records related to their business dealings with 

him. Esquivel subsequently destroyed a computer and paper records, and 

Morris and Stern shredded Morris’s invoices to the Stern Law Firm.1 Stern 

also caused the filing of further fraudulent documents with the IRS. Stern told 

Morris that “he would do whatever it took to protect himself.” He confronted 

 

1 There was also evidence that Esquivel destroyed documents at the request of Stern 

in 2010 during a state criminal investigation of Stern for solicitation of capital murder.

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No. 19-20626

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Morris in an intimidating manner, and Morris expressed fear for his and his 

family’s safety. 

Based on Stern’s tax returns during the time period of the federal 

criminal investigation, Stern’s annual income was approximately $3 million 

per year. He has foreign bank accounts. Since the start of the Government’s 

investigation, Stern has traveled internationally approximately six times, but 

it was only after his most recent trip in August 2019 that he learned Morris 

was cooperating with the Government. 

Based on the foregoing, the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

ordering Stern’s detention. See 18 U.S.C. § 3142. Accordingly, the district 

court’s order of detention is AFFIRMED. The Government’s motion for leave 

to file a response in excess of the page limit, and Stern’s motion for leave to file 

a reply out of time and in excess of the page limit are GRANTED.

DETENTION ORDER AFFIRMED; MOTIONS GRANTED.

 Case: 19-20626 Document: 00515171773 Page: 3 Date Filed: 10/24/2019