Opinion ID: 1248471
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence on Count Two

Text: We start with simplest issue, Ratliff-White's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence offered to prove the charges alleged in Count Two.
Evidence that wire transmissions occur in the usual course of business is ordinarily sufficient to show that a particular wire transmission occurred on a given occasion. See, e.g., Alexander, 135 F.3d at 474-75. However, if the defendant counters with evidence that the party deviated from its usual practice, the government can no longer rely on standard procedure evidence to prove that a particular wire transmission occurred. See, e.g., United States v. Swinson, 993 F.2d 1299, 1300-02 (7th Cir.1993). Here, the government maintains that Alice Merculief's testimony describing the Treasury's standard procedure for processing payments on behalf of the VA proves that instructions for the payment of $9,150 to CHHS flowed from the Treasury in Hyattsville, Maryland to the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, Texas on August 15, 2002. We agree. Because there was no evidence of deviation from standard practice as to the August payment, the government's reliance on Merculief's testimony was proper.
A defendant knowingly causes another to make a wire transmission if the defendant knows that a wire transmission will occur in the ordinary course of business or where the use of wires could be reasonably foreseen. See Am. Auto. Accessories, Inc., 175 F.3d at 542; Alexander, 135 F.3d at 475. Ratliff-White contends that the government failed to prove that the transmission of payment instructions from Hyattsville to Dallas  an admittedly obscure internal procedure  was foreseeable. Her argument misses the mark, however, because she overstates the government's burden. To satisfy the causation element, the government need only show that the defendant knew that some use of the wires would follow. Our case law does not require that a specific mailing or wire transmission be foreseen. See Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 8-9, 74 S.Ct. 358, 98 L.Ed. 435 (1954) (Where one does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended, then he `causes' the mails to be used.); Am. Auto. Accessories, Inc., 175 F.3d at 542 (Appellants need not show that Fishman himself utilized the mail or wire services, but only that he caused the mail or wire services to be used by acting with the knowledge that their use would `follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use [could] reasonably be foreseen.'); Alexander, 135 F.3d at 474-75 (It is not necessary that Alexander himself utilized the mails. It is instead sufficient if he caused the mails to be used, which he would do by acting `with the knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen.' ); United States v. Hickok, 77 F.3d 992, 1004 (7th Cir.1996) (The `use of the mails' element is satisfied if a defendant `knowingly causes the mails to be used in furtherance of a scheme to defraud.'); see also United States v. Pimental, 380 F.3d 575, 589 (1st Cir.2004) ([I]t is simply `use of the mail' in the course of the scheme rather than the particular mailing at issue that must be reasonably foreseeable for the causation element of a mail fraud offense to be satisfied.). [2] Given that the defendant knew that payments to CHHS would be electronically transmitted to her account, she clearly foresaw that her fraud on the VA would result in wire transmissions. With respect to Count Two, then, the evidence was sufficient to show both that a wire transmission occurred on August 15, 2002, and that Ratliff-White caused a wire transmission in furtherance of her scheme on that day. [3]