Opinion ID: 795604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The District Court Properly Instructed the Jury Concerning Good Faith

Text: 26 Dupre and Stambaugh challenge the District Court's refusal to charge the jury with certain language that defendants had proposed concerning their good faith defense. The District Court included some language suggested by the defense but rejected other suggestions. 27 We will vacate a conviction on the basis of erroneous jury instructions if a defendant offered an accurate charge at trial and can demonstrate that the charge actually given instead caused her prejudice. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8-15, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) (holding that erroneous jury instruction entirely omitting an element of the offense charged is reviewed for harmless error); United States v. Abelis, 146 F.3d 73, 82 (2d Cir.1998) (An appellant bears the burden of showing that the requested instruction accurately represented the law in every respect and that, viewing as a whole the charge actually given, he was prejudiced. (internal quotation marks omitted)). 28 Here, the District Court correctly informed the jury that good faith constitutes a complete defense to charges of wire fraud. The District Court charged the jury that 29 [b]ecause an essential element of the crime charged is an intent to defraud, it follows that good faith on the part of the defendant is a complete defense to this charge. Each of the defendants contends that she had a good faith belief in the program and that she believed that what she told investors was true. . . . However[ ] misleading or deceptive a plan may be, it is not fraudulent if it was devised or carried out in good faith. 30 Trial Tr., Oct. 20, 2004, at 920. In a letter to the District Court, Stambaugh requested that the jury be charged as follows: 31 Stambaugh's defense is that she had no intent to commit the crimes charged and the government has failed to demonstrate her lack of good faith beyond a reasonable doubt. Ms. Stambaugh believed in `Roberta's Project'. . . . Believing in the legitimacy of the project, Ms. Stambaugh assisted Ms. Dupre. 32 She requested further that the jury be told that [a]t all times, Ms. Stambaugh acted at the direction of Ms. Dupre under the legitimate belief that her actions were authorized and good intentioned. We conclude that the District Court did not err, much less err in a manner prejudicial to the defendants, when it charged the jury concerning the defense of good faith. Stambaugh's requested language, the omission of which both defendants challenge on appeal, goes beyond the charge to which defendants were legally entitled and would have amounted to an instruction from the District Court that the government had not proven its case. 33 V. Neither the Jury Charge Nor Any Variance From the Indictment Undermines the Convictions on the Substantive Wire Fraud Count 34 Count Two of the indictment—the substantive wire fraud count—forms the basis of two issues on appeal. First, defendants argue that the prosecution's evidence at trial constructively amended or, in the alternative, impermissibly varied from the crime charged in the indictment. Second, defendants claim that the District Court's charge to the jury concerning Count Two created ambiguity as to whether the jury reached unanimity on certain factual determinations essential to a finding of guilt—specifically, a finding as to which particular wire transfer justified a guilty verdict. Because the specific wire transfer mentioned in the to wit clause of the indictment was not proven at trial, 10 a fact the prosecution now concedes, see Br. of Appellee at 57-58, 60, defendants claim that the ambiguity resulting from the jury charge makes it especially difficult to determine what wire transfer—if any—the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the entire jury. 35
36 A constructive amendment of an indictment occurs when `either the proof at trial or the trial court's jury instructions so altered an essential element of the charge that, upon review, it is uncertain whether the defendant was convicted of conduct that was the subject of the grand jury's indictment.' United States v. Salmonese, 352 F.3d 608, 620 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting United States v. Frank, 156 F.3d 332, 337 (2d Cir.1998)); see United States v. Ford, 435 F.3d 204, 215-16 (2d Cir.2006); United States v. Patino, 962 F.2d 263, 265 (2d Cir.1992) (An indictment is constructively amended when the proof at trial broadens the basis of conviction beyond that charged in the indictment.). By contrast, `[a] variance occurs when the charging terms of the indictment are left unaltered, but the evidence at trial proves facts materially different from those alleged in the indictment.' Salmonese, 352 F.3d at 621 (quoting Frank, 156 F.3d at 337 n. 5). A constructive amendment of an indictment constitutes a per se violation of the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Id. A defendant demonstrating a variance, however, must prove prejudice to prevail on her claim. Id. We decide whether a variance between an indictment and the proof at trial is prejudicial, and thus fatal to the prosecution, by determining whether the variance infringes on the substantial rights that indictments exist to protect—to inform an accused of the charges against him so that he may prepare his defense and to avoid double jeopardy. United States v. D'Anna, 450 F.2d 1201, 1204 (2d Cir. 1971) (internal quotation marks omitted). 