Opinion ID: 3171512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Satisfied-Investor Testimony

Text: In a written opinion, the court granted the government’s motion in limine to exclude evidence of satisfied investors, adopting the Eleventh Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Elliott, 62 F.3d 1304 (11th Cir. 1995). There, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the argument that satisfied investors’ testimony could disprove a defendant’s intent to defraud. Id. at 1308. “No amount of testimony from satisfied customers could ‘average out’ [the defendants’] intent to defraud when they continued to solicit new investments and reassure old investors while - 16 - Case Nos. 13-2380, 13-2381, 13-2591, 15-1370, United States v. Bravata concealing millions of dollars in losses per year.” Id. Indeed, the court recognized, Ponzi schemes inevitably include investors who make money. Id. at 1309 n.5. Following Elliott, the district court found that “[n]o amount of ‘good deed’ evidence relating to other investors can refute the testimony of investors who felt that they were defrauded by Defendants’ conduct.” Satisfied-investor testimony would invite the jury to “average out” all investors’ experiences at BBC Equities instead of evaluating the fourteen counts of wire fraud. This decision, Bravata argues, impinged on his Sixth Amendment right to present a complete defense. He first claims that Elliott is inapplicable to his case, but fails to distinguish it. As in Elliot, the exclusion of satisfied-investor testimony focused the jury on Bravata’s intent, not investors’ beliefs. Elliott, 62 F.3d at 1038; see also United States v. Biesiadecki, 933 F.2d 539, 544 (7th Cir. 1991) (“The excluded testimony of the other . . . customers would have improperly shifted the jury’s attention away from the knowledge and intent of Biesiadecki and focused instead on the beliefs of the victims of the alleged scheme to defraud.”). The court did not abuse its discretion in following Elliott. Pivoting away from Elliott, Bravata next argues that the court should have permitted him to ask the satisfied investors why they invested. If, as he claims, the satisfied investors received an honest sales pitch, “it would have been powerful evidence in support of the defendant[’]s defense that he did not make the alleged representations.” But in fact, evidence of other investors is irrelevant to the fourteen counts of wire fraud. And under the conspiracy charge, the government never had to prove the investors heard actual misrepresentations, just Bravata’s intent to defraud. - 17 - Case Nos. 13-2380, 13-2381, 13-2591, 15-1370, United States v. Bravata