Opinion ID: 170808
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inconsistency of Allegations

Text: Count 1 of the indictment alleges, in its entirety: From on or about April 3, 2000 and continuing through June 7, 2001, in the Northern District of Oklahoma and elsewhere, REDCORN and FROST, defendants herein, aiding and abetting each other, did knowingly and willfully embezzle, steal or otherwise convert to the use of a person other than the rightful owner and did intentionally misapply, approximately $1,264,000.00 of the monies, funds, premiums, credits, and other assets of HNIC, a health care benefit program as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 24b [sic]. All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2(a) and 669. R., Vol. I, Doc. 3, at 4 (emphasis added) [3] . This sets forth the charged offense in the words of the statute itself, and contains the date, place, and nature of the charged illegal activity. It is thus entirely sufficient to give the defendants fair notice and enable them to determine whether to raise a double jeopardy defense. That is all that our precedents require. The defendants point out, however, that the introduction to the indictment describes HNIC as an insurance company doing business in Oklahoma. Id. at 3. They contend that it is not possible for a private insurance company to be a health care benefit program as that term is defined in the Act, because a company is not a plan or contract. We are not necessarily persuaded. A private insurance company, which makes payments to providers for the cost of medical services, appears to be the private equivalent of Medicare or Medicaid. These are unquestionably health care programs under § 24(b). See United States v. Morgan, 505 F.3d 332, 341-42 (5th Cir.2007); United States v. McGovern, 329 F.3d 247, 248-49 (1st Cir. 2003) (collecting cases). But there are no precedents squarely on point, and this seems to be an open question. We need not answer it here. Whether HNIC actually was an insurance company is a matter of the evidence, not the indictment, and if it was not, then the issue is moot. Appellants' attempt to characterize the problem as one of internal inconsistency within the indictment gets them no farther. To succeed on such an argument they would have to demonstrate not only that insurance companies are not necessarily health care benefit programs, but that it is impossible for an insurance company also to be a health care benefit program. In light of the existence of hybrid arrangements like health maintenance organizations, which are both insurers and health care providers, we do not think this is impossible. (We are not saying that HNIC was a health maintenance organization, only that there is no logical inconsistency within the indictment.) Moreover, even if there were an inconsistency between the indictment's prefatory averment that HNIC was an insurance company and the averment in Count 1 that it was a health care benefit program, this would not render Count 1 insufficient. `Each count in an indictment is regarded as if it was a separate indictment.' United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 62, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984) (quoting Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 393, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932)). There is no need to look beyond the borders of a particular count to determine what offense is charged; indeed, it is generally improper to do so except where a count incorporates other allegations expressly, as permitted by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(c)(1). See United States v. Caldwell, 302 F.3d 399, 412 (5th Cir.2002); United States v. Stoner, 98 F.3d 527, 535 (10th Cir.1996). An indictment need not contain introductory or prefatory matter at all, see Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(c)(1), so if it does such matter is perforce superfluous unless expressly incorporated into one of the counts. `A part of the indictment unnecessary to and independent of the allegations of the offense [to be] proved may normally be treated as a useless averment that may be ignored.' United States v. Nickl, 427 F.3d 1286, 1301 (10th Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 136, 105 S.Ct. 1811, 85 L.Ed.2d 99 (1985)); see also, e.g., Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, 602, 47 S.Ct. 531, 71 L.Ed. 793 (1927) ([A] useless averment is innocuous and may be ignored.). We have here a situation not unlike that presented in United States v. Hajecate, 683 F.2d 894 (5th Cir.1982), in which the defendants claimed that the allegations of the indictment were inconsistent with the government's allegations in a bill of particulars provided, at defendants' request, to explain the indictment. Even if the bill was inconsistent with the indictment, the Fifth Circuit explained, the proper remedy is not dismissal of the indictment but clarification of the bill. The indictment ..., unless properly amended or superseded, constitutes the full statement of the charges against the defendants. Id. at 897; accord United States v. Arge, 418 F.2d 721, 724-25 (10th Cir.1969) (The indictment must stand on its allegations and whatever the bill of particulars contained in the way of variance from this allegation ... does not effect [sic] the sufficiency of the indictment.). The same reasoning applies to each count in an indictment, for each is to be treated as separate. Prefatory factual allegations inconsistent with one count of a thirty-one count indictment, we hold, can warrant dismissal of that count no more easily than factual allegations in a bill of particulars inconsistent with the very count the bill purports to explain. The case might be different in the unusual situation where an indictment's introductory matter made the instrument as a whole so confusing or misleading that a reasonable defendant would not be on fair notice of the charges against which he must defend. Chisum, 502 F.3d at 1244 (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Hajecate, 683 F.2d at 898 n. 2 (We ... will not countenance government tactics that confuse defendants by creating inconsistencies between the indictment and the bill.). But here, the defendants were on notice that they needed to defend against the charge of embezzling from a health care benefit program, and it was not necessary for the government to prove the extraneous allegations in the introduction or for defendants to defend against them. If it is true, as defendants contend, that the allegations about HNIC contained in the introduction and in Count 1 are mutually exclusive, the proper course would have been to wait until it was proved that HNIC was an insurance company and then argue the insufficiency of the evidence to support Count 1.