Source: http://openjurist.org/440/f3d/1286/united-states-v-johnson
Timestamp: 2015-12-02 07:19:09
Document Index: 118508118

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1957', '§ 1957', '§ 1957', '§ 1961', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 65', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956', '§ 1956']

440 F3d 1286 United States v. Johnson | OpenJurist
440 F. 3d 1286 - United States v. Johnson HomeFederal Reporter, Third Series440 F.3d
440 F3d 1286 United States v. Johnson 440 F.3d 1286
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.Paul JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant.
David Jonathon Joffe (Court-Appointed), Joffe & Joffe, P.A., Ft. Lauderdale, FL, for Johnson.
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, BARKETT, Circuit Judge, and HUNT*, Senior District Judge.
Johnson submits that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions for money laundering. Sufficiency of the evidence is an issue that we review de novo to determine whether "a reasonable jury, viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the government could find the defendant[] guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt." United States v. Williamson, 339 F.3d 1295, 1299 (11th Cir. 2003) (internal quotations omitted). We address the different money laundering provisions separately.
To obtain a conviction on a § 1957 charge, the government bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson "knowingly engaged or attempted to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property that is of value greater than $10,000 and is derived from specified unlawful activity." 18 U.S.C. § 1957; see also, United States v. Nolan, 223 F.3d 1311, 1315 (11th Cir.2000). A "monetary transaction" includes "the deposit, withdrawal, transfer, or exchange,... of funds or a monetary instrument by, through, or to a financial institution ...." 18 U.S.C. § 1957(f)(1). The term "specified unlawful activity" means any act or activity constituting an offense under 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). 18 U.S.C. § 1956(c)(7)(A). Section 1961(1)(D) includes "any offense involving ... fraud in the sale of securities."
Counts 23-27 involve five separate transfers of funds to Luxembourg that originated out of two accounts in the United States that Johnson controlled.3 As we see it, the only issue requiring our consideration is whether the evidence demonstrated that Johnson intended to conceal the origin of the illicit funds when he transferred them to his mother's account in Luxembourg.4 Evidence of concealment must be substantial. United States v. Blankenship, 382 F.3d 1110, 1130 (11th Cir.2004). "Merely engaging in a transaction with money whose nature has been concealed through other means is not in itself a crime .... If transactions are engaged in for present personal benefit, and not to create the appearance of legitimate wealth, they do not violate the money laundering statute." United States v. Majors, 196 F.3d 1206, 1213 (11th Cir.1999) (quoting United States v. Garcia-Emanuel, 14 F.3d 1469, 1474 (10th Cir.1994)); see also, United States v. Magluta, 418 F.3d 1166, 1176 (11th Cir.2005) ("[P]ayments for personal benefit out of previously laundered proceeds do not themselves constitute money laundering unless they are designed to conceal the nature or source of the money.") (relying on Majors, 196 F.3d at 1213).
The facts of other cases decided by this Circuit assist us in reaching our conclusion. First, in United States v. Magluta, 418 F.3d at 1176, we upheld a defendant's money laundering conviction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) when the defendant facilitated multiple transfers of illicitly obtained cash between different associates before ultimately transferring the funds to Israel and depositing them into a bank account bearing a fictitious name, after which the defendant paid his lawyers with checks from that foreign account held in the false name. We concludedthat the defendant went to great lengths to structure these highly irregular transactions in a veil of secrecy to conceal the fact that he was using drug proceeds to compensate his lawyers and this behavior, therefore, satisfied the definition of money laundering under § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i).
In United States v. Abbell, 271 F.3d 1286, 1298-99 (11th Cir.2001), two attorney defendants placed money into prisoner commissary accounts or gave individuals cash on behalf of a leader of the Cali Cartel, a drug smuggling empire. The evidence at trial established that the recipients of the cash either worked for the drug cartel or were family members of those employees and that the money was provided in exchange for their silence about the cartel. The defendants either first received cash from the cartel leader and then gave the money to the recipients, or they would front the cash and then bill the leader for the amounts disbursed. Either way, the defendants disbursed the funds as if they were the providers, not the cartel leader. We found that the evidence supported the jury's conclusion that the cash disbursements were designed to conceal that the cartel leader was the source of these funds and therefore amounted to a violation of § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i).
United States v. Hasson, 333 F.3d 1264, 1275 (11th Cir.2003), involved a jewelry store owner who prepared false jewelry appraisals and misrepresented both his own qualifications and the quality of particular jewels in an effort to sell items to unsuspecting customers. In affirming his conviction for money laundering pursuant to § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and (h), we relied on evidence demonstrating that the defendant funneled proceeds from his fraudulent sales through multiple accounts bearing fictitious names and opened with forged documents, including an account for a shell corporation in the Isle of Man. We further considered that he lied to the FBI and the IRS when questioned about his relationship with this shell corporation. Id.
Finally, in Majors, 196 F.3d at 1211-1214, the first opinion in which we closely examined the concealment element of a § 1956 charge, we affirmed the defendants' money laundering convictions in a securities fraud case where they sold millions of dollars of worthless securities. The evidence in Majors demonstrated that the defendants transferred the proceeds from the scheme between multiple corporate bank accounts set up with multiple signatories in an effort to make it appear that the funds ultimately deposited into the defendants' personal accounts were from a legitimate source. We concluded that moving the ill-gotten gains on multiple occasions between different corporate accounts, some of which were legitimate business accounts, using multiple signatories amounted to an effort to conceal the nature or source of the proceeds under the terms of the statute. Id. at 1214; see also, Blankenship, 382 F.3d at 1129-30 (reversing money laundering concealment conviction, concluding that defendant's transfer of funds between two accounts at the same bank, both bearing his name, was insufficient to establish the element of concealment); United States v. Thayer, 204 F.3d 1352, 1354-55 (11th Cir.2000) (affirming money laundering concealment conviction where defendant funneled profits from an illicit scheme into various corporate accounts, some of which used fictitious names, before ultimately placing the money into her personal account); See generally, Donald F. Samuel, Eleventh Circuit Criminal Handbook § 65 (2005) (providing an insightful compilation and analysis of money laundering cases from this Circuit).
