Opinion ID: 3185495
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jameel Laws

Text: Like Lareka Laws, Jameel Laws challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions for conspiracy to defraud the United States and for making false claims to the IRS. Jameel Laws asserts that there was insufficient evidence of an agreement to commit an illegal act, insufficient evidence of an unlawful objective on his part, and insufficient evidence of an act done in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy. We review the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict and accepting all reasonable inferences in support of the verdict. United States v. Armstrong, 782 F.3d 1028, 1035 (8th Cir. 2015). The evidence against Laws included a tax return filed in his name and prepared by his sister Lareka Laws claiming a first-time homebuyer credit; the deposit of the associated tax refund into an account owned by Jameel Laws; testimony that Jameel Laws had never purchased a home and did not qualify for the tax credit; evidence that tax refunds of other individuals who received credits to which they were not entitled -13- were deposited into bank accounts controlled by Jameel Laws; and evidence that Jameel Laws had withdrawn the money deposited into these accounts. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict and accepting all reasonable inferences in support of the verdict, we cannot conclude that no reasonable jury could have found Laws guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Armstrong, 782 F.3d at 1035. Based on the evidence presented, a reasonable jury could have found that Laws knowingly presented a tax return falsely claiming a tax credit to which he was not entitled, and that Laws conspired to defraud the United States by obtaining this fraudulent credit. Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support Laws’ conviction.