Opinion ID: 764420
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Criminal charge

Text: 14 Finally, Barrett argues that the district court improperly accepted his plea of guilty to bank fraud because his actual crime was a lesser offense in which the abuse of trust enhancement would have been implicit. This argument essentially challenges his guilty plea, because appellant contends that his crime did not constitute bank fraud. 1 Barrett contends that pursuant to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), the Bank of New York was not exposed to civil financial liability as a result of his conduct. 2 According to Barrett, this fact forecloses a criminal conviction for bank fraud because he did not victimize the bank. We assume without deciding that appellant did not waive this argument at the time of his guilty plea and find his contention to be without merit. 15 We read the bank fraud statute expansively. See United States v. Stavroulakis, 952 F.2d 686, 694 (2d Cir.1992). The well established elements of the crime of bank fraud are that the defendant (1) engaged in a course of conduct designed to deceive a federally chartered or insured financial institution into releasing property; and (2) possessed an intent to victimize the institution by exposing it to actual or potential loss. See Rodriguez, 140 F.3d at 167. The bank need not be the immediate victim of the fraudulent scheme. See id. at 168. In addition, the bank need not be actually victimized as long as a defendant acted with the requisite intent. See Stavroulakis, 952 F.2d at 694. Therefore, actual or potential loss to the bank is not an element of the crime of bank fraud but merely a description of the required criminal intent. 16 Barrett argues that his case is like Rodriguez, where no bank fraud was present, because the Bank of New York is not potentially liable for a monetary loss pursuant to the UCC. Rodriguez does not control the instant case. Although the panel in Rodriguez did mention civil liability under state law, it also noted that defendant in that case did not present forged or stolen checks for deposit and thus did not intend to victimize the bank. See Rodriguez, 140 F.3d at 168-69. In contrast, Barrett not only intended to defraud the bank by passing forged checks but he also engaged in a rather elaborate scheme to defraud when he obtained and cashed the checks. An essential step in Barrett's fraudulent scheme was his act of forging endorsements on the checks he obtained from Schumacher and cashing those checks at the Bank of New York. Without this step, Barrett would have realized no gain. 17 The key issue here is defendant's criminal intent, not the bank's civil liability. In this respect, Barrett's action of passing checks with forged signatures is significant. 3 In Stavroulakis, criminal liability attached where defendant trafficked in stolen blank checks because the checks ultimately would be passed to a drawee bank over a forged signature. See Stavroulakis, 952 F.2d at 695 (noting that [i]n most forgery situations, the bank will be legally liable, and, ... even in a number of those situations where the bank is not legally liable for paying over a forged signature, the bank will often swallow the loss for the customer). In another case, criminal liability attached where defendant obtained a check from a victim under false pretenses and then deposited it in a bank after falsely representing to the bank that he had authority to do so. See United States v. Morgenstern, 933 F.2d 1108, 1112-14 (2d Cir.1991). These cases instruct us to look at the entire circumstances of defendant's conduct as an indication of the requisite criminal intent. Barrett's conduct of passing approximately 100 false checks totaling $714,000 over a six-year period falls within these boundaries. Additional evidence of Barrett's criminal intent lies in his admission to authorities that he deposited the fraudulent checks because he was afraid to cash them outright, and he used automatic teller machines and the mail to avoid bank tellers' questions. 18 Because Barrett's conduct satisfied the elements of bank fraud, his guilty plea was proper. We reject Barrett's implicit challenge to his guilty plea because Barrett intentionally engaged in a course of conduct designed to deceive a financial institution into releasing property.