37 We conclude that the prosecution did not constructively amend Count Two because the evidence at trial concerned the same elaborate scheme to defraud investors as was described in the indictment. The starting and ending dates of the conspiracy noted in the indictment correspond to the conspiracy proven at trial, and the evidence at trial demonstrated that defendants misled investors into believing that defendants would eventually be able to obtain the frozen funds purportedly belonging to the family of former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos described in the indictment. There was, however, clearly a variance because the particular wire transfer identified in the indictment was not proven at trial. At issue is whether the proof of a wire transfer other than that specified in the indictment prejudiced the defendants. We conclude that it did not. 38 The indictment alleged that Dupre ran an elaborate scheme to defraud investors, beginning in or about 1994, that Stambaugh participated in the scheme [s]tarting in or about October 2002, and that it continued until in or about February 2004. The description of the scheme in the indictment put defendants on notice that the prosecution aimed to prove that defendants conspired in the Southern District of New York to fraudulently induce investors to transfer money by wire to defendants between October 2002 and February 2004. 39 Although the prosecution points to no specific wire transfer either received in or sent from the Southern District of New York that was proven at trial, see May 26, 2006 Letter of Assistant United States Attorney Bret Williams, at 2 (acknowledging variance but contending that prosecution provided abundant evidence of domestic and international wire transfers, including wire transfers to various cities from New York City), upon our own review of the record we are satisfied that the prosecution produced evidence demonstrating that Dupre and Stambaugh caused victims to wire money to the Southern District of New York in furtherance of the fraud. For example, Jane L. Clark testified that after having met Stambaugh through the Internet, she spoke by phone in October 2002 with Stambaugh, who told Clark about an opportunity to realize a 500-to-1 return on money. Clark testified that she then called Dupre, who claimed to have been working on this project for . . . 8 years, promised 500-to-1 returns, and induced Clark to send money to Dupre by wire transfer. Clark stated that she transferred $2,000 by Western Union from Irving, Texas to New York City. In addition, Clark testified that she subsequently wire transferred more money to Dupre in New York, and the prosecution introduced into evidence Clark's receipts for the Western Union wire transfers she made. The prosecution also introduced the documents Dupre sent to Clark that purported to be letters from Global Exchange, Dupre's sham company, instructing the President of Citibank to pay Clark and her husband tens of millions of dollars. Clark testified that she understood the principal [whose money was frozen] was in the Philippines. 40 Because prosecutors generally disclose exhibits and witnesses' prior statements in advance of trial, see Fed. R.Crim. Pro. 16; cf. 18 U.S.C. § 3500, the testimony of Jane Clark and the documents related to it could not have surprised the defense. The defense knew that Clark possessed documents recording multiple interstate wire transfers of money sent into the Southern District of New York. We cannot see how the prosecution's proof of the wire transfers sent by Clark to Dupre, instead of the transfer specified in the to wit clause of Count Two, caused any prejudice to the defendants. Knowing that Clark would be called to testify, defense counsel had every incentive to discredit her testimony in any lawful and ethical manner possible. Both Dupre's counsel and Stambaugh's counsel conducted thorough cross-examinations of Clark. Nothing in the record suggests that the defense would have prepared any differently had the indictment specified a transfer via Western Union of $2,000 from Irving, Texas, instead of a transfer via Western Union of $2,000 from Liberty Township, Ohio. See, e.g., United States v. LaSpina, 299 F.3d 165, 183 (2d Cir.2002) (A variance is immaterial—and hence not prejudicial—where the allegation and proof substantially correspond, where the variance is not of a character that could have misled the defendant at the trial, and where the variance is not such as to deprive the accused of his right to be protected against another prosecution for the same offense. (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also United States v. Guidry, 406 F.3d 314, 322 (5th Cir.2005) (finding no variance when gun model listed in felon-in-possession indictment differed from model proven at trial); United States v. Loe, 248 F.3d 449, 465 (5th Cir.2001) (discerning no potential for . . . prejudice in case where three acts of mail fraud were proven at trial, whereas the indictment only charged one act); United States v. Von Stoll, 726 F.2d 584, 587 (9th Cir.1984) (finding no prejudice where the inconsistency [was] that the indictment specified that [defendant] took the money from one partner, while the proof showed he got it from the other). 