Opinion ID: 2426901
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Testimony of Langley's Other Acts

Text: We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, subject to harmless-error analysis. United States v. Cantu, 167 F.3d 198, 203 (5th Cir.1999). [F]or any of the evidentiary rulings to be reversible error, the admission of the evidence in question must have substantially prejudiced [the defendant's] rights. United States v. Sanders, 343 F.3d 511, 519 (5th Cir.2003). Langley appeals her convictions on the basis that the district court abused its discretion when it allowed the Government to present testimony that Langley provided alcoholic beverages and marijuana to two PCS clients under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) as either intrinsic or extrinsic evidence of health care fraud. Rule 404(b) only limits the admissibility of extrinsic evidence, not intrinsic evidence. See United States v. Sumlin, 489 F.3d 683, 689 (5th Cir.2007). Evidence of an act is intrinsic when it and evidence of the crime charged are inextricably intertwined, or both acts are part of a single criminal episode, or it was a necessary preliminary to the crime charged. Id. Intrinsic evidence is admissible to complete the story of the crime by proving the immediate context of events in time and place and to evaluate all of the circumstances under which the defendant acted. United States v. Rice, 607 F.3d 133, 141 (5th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). If evidence is extrinsic, Rule 404(b) and United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc), require that we first determine that the extrinsic evidence is relevant to an issue other than the defendant's character, i.e., motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. Sanders, 343 F.3d at 518. Second `the evidence must possess probative value that is not substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice and must meet the other requirements of Rule 403.' Id. (quoting United States v. Anderson, 933 F.2d 1261, 1269 (5th Cir.1991)). Langley was charged with conspiracy and with thirteen counts of health care fraud for knowingly preparing fraudulent PCS time sheets for Medicaid reimbursement with the intent to defraud. Langley's theory of defense was that she was just doing what she had been told to do when she filled out her time sheets, and that she did not know it was wrong or fraudulent to record times and activities she did not actually performthat is, that she lacked the specific intent to defraud. At trial, Langley testified that: she took care of her PCS charges; she did not know anything illegal was going on; that she did not know she was doing anything wrong; and Lee made her change her time sheets so Medicaid would accept them and they all would get paid. Langley testified that she put in the time with her PCS clients listed on the time sheets and worked more than the hours claimed, but that the specific times and activities listed were not always accurate. She testified that she never questioned Akasia Lee on anything, I just did my job. She further testified that she never saw her clients' POCs and was never instructed to follow a POC. The Government introduced evidence that Langley's PCS clients smoked marijuana and drank alcohol in her care. To prove its case, the Government had Joyce and Jonus Perrier, two of Langley's former PCS clients who were 13-years old when Langley committed her crimes, testify. Joyce Perrier testified that when Langley was supposed to be providing PCS services in their home, she brought Joyce and Jonus over to her house where Joyce watched television and Jonus smoked marijuana with Langley's boyfriend. She also testified that Langley gave her alcohol. Jonus testified that Langley brought them over to her house and that he smoked marijuana and drank alcoholic beverages at her house. The Government claimed that this evidence was necessary to prove Langley's specific intent to commit health care fraud and that she knew that the services she provided could never be mistaken as Medicaid-reimbursable PCS. After a hearing on the motion (among other motions in limine), the district court issued a written order that, inter alia, granted the Government's motion in limine to admit the testimony without specifying the theory under which it was allowing the evidence. This testimony is not intrinsic to Langley's crimes. The criminal episodes charged were Langley's fraudulent completion and submission of the PCS time sheets for the children in her care, which occurred separate from when Joyce and Jonus engaged in the illicit activities at Langley's home. Evidence of drug and alcohol use in Langley's home, therefore, is not part of a single criminal episode, nor does it complete the story of the crime by proving the immediate context of events in time and place. While the Government argues that the drug and alcohol use is inextricably intertwined with the crimes charged and helpful to evaluate all of the circumstances under which Langley acted, the drug and alcohol use is much more removed in time and space fromand significantly less similar thanthe criminal acts charged in other cases in which we have found other-acts evidence to be intrinsic. See Rice, 607 F.3d at 141-42 (finding that the defendants' four unsuccessful robbery attempts were intrinsic to the crime charged of carjacking the same night); United States v. Coleman, 78 F.3d 154, 156 (5th Cir.1996) (holding that evidence that the defendants had attempted to carjack two other luxury cars on the same day before carjacking a Mercedes the crime chargedwas intrinsic). Nor does the evidence of drug and alcohol use closely go to the conspiracy charge, a crime for which we have given greater latitude in classifying evidence as intrinsic. See United States v. Brown, 388 Fed. Appx. 455, 460 (5th Cir.2010) (per curiam) (unpublished) (ruling that the defendants' drug use was intrinsic to a conspiracy to steal mail, because the conspiracy's origin was a desire to obtain financial information from the mail in order to purchase merchandise that would later be traded for drugs); United States v. Watkins, 591 F.3d 780, 784-85 (5th Cir.2009) (finding no plain error where a district court admitted as intrinsic evidence that the defendant admitted involvement in prior drug runs to establish how a cocaine conspiracy was structured and operated, and explaining that other-acts evidence may be admissible in conspiracy cases). Rather, the evidence relates to Langley's mental state when she filled out the PCS time sheets, which is extrinsic to the individual health care fraud counts. While we remain skeptical that the Perriers' testimony would pass a Rule 403 analysis as required for extrinsic evidence under Beechum and Rule 404(b), we need not decide whether the district court abused its discretion in admitting the evidence because its admission was nevertheless harmless and did not substantially prejudice Langley's rights. Joyce's and Jonus's testimony regarding drug and alcohol use at Langley's home was only one portion of their testimony, which focused on what PCS services Langley did not do for them. Langley and two of her adult children contradicted the Perriers' testimony and testified that no alcohol or drugs were ever served in Langley's home. In closing, the Government mentioned Joyce's and Jonus's testimony about alcohol and drug use only very briefly, and emphasized that the case was about Langley lying on her PCS forms and not about Langley being confused about what constituted PCS services. Compared to all the evidence presented against Langley, Joyce's and Jonus's testimony about marijuana and alcohol was given very little time at trial. Given the relatively small portion of the Government's case against Langley that it constituted, its admittance at trial was harmless.