Opinion ID: 199256
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Intent to Deceive the Public

Text: 62 To establish an adequate factual basis for Sawyer's plea of guilty, we must also find that he demonstrated an intent to deceive the public with respect to his conduct. See Sawyer, 85 F.3d at 732; see also McEvoy Travel Bureau, Inc. v. Heritage Travel, Inc., 904 F.2d 786, 791 (1st Cir. 1990). We carefully analyzed this requirement in Sawyer: 63 [I]t appears that the requisite intent to deceive could have been shown either through Sawyer's own acts of deception toward the public with respect to the gift/gratuity statute violations, or through his efforts to ensure that the legislators deceived the public with respect to the violations. The latter requires evidence only that Sawyer intended to cause the legislators intentionally to fail to disclose material information about the violations, although evidence that he intended the legislators to affirmatively misrepresent themselves in this regard would also suffice. At bottom, the evidence must be sufficient to establish Sawyer's intent that, in the end, the public be deceived with respect to his unlawful gifts and gratuities. 64 Sawyer, 85 F.3d 732-33 (footnote omitted). Considering the evidence against this standard, we find that facts described in the PPR indicate that Sawyer acted to deceive the public, or to induce legislators to deceive the public, with respect to his expenditures on their entertainment. For example, when Sawyer organized a high-profile event to celebrate the Boston Marathon, he took steps to ensure that the spending would not exceed limits proscribed by Massachusetts law. However, he made no such efforts to comply with the law when entertainment expenditures would not be so visible to the public, a fact which is probative of his intent to deceive the citizens of Massachusetts. Again, whether Sawyer actually violated state laws in these instances is irrelevant to our inquiry because honest services mail fraud does not depend on a violation of state law. Indeed, the duty to disclose a conflict of interest, the violation of which indicates an intent to deceive in these circumstances, arises from common law as well as from Massachusetts statute. [S]eparate and apart from the state statute, '[t]he obligation to disclose material information inheres in the legislator's general fiduciary duty to the public.' Woodward, 149 F.3d at 62 (quoting Sawyer, 85 F.3d at 733 n.17). See also Silvano, 812 F.2d at 759 ([T]he affirmative duty to disclose material information arises out of a government official's fiduciary relationship to his or her employer.). Therefore, a jury would not have to find that Sawyer violated the Massachusetts statute to convict him of the crime to which he pled guilty; the jury would have to find only that Sawyer intended for state officials to deceive the public by breaching their common law duty to disclose a conflict of interest. 65 Our conclusion that the evidence adequately supported Sawyer's guilty plea is strengthened by our previous ruling in Sawyer, where we rejected his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence both with respect to his intent to influence and his intent to deceive. In addressing his challenge regarding the intent to influence legislators' official acts, we stated: 66 At trial, there was evidence that Sawyer intentionally and repeatedly provided legislators with valuable gifts of entertainment for the purpose of obtaining greater access to, and of developing a certain relationship with, legislators. A jury could credit Sawyer's defense that he thought his expenditures were lawful and that they were meant only for goodwill entertaining. Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, however . . . a jury could also rationally infer, beyond a reasonable doubt that Sawyer intended that his repeated gifts and gratuities would induce legislators to perform official acts to benefit Hancock's interests regardless of, or at the expense of, the public interest. 67 Sawyer, 85 F.3d at 731 (footnote and citations omitted). Seealso Woodward, 149 F.3d at 57 (noting, after summarizing the discussion of Sawyer's intent in Sawyer, The same inferences regarding Woodward's intent can be drawn from the evidence here, based upon the nature and sequences of events, certain explicit statements, and the suggestions of a cover-up.). 68 Similarly, we concluded in Sawyer that the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to agree that Sawyer intended to deceive citizens of Massachusetts. Having described Sawyer's awareness of the Massachusetts lobbying laws, by pointing to evidence of newspaper articles and binder notebooks he maintained on such legal obligations, we held, A jury rationally could infer that Sawyer was cognizant of his ethical obligations in lobbying, knew of the public awareness of lobbying activity, and repeatedly gave hidden unlawful gifts and gratuities until he was publicly exposed. Sawyer, 85 F.3d at 733. Noting that this evidence is not overwhelming, we nonetheless concluded that the combined evidence is sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Sawyer intended to deceive the public about his unlawful expenditures on legislators. Id. at 734. See also Woodward, 149 F.3d at 57 (describing, on similar facts, the suggestions of a cover-up regarding Sawyer's expenditures on Woodward and other legislators).