41 Unlike cases in which multiple potential bases for conviction are presented in a single count of an indictment and the particular basis relied upon by the jury is unknown, see United States v. Margiotta, 646 F.2d 729 (2d Cir.1981), the prosecution here relies on a specific wire transfer not mentioned in the indictment at all. The indictment's to wit clause mentioned only one transfer, and, as noted above, all parties now agree that the prosecution did not prove that particular transfer at trial. Because neither the prosecution's summation nor the District Court's charge to the jury mentioned what specific transfer was relied upon, 11 neither we nor the defendants can know what single act substituted for that enumerated in the indictment. Nonetheless, we conclude that defendants suffered no prejudice as a result of the substitution. 12 The District Court charged the jury that it must reach a unanimous verdict, and it instructed the jury that it could find defendants guilty of Count Two only if it found them responsible for a fraudulent interstate wire transfer. 13 Had Count Two listed all the wire transfers about which witnesses might eventually testify at trial and had the trial judge informed the jury that unanimous agreement about any one of those transfers could justify a guilty verdict, our precedent would compel a conclusion that defendants had suffered no prejudice. See id. at 733. This case is not materially different from those in which we have found variances to be harmless. Accordingly, we reject defendants' argument that the prosecution's proof at trial constituted an impermissible variance from the crime charged in Count Two of the indictment. 42
43 Because of the variance from the indictment's to wit clause concerning the specific wire transfer serving as the gravamen of the offense, the District Court's charge to the jury on Count Two arguably left some doubt about what particular fraudulent wire transfer—if any—all jurors agreed occurred. The District Court charged, in relevant part, that 44 [t]he government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the wire communication occurred within the period of the scheme charged in the indictment. The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the wire communication was interstate or international . . . . 45 Trial Tr., Oct. 20, 2004, at 923. The District Court also included a standard instruction as to the need for unanimity: Your verdict must be unanimous. Id. at 938. The District Court did not, however, charge the jury that it must be unanimous as to the particular fraudulent wire transfer, if any, that the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 46 In several cases in which multiple predicates for guilt were offered to substantiate a single count of an indictment, we have held that as long as the jury receives a standard instruction as to unanimity, it is not reversible error if a trial judge fails to charge the jury that it must be unanimous as to the specific act that serves as the basis for a guilty verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Peterson, 768 F.2d 64, 66-68 (2d Cir.1985) (Friendly, J.) (affirming despite trial judge's failure to charge jury that it must be unanimous about which particular bag of drugs served as basis for conviction for possessing heroin with intent to distribute it); United States v. Natelli, 527 F.2d 311, 324-25 (2d Cir.1975) (affirming despite trial judge's refusal to charge jury that it must be unanimous about what particular false statement served as the basis for conviction for securities fraud); see also United States v. Murray, 618 F.2d 892, 898-99 (2d Cir.1980) (applying principle of Natelli where jury was not specifically instructed that it had to be unanimous as to which of two statutes defendants conspired to violate, but where general instruction on unanimity was given); United States v. Remington, 191 F.2d 246, 250 (2d Cir.1951) (holding that the requested charge on unanimity with respect to the specific basis for the offense was right and should be given if there is a new trial; but we are not prepared to hold the failure to give it was reversible error since the substance of it was probably covered, though not so explicitly, by the charge that the jury must be unanimous). 47 As we have previously observed, it would be sound practice for a trial judge to charge a jury that it must be unanimous as to what specific transaction serves as the basis of a conviction for wire fraud, but it is not reversible error if a trial judge fails to do so and provides a standard instruction as to unanimity. Accordingly, we decline to vacate the conviction for Count Two. 14