Opinion ID: 799367
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: IRS Form 8300

Text: Some of the charges against Hosseini were based on his repeated failure to file the required IRS Form 8300 when the dealerships received more than $10,000 in cash from a single customer. Form 8300 requires several pieces of information, including the buyer's name, address, Social Security number, and type of identification used when consummating the transaction. The government argued that Hosseini repeatedly and intentionally failed to file the forms to conceal the true nature and source of the purchase money involved in the transactions with drug dealers. But Hosseini filed Form 8300 in some transactions, and he sought to introduce evidence of 315 of these forms as proof that he did not intentionally violate the reporting requirement on the occasions charged by the government. The government moved to exclude this evidence, and the district court granted the motion, concluding that its probative value was substantially outweighed by the risk of confusing the issues, misleading the jury, and creating myriad collateral inquiries into the authenticity of the forms and the facts of the underlying transactions. Assuming the forms were marginally relevant to Hosseini's innocent mistake theory of defense, this evidence remains subject to Rule 403, and we see no reason to second-guess the district court's judgment on this point. The judge was validly concerned about the possibility of confusing the issues, misleading the jury, and especially wasting time on mini-trials about the provenance of the forms. The district court did not abuse its broad discretion in excluding this evidence.