Case Name: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ilya KRIKHELI, Rachel Krikheli, Defendants-Appellants, Amit Srivastava, Muhammad Bajwa, Defendants
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2012-02-02
Citations: 461 F. App'x 7
Docket Number: Nos. 11-2865-cr (L), 11-2869-cr (Con)
Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ilya KRIKHELI, Rachel Krikheli, Defendants-Appellants, Amit Srivastava, Muhammad Bajwa, Defendants.
Judges: PRESENT: ROBERT D. SACK, REENA RAGGI, DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 461
Pages: 7–11

Head Matter:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ilya KRIKHELI, Rachel Krikheli, Defendants-Appellants, Amit Srivastava, Muhammad Bajwa, Defendants.
Nos. 11-2865-cr (L), 11-2869-cr (Con).
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Feb. 2, 2012.
Andrew Citron, Esq., New York, NY, for Appellants.
Charles Kleinberg (Susan Corkery, Paul A. Tuchmann, on the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, Of Counsel, for Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee.
PRESENT: ROBERT D. SACK, REENA RAGGI, DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as shown above.

Opinion:
SUMMARY ORDER
Defendants Ilya and Rachel Krikheli challenge their convictions after trial on three counts of Medicare fraud, see 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b(b)(l)(B), (2)(A), arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support conviction and that erroneous eviden-tiary rulings and an inadequate jury charge denied them a fair trial. We assume familiarity with the facts and the record of prior proceedings, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.
1. Sufficiency of the Evidence
The Krikhelis submit that the trial evidence was insufficient to prove a fraudulent scheme to pay bribes and receive kickbacks in connection with referrals to persons who would provide services paid with Medicare funds. They contend that the evidence showed only that they advertised or recommended the services of Eric Hagerbrant, the owner of a diagnostic imaging company, to physicians who then exercised independent judgment in making referrals. See United States v. Miles, 360 F.3d 472, 479-81 (5th Cir.2004) (holding that medical provider could not be convicted under 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b(b)(2)(A) merely for hiring agency to send advertisements and promotional materials to physicians, and then paying agency for each patient referred). Assuming, without deciding, that this court would construe § 1320a-7b(b)(2)(A) as the Fifth Circuit did in Miles, the Krikhelis' sufficiency challenge fails on the merits.
Although sufficiency review is de novo, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, and we will not reverse as long as any reasonable jury could have returned the challenged verdict on that evidence. See United States v. O'Connor, 650 F.3d 839, 855 (2d Cir.2011), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 132 S.Ct. 1040, 181 L.Ed.2d 791 (2012). Here, audio and video recordings demonstrated that the Krikhelis did not simply advertise or recommend Hagerbrant's services to physicians, but directly paid physicians or indirectly paid them through middlemen, such as co-defendants Bajwa and Srivastava, to induce referrals to Hagerbrant. That conduct is plainly proscribed by § 1320a-7b(b)(2)(A). Further, similar recorded evidence showed that the Krikhelis solicited and received payments from Hagerbrant in exchange for orchestrating the fraudulent scheme, conduct proscribed by § 1320a-7b(b)(l)(B). Such evidence distinguishes this case from Miles and sufficed to permit a reasonable jury to find defendants guilty on the counts of conviction.
The Krikhelis further contend that their inculpatory statements to Hagerbrant, then a government informant, about an uncharged kickback scheme involving their own diagnostic imaging facility should have been excluded because they were uncorroborated. This argument appears to derive from Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 152-53, 75 S.Ct. 194, 99 L.Ed. 192 (1954), and Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 90-91, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954), which in some circumstances prohibit conviction of a defendant based solely on uncorroborated statements to law enforcement officers, see United States v. Simmons, 923 F.2d 934, 954 (2d Cir.1991). Smith and Opper are inapposite, however, insofar as the statements in question here concern uncharged conduct. Moreover, the Krikhelis' inculpatory statements were not made after commission of the crime in response to police interrogation, but during the crime to a person whom they believed, albeit mistakenly, to be a confederate in furtherance of their conspiracy. In the context of a co-conspirator statement, when defendants' inculpatory statements were made "to further the ends of [a] . criminal enterprise, it is irrelevant whether their admissions were corroborated by additional evidence." Id.
