Opinion ID: 47769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of the Vehicle Theft Testimony

Text: Lee asserts that the testimony by the Army investigator that Lee had stolen a Chevy Suburban while on a patrol in Iraq during Desert Storm is extrinsic to the charged offenses, inadmissible character evidence, and unfairly prejudicial. This contention may be correct. To establish the admissibility of this evidence as “intrinsic” to the charged offenses, the Government had to prove that the events in 1991 and his fraudulent Office of Worker’s Compensation Program (“OWCP”) disability claims years later were “inextricably intertwined” incidents and are part of the same criminal transaction. See United States v. Morgan, 117 F.3d 849, 860 (5th Cir. 1997) (uncharged offense must arise out of same transaction as the charged offense to avoid proscription of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)). Nonetheless, in light of the substantial body of inculpatory evidence apart from the theft testimony, the 2 error was harmless and caused no prejudice to Lee. See United States v. Buck, 324 F.3d 786, 789 (5th Cir. 2003).