Opinion ID: 543596
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The False Statement Count.

Text: 19 Schermerhorn was also convicted of making a false statement to a federally insured bank. To convict on this count, the government was obligated to prove that the bank was insured by the FDIC at the time the false statement was made. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1014 (1976). The only evidence of FDIC insurance that the government offered on this point, if read narrowly and literally, indicated that the bank was insured at the time of trial. Peter Dumas, a vice-president of Barclay's Bank and, at the time of Schermerhorn's loan application, the loan administrator who reviewed his application, testified that Barclay's deposits are insured by FDIC. There was no explicit testimony that the bank was insured at the time Schermerhorn made his false statement. 20 In claiming that Dumas' statement was insufficient proof, Schermerhorn points to United States v. Sliker, 751 F.2d 477 (2d Cir.1984), cert denied, 470 U.S. 1058, 105 S.Ct. 1772, 84 L.Ed.2d 832, 471 U.S. 1137, 105 S.Ct. 2679, 86 L.Ed.2d 697 (1985). Sliker and the present case are factually similar: in both cases, while the government had established insurance as of the time of trial, it had failed to elicit testimony that the bank in question was insured at the time of the crime. In his opinion, Judge Friendly castigated the prosecutor for failing to ask the simple question that would avoid the need for judicial consideration of what should be a non-problem   . Sliker, 751 F.2d at 484. We emphatically reiterate his reproach. 21 But in Sliker we did not hold that the failure to elicit this information was fatal to the government's case. On the contrary, we held that where the evidence is oral testimony that the bank is insured, and the interval between the crime and the trial is not too great, it is reasonable to conclude that 'viewed in context, the jury could draw the inference that the bank was insured at the time   .'  Sliker, 751 F.2d at 484-85 (citation omitted). Schermerhorn argues that because the time between his bank application and trial was roughly four or five months longer than the time interval in Sliker, Dumas' testimony was inadequate to prove that the bank was insured at the time of Schermerhorn's application. We do not agree. 22 Sliker did not establish a temporal boundary for cases of this type. The case holds that when the time span is not too great and there is no suggestion of an intervening circumstance that might call its previous existence into question testimony such as Dumas', although far from perfect, is acceptable. Sliker, 751 F.2d at 484. The four or five month difference in time between the circumstances in Sliker and here is not significant in the context of this case. The context of Dumas' testimony--in particular his involvement with Schermerhorn's loan application--indicates, in the absence of any contrary evidence, that the circumstances at trial were the same as those existing when Schermerhorn filed his loan application; thus, the jury could reasonably infer that the bank was insured at the time Schermerhorn applied for a loan. 23