2. Evidentiary Rulings
We review evidentiary challenges only for abuse of discretion, and identify none here. See United States v. Simels, 654 F.3d 161, 168 (2d Cir.2011).
a. Bad Act Evidence
Defendants complain that the district court erred in allowing the government to inference, and the jury to consider, uncharged bad act evidence, specifically, their recorded statements admitting kickbacks for referrals to them own diagnostic imaging facility. To the extent the prosecution committed itself before trial to limited use of such evidence, the record shows that the district court sustained objections and gave appropriate limiting instructions whenever the prosecution reached beyond its commitment. In these circumstances, and in light of the overwhelming evidence of defendants' guilt, we identify no prejudice warranting reversal. See United States v. Elias, 285 F.3d 183, 190 (2d Cir.2002) (identifying (1) severity of misconduct, (2) curative measures adopted, and (3) certainty of conviction notwithstanding misconduct as relevant factors in assessing prosecutorial misconduct). In any event, Rachel Krikheli's own trial testimony put into question the issues of defendants' opportunity and intent to commit the charged crime, at which point the district court permissibly allowed the jury to consider the other act evidence for this limited purpose. See Fed.R.Evid. 404(b); United States v. Edwards, 342 F.3d 168, 177-78 (2d Cir.2003).
b. Lay Opinion Testimony
The Krikhelis complain that the district court improperly allowed Hager-brant to offer lay opinion testimony as to the meaning of words and terms used by defendants in their recorded conversations with him. See Fed.R.Evid. 701. We need not decide whether the argument was properly preserved below because, even if we were to resolve that question in the Krikhelis' favor, they fail to show abuse of discretion. The prosecution did not contend that the words and terms at issue were coded. Cf. United States v. Garcia, 291 F.3d 127, 140-42 (2d Cir.2002) (requiring government to lay foundation for witnesses's knowledge that words with plain meaning were, in fact, being used as code for drug trafficking). At most, they were terms of art, and the prosecution laid an adequate foundation for Hagerbrant to testify as to what he understood the Krik-helis to mean by eliciting Hagerbrant's lengthy experience in the diagnostic imaging industry. In these circumstances, the district court permissibly admitted the opinion testimony. See United States v. Ferguson, 676 F.3d 260, 294, 2011 WL 6351862, at *24 & n. 42 (2d Cir.2011) (holding that cooperating witnesses' testimony about meaning of terms used by defendants was admissible because it explained meaning of "jargon" based on witnesses' industry experience).
3. Jury Instructions
The Krikhelis complain of the district court's failure to give their proposed charge that conviction under § 1320a-7b(b)(l)(B), (2)(A) required them to have made payments to "a person with the ability to refer patients for the above services," and not to a person who could only "recommend to another person who is a decision maker" respecting the referral. Appellants' Br. 17. We review challenged jury instructions de novo, and we will reverse only if the instructions, viewed as a whole, prejudiced defendants. See United States v. Bahel, 662 F.3d 610, 634 (2d Cir.2011). In conducting such review, we are mindful that defendants are not entitled to demand that particular language be used to charge the jury as long as the applicable principles of law are correctly stated. See United States v. Banki, 660 F.3d 665, 671 (2d Cir.2011).
Here, the district court instructed the jury that defendants could be found guilty only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt that "one purpose of the offer or payment [at issue] was to induce a person to refer patients to another," and that "[t]o induce a person means to attempt to gain influence over the reason or judgment of that person." Trial Tr. at 1287. Further, the prosecution had to prove "that the remuneration was offered or paid as a quid pro quo in return for the referring of the patient." Id. These instructions accurately described the law and assuaged defendants' concern that they not be convicted simply for paying middlemen to recommend Hagerbrant's services to physicians who would make independent referral decisions, as in Miles. Instead, the instructions made clear that the government was required to prove that any payments to middlemen were made to induce referrals in a quid pro quo transaction.
4. Conclusion
We have considered defendants' remaining arguments and conclude that they are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgments of conviction are AFFIRMED.
. To the extent Smith and Opper require corroboration to prevent juries from convicting on the basis of untrustworthy evidence, those decisions focused only on "statements made to law enforcement officers after the commission of the crime" because of the pressure of police interrogation. United States v. Simmons, 923 F.2d 934, 954 (2d Cir.1991). We have no occasion here to consider the extent to which this concern has been assuaged by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and its progeny. See United States v. Brown, 617 F.3d 857, 861-62 (6th Cir.2010); United States v. Dalhouse, 534 F.3d 803, 806 (7th Cir.2008); United States v. Dickerson, 163 F.3d 639, 641 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1999).