In the examples set forth above, the suspect transactions involved either numerous transfers, multiple accounts, fictitious accounts, or the use of third-parties to effectuate the concealment of the actual source of the money. In this case, however, Johnson simply transferred money from his own accounts to his mother's account. These were simple and straightforward banking transactions, easily discovered through a cursory review of Johnson's bank accounts. See, United States v. Esterman, 324 F.3d 565, 572 (7th Cir.2003) ("[C]ases in which money laundering charges have not succeeded are typically simple transactions that can be followed with relative ease ...."); Garcia-Emanuel, 14 F.3d at 1475 ("[A]ctions that are merely suspicious and do not provide substantial evidence of a design to conceal will not alone support a conviction.").
Our precedent discussed above demonstrates that a money laundering concealment conviction pursuant to § 1956 requires evidence of something more than a simple transfer of funds between two accounts, each bearing the parties' correct name. There must be some evidence that the funds are more concealed after the transaction is completed than before. Decisions by our sister circuits also support this conclusion. See Garcia-Emanuel, 14 F.3d at 1478 (holding that transferring funds from an account in the defendant's name to an account of a Colombian national in Florida was insufficient to support a money laundering conviction pursuant to § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i)); United States v. Dobbs, 63 F.3d 391, 397 (5th Cir.1995) (reversing a money laundering conviction under § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) where the defendant deposited illicitly obtained funds into his wife's bank account, after which she used the money to pay ordinary household expenses, by finding that this typical and straight forward banking transaction failed to demonstrate an intent to conceal the origin of the money).5 Consequently, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, we find ourselves constrained to conclude that no reasonable jury could find that the transactions set forth in Counts 23-27 of the superseding indictment constituted an effort to conceal the nature or source of the unlawful proceeds, and we accordingly VACATE Johnson's convictions for these counts.
18 U.S.C. § 1956(h)6 makes it unlawful to conspire to violate any provision of §§ 1956 or 1957. The jury convicted Johnson of conspiring to launder the proceeds of securities fraud with the intent to promote such unlawful activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(A)(i)(Count 28). To establish the offense of promotional money laundering, the government must demonstrate that: (1) the defendant conducted or attempted to conduct a financial transaction; (2) the defendant knew that the funds involved in the transaction represented the proceeds of illicit activity (securities fraud in the present case); (3) the funds involved were in fact the proceeds of unlawful activity; and (4) the defendant conducted the financial transaction with the intent to promote the specified unlawful activity. United States v. Carcione, 272 F.3d 1297, 1302 (11th Cir.2001).
The government responds that it is of no consequence that Cook was acquitted of these charges, as this Circuit has explicitly rejected the "rule of consistency" in conspiracy cases, that rule being: a conspiracy conviction cannot stand against one defendant when all other alleged co-conspirators are acquitted. United States v. Andrews, 850 F.2d 1557, 1560 (11th Cir.1988) (en banc) (citing Herman v. United States, 289 F.2d 362, 368 (5th Cir. 1961)).8 In this Circuit, "[c]onsistent verdicts are unrequired in joint trials for conspiracy: where all but one of the charged conspirators are acquitted, the verdict against the one can stand." Id. at 1561; see also, United States v. Wright, 63 F.3d 1067, 1074 (11th Cir.1995) ("Accordingly, inconsistent verdicts [on conspiracy charges], whether provided by juries or judges, are not subject to reversal merely because they are inconsistent.").
The money laundering concealment charges set out in Counts 22-27 of the superseding indictment charge Johnson with violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(2)(B)(i) and 2
Our precedent concerning the element of concealment in money laundering charges relates almost exclusively to 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) (making it unlawful to knowingly conduct a financial transaction with unlawfully obtained proceeds in an effort to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the illicit funds). The concealment language is the same for both 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and the offense at issue in this case, § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i); therefore, we look to cases addressing the issue of concealment in § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) charges to assist in our analysis of the present issue, as the only substantive difference between these two offenses for our present purposes is whether the funds were transferred out of the United States
We certainly do not overlook the fact that Johnson transferred the funds into a foreign bank account. InUnited States v. Polichemi, 219 F.3d 698, 707 (7th Cir.2000), the Seventh Circuit affirmed the Defendants' money laundering concealment convictions pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i) based, at least in part, on evidence presented by the government that financial transactions are more difficult to investigate once funds are moved through foreign accounts. In this case, however, the government does not direct us to any evidence in the record suggesting that Johnson's transfer of the money to a foreign account made the transactions more difficult to trace.
InBonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1981)(en banc), the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals adopted as precedent the decisions of the former Fifth Circuit issued before October 1, 1981.
Because we reverse the conviction pursuant to a sufficiency of the evidence review, we find it unnecessary to address Johnson's additional argument that the district court constructively amended the superseding indictment and committed reversible error by charging the jury under Count 28 that in order to establish this conspiracy offense, they must find that "twoor more persons, in some way, came to a mutual understanding" (emphasis supplied), as the indictment charged only Johnson and Cook with being members of the conspiracy.