Opinion ID: 6929859
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Owen Landman

Text: Landman was convicted of conspiracy and six counts of bank fraud in connection with his facilitation of down payment arrangements for Dean Street. 35 Ample evidence exists to support the finding that Landman knew a down payment requirement existed and that he knew about the various fraudulent methods used to avoid that requirement. As in Ward’s case, however, the evidence is not sufficient to show Landman participated in the execution of a scheme to defraud for four out of the six bank fraud counts. Landman acted as an escrow agent for a number of the condominium closings and one of his main responsibilities was receiving down payments from buyers and transferring them to the seller, Dean Street. Mardero-sian testified that he told Landman that Gau-vin and Granoff would be funding down payments for the initial purchasers and Land-man should hold that down payment money. Landman knew that the down payment funds were being returned to whoever provided them as Landman himself delivered the money back to its source on several occasions. 36 Landman also knew about the fraudulent second mortgages that were supposed to cover part of the down payment. He knew the buyers were signing meaningless promissory notes for second mortgages at the closings because Marderosian told him beforehand that the mortgages would be discharged. At the closings, several buyers asked Landman when the mortgages would be released as promised because the discharge letter accomplishing this was not part of the closing documents (presumably so Bay Loan would not see the letter). Landman made gestures to these buyers to indicate that they should not talk to him about it. 37 All these facts, taken together, support the jury’s conclusion that Landman knew that something illegal was being done to get around the down payment requirement. We reject Landman’s argument that there is insufficient evidence to prove he knew Bay Loan was the target of the scheme to defraud. To begin with, Brandon was “completely open” about Bay Loan’s involvement and told a number of people involved in the scheme. Several buyers testified that they knew about Bay Loan, including one person whose only involvement was his purchase of a single unit. Landman shared office space with Brandon’s point man in the scheme, Marderosian, who was intimately involved in all the details of the scheme. Finally, the closing documents included a letter indicating Bay Loan was the ultimate lender; 38 Landman acted as escrow agent for many of the closings and also conducted a few of them himself. 39 Sufficient evidence exists to support the jury’s verdict on the conspiracy count and on Counts 21 and 22. Counts 21 and 22 allege bank fraud in connection with the closings of two units at the Hillside Motel. The evidence reveals that Landman returned the down payment funds provided by Reisch in connection with these transactions back to Reisch in violation of the down payment requirement. 40 In addition, one Dean Street employee, Marie Lynch, testified that, in general, she would bring buyers’ certified down payment checks to Landman after money was wired by Reisch to the buyers’ accounts to accomplish the certification. Lynch testified that she once saw Landman write a check to Reisch for the amount of the down payment funds she had just brought to him. Lynch did not specify which transactions she was referring to in her testimony but the record does contain checks written by Landman to Reisch for the exact amount of the down payment funds wired by Reisch for the Hillside purchases referred to in Counts 21 and 22. 41 We therefore find the evidence sufficient to support the convictions for bank fraud charged in Counts 21 and 22. This evidence is also sufficient to show willful participation in the conspiracy and thus supports Landman’s conviction on Count l. 42 Landman argues that his actions were just a normal and proper function of his job as escrow agent. His responsibilities, he claims, were strictly limited to receiving and distributing money at Dean Street’s direction. See United States v. Bruun, 809 F.2d 397, 402-03, 410 (7th Cir.1987). This “just following orders” defense cannot stand in the face of the evidence showing that Landman knew down payments were being falsified, that he agreed to safeguard Reisch’s down payment funds, and that he personally falsified two down payments by returning the funds to Reisch. The evidence was sufficient to indicate that Landman’s intent was to participate in transactions designed to deceive Bay Loan. With respect to Counts 23 through 26, relating to closings at the Sandcastle Motel, no checks written by, or to, Landman that involved down payment funds were in evidence. The government stipulated that the relevant cheeks for these transactions were forgeries. In particular, Landman’s signature on the checks for the Sandcastle transactions were forged by Marderosian. 43 It is true that Landman conducted the closings for the Sandcastle units and thus in some sense facilitated the scheme to defraud, 44 but that alone is not sufficient to show that Landman participated in the relevant act of fraudulently violating the down payment requirement for those individual transactions. On the contrary, it seems that Landman never saw the down payment cheeks as the money did not go through his escrow account. Instead, the checks were transferred directly to Reisch. We note that Landman also conducted closings for units at the Atlantic Inn-Narragansett, but the jury acquitted Landman on the charges connected to those transactions (Counts 16 and 17) apparently because it found the act of conducting the closings was, by itself, insufficient to establish the execution of a scheme to defraud. For Counts 23 through 26, once the stipulated forgeries are removed from consideration, there is similarly little evidence to support a conviction beyond the fact that Landman conducted the closings. While the jury is not held to consistent results, we think that the acquittal on Counts 16 and 17 reinforces our judgment that (absent some confusion about the forged checks), 45 there was insufficient evidence to convict on Counts 23 through 26. Because the evidence is insufficient to prove that Landman executed or aided in the execution of the schemes to defraud Bay Loan charged in Counts 23 through 26, we reverse his conviction on those counts.