Source: http://pa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19930514_0040974.C03.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2016-10-28 16:22:04
Document Index: 728303649

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 1291', '§ 3742', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3']

| U.S. v. Craddock
UNITED STATES OF AMERICAv.LEON CRADDOCK, APPELLANT
On Appeal From the United States District Court For the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. (D.C. Crim. Action No. 91-00424-10).
Before: Becker, Stapleton and Lay,*fn* Circuit Judges
Defendant-appellant Leon Craddock, a teller responsible for paying out Western Union money orders, was sentenced to 37 months imprisonment for his role in a conspiracy to commit credit card fraud. He challenges the calculation of his sentence based on the district court's finding that he abused a position of trust within the meaning of Section 3B1.3 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. We will affirm the sentence.*fn1
The main issue at Craddock's sentencing hearing was whether he was subject to an increase in his offense level under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3 for abusing a position of trust. The presentence report prepared by the Probation Office concluded that he was not, but the district court held otherwise. With the two level increase under § 3B1.3, the court calculated a total offense level of 14 and sentenced Craddock to 37 months imprisonment, the lowest term allowable given Craddock's criminal history category of 6.*fn2 We have jurisdiction to review this final decision pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1291 and, because this appeal involves the application of the Sentencing Guidelines, 18 U.S.C. § 3742.
Craddock argued to the district court, as he argues on appeal, that § 3B1.3 does not apply to him because his offense was similar to "an embezzlement by an ordinary bank teller," which the Application Note advises is not covered by the section. The district court addressed this argument by comparing Craddock's conduct to two methods of embezzlement that could be employed by an ordinary bank teller. The first involved simply taking money from the teller's drawer; the second involved taking kickbacks for paying out funds to an accomplice who made unauthorized withdrawals from the business account of the accomplice's employer. The court distinguished these schemes from Craddock's because they were easily detectable. Skimming from the till would be obvious to the bank when the teller's drawer did not balance for the day, the court reasoned, and the accomplice scheme would be detected by the internal auditing procedures of the defrauded employer. In contrast, the fraudulent wire transfers could not be detected by balancing because Craddock paid out the full amount of each transfer. The court reasoned further that individual credit cardholders were less likely than a defrauded business to trace the scheme back to the culprits. Based on the difficulty of detecting Craddock's offense and the substantial increase in fraudulent transactions after he and his co-workers joined the conspiracy, the court concluded that Craddock held a position of trust and abused it in a manner that significantly facilitated the conspiracy.
As noted, by its terms the section applies to one who occupied a position of trust and abused that position in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of an offense. According to the Application Note, an offense is not "significantly facilitated" by an abuse of a position of trust if the position "merely . . . provided an opportunity that could as easily have been afforded other persons"; thus, the adjustment "would not apply to an embezzlement by an ordinary bank teller." U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3, Application Note 1.*fn3
Turning to the significant facilitation prong of
§ 3B1.3, we found that defendant had abused his position in a manner that significantly facilitated the offense because, pursuant to his authority, he personally and without supervision approved the documents that enabled his scheme to be successful. We rejected, as unsupported by the record, the district court's Conclusion that the hypothetical ordinary bank teller spoken of in the Application Note could have undertaken a similar scheme of embezzlement and cover-up. We found it clear that defendant had greater authority than the normal bank teller and that this authority contributed substantially to both the commission and concealment of his crime. Id. at 776 & n.4.
As for significant facilitation, we concluded that the apparent ease with which Lieberman committed and concealed his embezzlement indicated the requisite nexus between his position of trust and the offense. Even if, as Lieberman asserted, forty other vice presidents could have committed such an offense, that did not mean that his position merely provided "an opportunity that could as easily been afforded to other persons." See U.S.S.G., Application Note 1. It was clear that relative to others who could commit bank embezzlement, Lieberman had exploited a position that was instrumental in enabling the offense. Thus, his position had significantly facilitated the offense within the meaning of § 3B1.3. 971 F.2d at 993-94.
