Opinion ID: 78019
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Convictions for Multiple Counts of Wire Fraud

Text: Likewise, we find no error in Williams's convictions on multiple counts of wire fraud because each count satisfies the Blockburger test. Williams argues that the indictment was multiplicitous because it alleged only one scheme to defraud, which the government manipulated into separate counts with each wire of grant funds into ETA's account. Williams's argument fails because it rests on a fundamental misinterpretation of the wire fraud statute. An indictment is multiplicitous if it charges a single offense in more than one count. Ward v. United States, 694 F.2d 654, 660-61 (11th Cir.1983) (quoting United States v. De La Torre, 634 F.2d 792, 794 (5th Cir.1981)). A multiplicitous indictment not only subjects the defendant to numerous sentences for one offense, but also prejudice[s] the defendant and confuse[s] the jury by suggesting that not one but several crimes have been committed. United States v. Hearod, 499 F.2d 1003, 1005 (5th Cir.1974) (per curiam). [3] A multiplicitous indictment therefore violates the principles of double jeopardy because it gives the jury numerous opportunities to convict the defendant for the same offense. We use the Blockburger test to determine whether an indictment is multiplicitous, verifying that each count requires an element of proof that the other counts do not require. Ward, 694 F.2d at 661. Wire fraud requires proof of a scheme or artifice to defraud and the use of interstate wire transmissions in furtherance of the scheme. 18 U.S.C. § 1343. Section 1343 targets not the defendant's creation of a scheme to defraud, but the defendant's execution of a scheme to defraud. To that end, it punishes each interstate wire transmission that carries out that scheme. See Sibley v. United States, 344 F.2d 103, 105 (5th Cir.1965). Where one scheme or artifice to defraud involves multiple wire transmissions, each wire transmission may form the basis for a separate count. In determining whether each wire transmission is an execution, courts must look to the function of the wire transmission in the context of the defendant's overall scheme and examine how that transmission furthers the scheme. Moreover, the text of § 1343 plainly states that the defendant need not make a wire transmission herself, but may cause such wire transmission to be made to further her scheme to defraud. The statute thus prevents defendants from escaping criminal liability merely because another party makes the wire transmission underlying the charge. Consequently, a federal agency's a priori decision to disburse grant funds through periodic installments neither bars criminal liability nor constitutes an unfair conversion of one offense into multiple counts. Precedent under the mail fraud and bank fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1344, respectively, supports this conclusion. [4] In Badders v. United States, 240 U.S. 391, 36 S.Ct. 367, 60 L.Ed. 706 (1916), the Supreme Court held that so long as each act ha[d] been found to have been done for the purpose of executing the scheme, .... there is no doubt that the law may make each putting of a letter into the postoffice a separate offense. Id. at 394, 36 S.Ct. at 368. We have applied this interpretation of § 1341, finding that [e]ach mailing in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme constitutes a separate violation of the mail fraud statute. United States v. Edmondson, 818 F.2d 768, 769 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam). We have made an analogous interpretation of the bank fraud statute, holding that [u]nder 18 U.S.C. § 1344, a defendant may be charged in separate counts for each `execution' of the scheme to defraud. United States v. Sirang, 70 F.3d 588, 595 (11th Cir.1995); see also United States v. De La Mata, 266 F.3d 1275, 1287 (11th Cir.2001) (The unit of the offense created by § 1344 is each execution or attempted execution of the scheme to defraud ....). In the bank fraud context, we have found that [r]elevant factors in determining whether there are multiple executions are ... the number of transactions[ ] and the number of movements of money. Sirang, 70 F.3d at 595. Our sister circuits faced with this issue have reached similar interpretations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1344. [5] Here, the indictment charged Williams with devising a scheme and artifice to defraud and obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses .... R. 1, Doc. 1 at 3-4. It further charged Williams with executing [this] scheme and artifice to defraud [by] knowingly ... and willfully caus[ing] [CNCS] and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, to send electronic wire transfers of funds ... to the business account of Eastside Training Academy. Id. at 4-5. The indictment then lists seven separate wire transmissions  made on different dates and in different amounts  of funds from CNCS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the U.S. Treasury, into ETA's account. Each resultant wire fraud count requires proof of a separate wire transmission made in furtherance of Williams's scheme to defraud  an element not required by the others. We hold that each wire fraud offense was complete upon each wire disbursement that Williams caused CNCS to make in furtherance of her scheme to defraud. See Sibley, 344 F.2d at 105. Williams points to United States v. Eaves, 877 F.2d 943 (11th Cir.1989), to support her claim that the government manipulated one scheme to defraud into multiple counts of wire fraud by wiring separate payments of one lump sum. Eaves involved a prosecution on four counts of extortion under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), [6] in which the defendant, a Fulton County public official, made several agreements with an informant and an undercover FBI agent to accept money in exchange for favorable votes on certain zoning plans and government contracts. The government had been investigating Eaves for three years before his indictment. We held that two of those counts were multiplicitous because they stemmed from one agreement Eaves made to accept $30,000 that the FBI agent, at the government's request, paid in two installments. 877 F.2d at 947. Reversing Eaves's conviction on one count, we found that the two counts failed to satisfy the Blockburger test, as each count under § 1951 requires that (1) the defendant induced his victim to part consensually with property (2) either through the wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence or fear or under color of official right (3) in such a way to adversely affect interstate commerce. Id. Although Eaves accepted two payments, we concluded that those payments were installments of a lump sum stemming from one act of inducement. Id. We cautioned that allowing multiple charges on the basis of those facts would give the government unfettered discretion to determine how many crimes with which to charge a defendant by manipulating the methods of payment. Id. Eaves is inapposite to this case. As we have explained above, § 1343 punishes not the creation of a scheme to defraud, but each execution of that scheme by use of interstate wire transmissions. In this case, ETA, through Williams, submitted two applications for federal grants to CNCS. After CNCS approved ETA's budget applications, the funds were wired into ETA's account on a quarterly schedule during 2001. The wire transfers occurred well before CNCS began its investigation of ETA in 2002, and the record reveals no evidence of the government's manipulation of the wire transfers or bad faith. For these reasons, we find that Williams's indictment for seven counts of wire fraud was not multiplicitous, and that her prosecution and subsequent convictions on five of those counts did not constitute double jeopardy.