Opinion ID: 3049934
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Swann and PUGH’s Challenges to Counts 90-100

Text: In the Swann trial, Swann, PUGH, and Yessick were convicted of eleven counts (90-100) of honest services mail fraud under §§ 1341 and 1346. The convictions involve Swann’s receiving landscaping services worth $140,000 from PUGH and Yessick. On appeal, Swann and PUGH claim the evidence was insufficient to support their convictions.62 To establish a violation of § 1341, the government must show the defendant “(1) intentionally participates in a scheme or artifice to defraud another of money or property, and (2) uses or ‘causes’ the use of the mails . . . for the purpose of executing the scheme or artifice.” United States v. Ward, 486 F.3d 1212, 1222 60 This Court adopted as binding precedent all Fifth Circuit decisions prior to October 1, 1981. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc). 61 To the extent defendant-appellants make sufficiency of the evidence arguments as to any other § 666 conviction counts, we reject them as without merit. 62 Yessick does not appeal. On appeal, Swann and PUGH do not challenge the constitutionality of the honest services statute. Instead, Swann raises two claims: (1) insufficient evidence to sustain his §§ 1341, 1346 convictions, and (2) the district court erred by refusing to give a “good faith” instruction to the jury. PUGH adopted Swann’s claim of insufficient evidence. 81 (11th Cir. 2007).63 Section 1346 adds “honest services” language to the § 1341 offense, providing that “the term ‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” 18 U.S.C. § 1346. “To prove ‘honest services’ mail fraud, the Government must show that the accused intentionally participated in a scheme or artifice to deprive the persons or entity to which the defendant owed a fiduciary duty of the intangible right of honest services, and used the United States mails to carry out that scheme or artifice.” United States v. Browne, 505 F.3d 1229, 1265 (11th Cir. 2007). When a public official “secretly makes his decision based on his own personal interests — as when an official accepts a bribe or personally benefits from an undisclosed conflict of interest — the official has defrauded the public of his honest services.” United States v. Lopez-Lukis, 102 F.3d 1164, 1169 (11th Cir. 1997). Here, Swann received approximately $100,000 in landscaping and lawn 63 Section 1341 provides in pertinent part: Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, . . . places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 1341. 82 maintenance from a company (PUGH) that he had the power to favor in the sewer rehabilitation program. In the summer of 2000, after Swann told PUGH’s Yessick he had overspent in remodeling his house, Yessick hired Guthrie Landscaping to landscape Swann’s two properties. By December 2001, PUGH had paid Guthrie more than $93,000, including $1,200 per month in 2001 for lawn maintenance. In January 2002, Yessick asked Guthrie to stop submitting invoices to PUGH and instead advanced Guthrie $47,000 for three years of landscaping and maintenance. PUGH paid a total of approximately $140,000 to Guthrie for landscaping work for the Swanns.64 Although Swann contends there was “no bribe” and none of this was “done in secrecy,” the evidence shows PUGH and Swann took steps to conceal any record of the services provided to Swann. Guthrie mailed its invoices to PUGH and, at Yessick’s request, identified the work by job number only. Yessick directed PUGH’s controller to charge the expense to the Metro Park Roadway, a County job. Guthrie’s invoices were never found in PUGH’s files. After Swann and Yessick learned of the investigation, Guthrie was abruptly asked to stop working at Swann’s home, even though there was a balance 64 In addition to the substantive bribery counts against Swann (Count 52) and PUGH (Count 61) for these landscaping services, both defendants were convicted of separate counts (Counts 90-100) of honest services mail fraud for payments PUGH made by mail to Guthrie. 83 remaining on its $47,000 advance. In August and September 2002, approximately two years after hiring Guthrie, Yessick directed his assistant to create invoices to Swann’s mother and mother-in-law for landscaping, tree removal, and “remodeling work.” The Swanns then took out home equity loans in the names of their mothers, and wrote two checks to PUGH totaling approximately $59,000 on joint accounts they held with their mothers. Yessick gave these checks directly to PUGH’s controller, telling her they were partial payment for $105,000 in landscaping work PUGH had done, which work he had previously directed her to record as “miscellaneous AR.” Yessick told the controller to credit the $59,000 in checks to PUGH as “miscellaneous income” and “to write off” the approximately $46,000 that remained. Swann contends that PUGH merely located the landscaping contractor and that he always intended to reimburse PUGH for payments to Guthrie. However, PUGH and Swann concealed the landscaping arrangement. The concealment itself is strong evidence that Swann accepted these services not as a loan, but as a bribe. See United States v. Hunt, 521 F.3d 636, 646-47 (6th Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 2157 (2009); United States v. Dial, 757 F.2d 163, 170 (7th Cir. 1985). Swann also claims he was unable to, and did not, assist PUGH in any way. Yet, five days after PUGH’s President Yessick hired Guthrie to landscape Swann’s 84 two properties, Swann granted a 180-day extension for PUGH’s joint venture on the Vestavia Trunk project. That extension saved PUGH’s joint venture $180,000 in potential liquidated damages. Two months earlier, Swann had denied a 120-day extension request on the same project, noting that timely completion of the project was “a requirement of the specifications.” And in 2000, Swann approved a $827,417.75 field directive for PUGH’s Paradise Lake project and caused it to be charged to the unrelated Cahaba River project. As noted earlier, Barber had designated the project as an emergency, and then Swann later approved this field directive. The evidence fully supports the jury’s guilty verdict on Counts 90-100 as to Swann and PUGH.65