Our most recent consideration of § 3B1.3 appears in United States v. Brann, 990 F.2d 98,, (3d Cir. Mar. 30, 1993), a case involving an agent of the Virgin Islands Narcotics Strike Force who was given money for drug purchases he said he had arranged; the agent actually faked the transactions, turned in spurious drug mixtures, and kept the money. The agent argued against the application of § 3B1.3 on the ground that he held a low-level, non-supervisory position akin to that of a bank teller. However, following the line of inquiry employed in Lieberman, we considered the agent's authority and the acts it enabled. These included setting up drug buys without surveillance from other law enforcement officials, obtaining large sums of money from the Force on his representation that he had arranged the buys, and employing a third party to assist him. By permitting such conduct, the agent's position afforded him the freedom to commit a difficult-to-detect wrong. It also significantly facilitated the offense; as in Lieberman, the apparent ease with which defendant carried out his scheme showed the nexus between the position and the offense.*fn4
An offense has been "significantly facilitated" by a position of trust when the trust aspects of the position make the offense substantially easier to commit or conceal.*fn5 In advising that § 3B1.3 would not apply to "an embezzlement by an ordinary bank teller," the first Application Note indicates that a crime generally is not significantly facilitated by a defendant's position if the position does no more than provide access to the victim or its property. We believe the Sentencing Commission had in mind the typical case of bank teller embezzlement discussed in Hill and Lieberman -- physically skimming from the till. Regardless of the teller's total authority, the link between the position and the offense is only that the position gives the teller the opportunity to handle money and thereby to take what passes through his hands. Given the effectiveness of auditing and surveillance, the crime and its concealment are not significantly easier for the teller than for anyone else with access to the bank's cash.
Although on its face the Application Note addresses the significant facilitation requirement, courts have looked to it for guidance concerning the meaning of position of trust, as well. When a teller handles cash under the watchful eye of a supervisor and is subject to a daily audit, there is no trust aspect to the authority he or she exercises; in this situation, the bank is not relying on the teller's personal integrity to avoid the loss occasioned by skimming from the till. Thus in Hill, the court observed that routine auditing and surveillance make skimming so easy to detect that an embezzling teller would not be considered to have been put in a position of trust.*fn6 Similarly, in McMillen and Lieberman, we noted that defendants were able to commit their crimes because they possessed greater authority and were subject to less monitoring than the ordinary bank teller.
That an ordinary bank teller could not have duplicated the criminal conduct in McMillen and Lieberman, however, does not mean that a teller cannot under any circumstances occupy a position of trust. The presence of the independent requirement of significant facilitation implicitly recognizes that a job may have trust and non-trust aspects. The ordinary bank teller, when engaged in the activity of taking cash from the till or putting it in, is not utilizing a position of trust. The same teller, however, may engage in other activities in the course of his job that do involve aspects of trust, and these may be exploited to facilitate a crime. The critical inquiry under § 3B1.3 is thus not whether a defendant was termed a "teller" or lacked supervisory or managerial authority as most tellers do.*fn7 Rather, the standard for tellers, as for clerks, mechanics, and all other defendants, is (1) whether the authority conferred and the absence of controls indicate that the employer relied on the integrity of the defendant to protect against the loss occasioned by the crime; and (2) whether the trust aspect of the job made the commission or concealment of the crime significantly easier.
In this case, Craddock's employer had given him the authority to verify the identity of those requesting payouts. The payouts he made to his various accomplices were not detectable by way of the routine auditing and surveillance that would normally detect simple embezzlement; indeed, all the fraudulent transactions appeared to be legitimate from the perspective of the Financial Exchange and Western Union.*fn8 Craddock's only argument is that an ordinary bank teller could have engaged in a similar scheme. As we have shown, this argument is premised on an erroneous interpretation of § 3B1.3. The key point is not whether Craddock was an "ordinary bank teller" or something like it, but whether he exploited the authority provided by his position and engaged in a scheme that was difficult to detect. It is clear that he did. It also is clear that his role in ninety fraudulent transactions, deliberately paying out funds to impostors when he was supposed to be guarding against such fraud, made the scheme considerably easier and thus significantly facilitated the offense.