Opinion ID: 2994818
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Obtained by fraud.

Text: Davuluri claims that he did not take Dr. Raju’s $400,000 check drawn on his account at Fidelity by fraud. Davuluri told Dr. Raju that the money was collateral that would never be touched. He claims that all of the witnesses agree that if the Yen had taken a sharp turn downward, this statement would have been correct. Unfortunately for Davuluri, he did not include this qualification when he spoke to Dr. Raju. He told Dr. Raju only that the collateral would be completely safe; this kind of absolute statement indicates that the $400,000 would be returned to Dr. Raju regardless of any contingencies. This was, of course, incorrect, since the Yen continued to move upward and Dr. Raju’s account was liquidated by Merrill Lynch, causing a loss of the $400,000 and more. A reasonable jury could have concluded that Davuluri knew that his unconditional statement to Dr. Raju was false because of the defendant’s previous trading experiences and thus Davuluri obtained the $400,000 check by fraud.