Opinion ID: 4531772
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Objections Raised by Manzoni

Text: In addition to Manzoni’s challenge to Special Agent Mesisca’s overview testimony, she also argues that (1) the District Court abused its discretion by allowing the prosecution to impeach a codefendant with an audio recording that implicated her; (2) the District Court erred when it joined the charges arising from her participation in the fraudulent activities at VOG and her charge of alleged unemployment fraud; and (3) there was insufficient evidence presented to the jury to sustain her fraud and conspiracy convictions. We will address each of these issues in turn.
Discretion in Admitting Evidence of a Phone Call to a Victim During trial, it came to light that some defendants had engaged in witness tampering. The government sought to enter the recording of a phone call between one of the defense witnesses, Dennis Nadeau, and a victim, David Jasper, showing an attempt at such tampering. Manzoni objected to admission of the recording on two grounds. At first, she argued that it was unduly prejudicial under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 because, though the evidence of tampering was not being offered against her, she was the subject of the victim’s complaint. But this was not apparent from the phone call itself; Manzoni was never actually named by the victim. So she also argued that the phone call should be excluded as hearsay. She presents these same arguments on appeal.
under Rule 403 Manzoni asserts that the District Court abused its discretion under Rule 403 by allowing the recording of the phone call into evidence. “We generally review a district court’s evidentiary findings for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Bailey, 840 F.3d 99, 117–18 (3d Cir. 2016). Rule 403 allows relevant evidence to be excluded when its probative 33 value is substantially outweighed by the potential for unfair prejudice. Id. at 117. When a district court conducts an on-therecord weighing of probative value against unfair prejudice, its evidentiary decision is entitled to great deference. Id. “In order to justify reversal, a district court’s analysis and resulting conclusion must be arbitrary or irrational.” Id. In this case, the District Court conducted an on-therecord Rule 403 analysis—both orally and in a later written order. The District Court found that the phone call’s “probative value as to the consciousness of guilt” outweighed any prejudice. App. 5015:3–5. But it also recognized that there could be some spillover effect for Manzoni, so it acted to mitigate that unfair prejudice by offering multiple curative instructions—including one drafted by Manzoni. The District Court’s analysis and its conclusion were neither arbitrary nor irrational. We therefore find no abuse of the District Court’s discretion under Rule 403, and we will uphold the District Court’s decision to allow the recording into evidence.
hearsay purpose, it was not hearsay Manzoni next argues that the phone call was hearsay. “Whether a statement is hearsay is a legal question subject to plenary review.” United States v. Price, 458 F.3d 202, 205 (3d Cir. 2006). Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(c), “hearsay” is any statement that a declarant makes outside of court and that is offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement. Statements offered for non-hearsay purposes are not hearsay. See Price, 458 F.3d at 211. As the advisory committee’s notes to the rule make clear, statements that are offered merely to show that they happened are not offered for a hearsay purpose. See Fed. R. Evid. 801 note (subdiv. (c)) (citing Emich Motors Corp. v. General Motors Corp., 181 F.2d 70 (7th Cir. 1950), rev’d on other grounds 340 U.S. 558 (1951)). The recording of the phone call between Nadeau and Jasper was not offered to prove the truth of any of Jasper’s assertions, but to show that Nadeau had in fact contacted some of the victims. So the phone call was not hearsay, and Manzoni has failed to show that the District Court abused its discretion by allowing it into evidence. 34
of Her VOG-Fraud and Employment-Fraud Charges In separate counts, Manzoni was charged with fraud and conspiracy for her participation in the VOG scheme, and with fraud for allegedly collecting unemployment benefits from the State of New Jersey while she was employed at VOG. Manzoni moved to sever the charges under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8. Although the District Court recognized that the propriety of joinder here was a close question, it denied her motion. Manzoni argues that it was error to join her VOG-fraud and unemployment-fraud charges because they lacked a sufficient nexus and were not part of the same transaction. The appeal of a denial of a motion under Rule 8 is a claim of legal error, which we review de novo. United States v. Jimenez, 513 F.3d 62, 82 (3d Cir. 2008). Joinder is controlled by Rule 8. Generally, Rule 8(a) addresses joinder of offenses and Rule 8(b) joinder of defendants. But Rule 8(a) only applies to prosecutions involving a single defendant; “in a multi-defendant case such as this, the tests for joinder of counts and defendants is merged in Rule 8(b).” United States v. Irizarry, 341 F.3d 273, 287 (3d Cir. 2003) (internal quotations omitted). “Although the standards of Rule 8(a) and Rule 8(b) are similar, in that they both require a transactional nexus between the offenses or defendants to be joined, Rule 8(a) is more permissive than Rule 8(b) because Rule 8(a) allows joinder on an additional ground, i.e., when the offenses are of the same or similar character.” Id. at 287 n.4 (citations and internal quotations omitted); see also Jimenez, 