Opinion ID: 411647
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Overheard conversation

Text: 19 The government produced evidence that appellant had misrepresented to client Catherine Sawyer that a premium payment she made would cover the policy for her lifetime and that she purchased the policy in reliance on that misrepresentation. Appellant attempted to introduce into evidence the testimony of his former secretary that she had overheard a conversation between appellant and Mrs. Sawyer in which they discussed a five year and a seven year prepayment of premiums. The testimony was offered as a prior inconsistent statement of a witness, for purposes of impeachment. The court refused to accept the testimony because it failed to meet the requirement of Rule 613(b)(2) that a witness be given an opportunity to explain or deny extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement. 20 Appellant argues that the event of the phone conversation did not constitute a prior inconsistent statement by Mrs. Sawyer, that the testimony was not hearsay because it was offered not for the truth of anything overheard but to show that the conversation took place, and that the occurrence of the phone conversation was relevant to rebut the government's evidence that appellant had misrepresented the payment as a lifetime premium. We agree that the testimony was thus admissible. But no such offer of proof was made at trial. Counsel offered the testimony only in terms of impeachment. Our standard of review is therefore plain error. Rule 103 Fed.R.Evid. 21 We find that proof that Mrs. Sawyer purchased the insurance policy in question under false pretenses was in no way essential to the sufficiency of evidence in any of the counts against appellant. Both counts involving Mrs. Sawyer revolved around appellant's fraudulent conversion of a refund check from a wholly different policy. Any error in excluding the offered testimony does not, therefore, satisfy the plain error standard.