Opinion ID: 798947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Misjoinder of Counts One and Two

Text: Our review of the record shows that at trial there was no link, let alone a direct one, between the fraudulent insurance claim underlying the mail fraud count (Count One) and the unreported income underlying Count Two. The absence of a connection between the mail fraud and tax counts here is more pronounced than the situation we confronted in Shellef, a case in which we reversed a district court's denial of a motion to sever tax counts from counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. In concluding that severance was necessary, we observed that the tax violation took place before the conspiracy and wire fraud allegedly began, even though the businesses involved in the tax violation were also later used to perpetrate the non-tax crimes. Id. at 99. We explained that the fact that the businesses that produced the ... unreported income were also subsequently used to perpetrate the alleged conspiracy and wire fraud does not justify a conclusion that the offenses charged [satisfied] Rule 8(a). Id. Here, by contrast, there was no evidentiary overlap between the alleged tax violation involving Litwok and her investment companies in 1995 and the fraudulent home insurance claim submitted in 1997. See United States v. Page, 657 F.3d 126, 130 (2d Cir.2011), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 1041, 181 L.Ed.2d 765 (2012); United States v. Halper, 590 F.2d 422, 429 (2d Cir.1978).