513 F.3d at 82 (“[J]oinder of defendants under Rule 8(b) is a stricter standard than joinder of counts against a single defendant under Rule 8(a).”). For joinder of Manzoni’s cases to have been proper under Rule 8(b), they either would have had to originate “in the same act or transaction,” or have otherwise been integral to one another. See United States v. Riley, 621 F.3d 312, 334 (3d Cir. 2010). The District Court determined that joinder was proper because Manzoni’s employment in the VOG scheme was integral to the unemployment-fraud charge: she was charged with fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits while she 35 was employed by, and receiving compensation from, VOG. But the opposite is not necessarily true. Rather, Manzoni suggests, allegations that she illicitly collected unemployment benefits would not have been integral to her participation in the VOG scheme, so joinder was improper. But even assuming, arguendo, that Manzoni is correct, the District Court still did not commit reversible error. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a), we must disregard “[a]ny error, defect, irregularity, or variance that does not affect substantial rights ….” We have explained that “an error involving misjoinder affects substantial rights and requires reversal only if the misjoinder results in actual prejudice because it had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Jimenez, 513 F.3d at 83 (brackets and internal citations omitted). Here, any potential misjoinder would have been harmless because the record shows that the joinder did not influence the jury’s verdict against Manzoni; after all, she was acquitted of the allegedly misjoined charge. Because Manzoni’s employment at VOG was integral to the unemployment-fraud charges, unfair prejudice in this case can only flow in one direction. That is, it would have been proper for the jury to conclude that, because Manzoni was employed and receiving compensation with the VOG scheme, she was committing fraud by receiving unemployment benefits from the State of New Jersey. It would have been improper, however, for the jury to conclude that, because Manzoni committed unemployment fraud, she must also have participated in the VOG fraud. But the jury did not reach that conclusion; rather, it convicted Manzoni of her role in the VOG scheme despite acquitting her of unemployment fraud. So joinder of the fraud counts did not affect the jury’s verdict and any error in joining the charges was harmless.
Sufficient Evidence Finally, Manzoni challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support her fraud and conspiracy convictions. Our standard of review on a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is plenary. United States v. Boria, 592 F.3d 476, 480 36 (3d Cir. 2010). But that plenary review is greatly tempered by giving substantial deference to the jury’s finding of guilt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318–19 (1979). Employing that deference, and applying the applicable legal standards, we find the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdict. The Supreme Court of the United States has explained: [T]he critical inquiry on review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction must be … to determine whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But this inquiry does not require a court to ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at the trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 318–19 (internal quotations and citations omitted). In conducting this review, all reasonable inferences must be drawn in favor of sustaining the verdict. United States v. Anderskow, 88 F.3d 245, 251 (3d Cir. 1996). Reversal of a conviction is only appropriate where there is “no evidence, regardless of how it is weighted, from which the jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Mussare, 405 F.3d 161, 166 (3d Cir. 2005). Manzoni was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1349 and wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343. To prove wire fraud, the government had to show that Manzoni had the intent to commit fraud. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343. So the question here is whether Manzoni’s participation in the VOG scheme was knowing or intentional. Manzoni argues that the evidence presented at trial at most showed that she said things as a VOG representative that were not true, not that she was a knowing participant in the fraud. She claims that this case should be controlled by United 37 States v. Pearlstein, 576 F.2d 531, 542–43 (3d Cir. 1978), in which we reversed the fraud convictions of lowly sales representatives who only read from a sales script, without knowing that the script contained false statements. In light of the evidence admitted at trial, we find that Pearlstein does not apply. First, Manzoni was no lowly sales representative—she was one of the managers at VOG. From her position as a manager, and her long experience in the timeshare industry, a jury could reasonably infer that she knew that statements in VOG’s phone scripts were false. Second, even before she was a manager, while working as one of VOG’s closers, Manzoni did more than just mechanically read false statements from a controlled sales script. She showed initiative by inventing fake payoff amounts for the customers, without approval—much less direction—from her supervisors, and then creating urgency by imposing arbitrary deadlines by which these (fake) offers had to be accepted before they expired. Based on this evidence, as the District Court correctly found, a reasonable jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Manzoni was “a knowing, even integral part, of [the] fraud scheme.” SA 1151.