Source: http://ny.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19831212_0040032.C02.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2016-12-11 10:27:04
Document Index: 689834806

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§ 1341', '§ 2113', '§ 1341', '§ 2113', '§ 1341']

| United States v. Pick
United States v. Pick
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,v.ALBERT PICK AND JORDAN MITTLER, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS
Each defendant appeals from judgments of conviction on two counts of conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud and one count of entering a federally insured bank with the intent to commit a felony, entered March 25, 1983 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (MacMahon, J.) after a jury trial.
Albert Pick and Jordan Mittler appeal from judgments of conviction on charges arising out of two separate check-kiting schemes.*fn1 Appellants were convicted by a jury on two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, two substantive counts of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and one count of entering a federally insured bank with the intent to commit a felony in that bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). We affirm.
The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 86 L. Ed. 680, 62 S. Ct. 457 (1942), showed the following. In 1977 Mittler maintained a personal checking account at a branch of the Chemical Bank in Manhattan in addition to a small business checking account. Pick had a checking account in the Hialeah Springs-Miami First State Bank. In January appellants began kiting checks between their respective accounts. Over the next five months Mittler wrote hundreds of checks on his personal Chemical Bank account to Pick, who then deposited these checks in one of his accounts at Hialeah Bank and wrote checks payable to Mittler in corresponding amounts.
Chemical Bank branch operations officer Edward Miller learned of this activity shortly after it began. Mittler had cultivated a business relationship with Miller, sweetened by gratuitous offerings including cash and tickets to sports events and concerts. In the course of this relationship, Mittler had described plants to increase his own business banking at Chemical Bank and to bring in other business accounts to the branch. Miller, eager for the new business, had initially authorized checks that Mittler drew against uncollected funds.*fn2 Miller notified Mittler that the practice could not continue, however, and Mittler promised that no more checks would be presented against uncollected deposits. Nevertheless, the practice continued, with the number of checks and deposits increasing steadily. Although he frequently complained to Mittler about it, Miller nevertheless continued authorizing payment on the presented checks. Finally, in April, 1977, Miller notified Mittler that his account would be closed unless he stopped writing checks against uncollected deposits.
At Miller's urging, Miller several times re-presented the returned checks to the Hialeah Bank, which continued to refuse to pay. Finally, on May 12 or 13, 1977, Miller told Mittler that $62,000 worth of checks had been returned to Chemical Bank, an amount in excess of Miller's lending authority. Both Pick and Mittler offered partial payments if Miller agreed to delay reporting the loss to his superiors at Chemical Bank. No payments were forthcoming. Upon learning of the losses, Chemical Bank fired Miller.
Pick and Mittler contend with respect to their mail fraud convictions that there was no proof that they mailed or caused a mailing "for the purpose of executing" a fraudulent scheme, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 1341.*fn3 The government argues that the mailing of monthly account statements by the banks satisfies this element. Appellants counter that the bank statements did not further the scheme but endangered it, since the banks might have noticed from the statements the pattern of deposits and withdrawals in identical amounts on the same day, as well as the high level of checking activity on each account.
United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, 38 L. Ed. 2d 603, 94 S. Ct. 645 (1974), is not to the contrary. In that case, the Supreme Court held that mailing of credit card invoices by motels to issuing banks did not further the fraudulent scheme, which had come to fruition prior to the mailings, i.e. when the defendant used the stolen credit card to pay his motel bills. Thus, the fraudulent scheme in Maze was over before any mailings were made. By contrast here the defendants had to maintain an ever increasing flow of paper that must be mailed between the victim banks if the scheme was to continue in operation. The monthly statements allowed them to fine-tune that flow, albeit at some risk, and therefore were clearly in furtherance of the fraudulent scheme.
As a consequence of their entering a Chase branch to give Schirmer cash, appellants were convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), the second paragraph of which provides that "whoever enters or attempts to enter any [federally insured] bank . . . with intent to commit in such bank, . . . any felony affecting such bank . . . or any larceny" is guilty of a violation. Mittler contends that violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, the mail fraud statute, are not predicate offenses under Section 2113(a) and that the second paragraph of that provision applies only to entires with the intent to rob or burglarize. Noting that Section 2113(b) embraces fraudulent takings*fn4 unaccompanied by force or violence, Bell v. United States, 462 U.S. 356, 103 S. Ct. 2398, 76 L. Ed. 2d 638 (1983), Mittler also contends that it violates due process to construe subsection (a) to reach behavior covered by subsection (b), since that construction allows the government to choose between an indictment for a crime punishable by ten years imprisonment or one punishable by twenty years.
We begin with the statutory language. Section 2113(a) prohibits entry of a bank with the intent to commit " any " felony and in no way limits its application to robberies, burglaries or felonies not covered under other sections of the Act. Nor does the legislative history suggest any such limitation. When first enacted in 1934, the Federal Bank Robbery Act covered only forcible robberies or common law larcenies. In 1937, however, Congress added amendments containing the language codified in subsections (a) and (b) in order to protect federally insured bank reserves from criminal acts generally. See Bell v. United States, supra at 2402; United States v. Hinton, 703 F.2d 672, 677 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1121, 103 S. Ct. 3091, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1351 (1983). The inclusion of mail fraud as a predicate offense under Section 2113(a) is consistent with that legislative goal.
The fact that the subsections are partially overlapping and allow prosecutors to choose between charges carrying different sentences does not violate due process, since a decision to prosecute under the statute with the heavier penalty "does not empower the Government to predetermine ultimate criminal sanctions." United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 125, 60 L. Ed. 2d 755, 99 S. Ct. 2198 (1979).