Opinion ID: 213100
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: We review sufficiency of the evidence challenges de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government to determine whether any reasonable trier of fact could conclude that Mr. Washington was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Mullins, 613 F.3d 1273, 1279 (10th Cir.2010). Title 18 U.S.C. § 1341 makes it a crime to use the mails or a common carrier to carry out a scheme to defraud or obtain money or property. To establish guilt under the mail-fraud statute, the government had to prove that (1) [Mr. Washington] engaged in a scheme or artifice to defraud or to obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses; (2) he did so with the intent to defraud; and (3) he used [a private or commercial interstate carrier] to facilitate that scheme. United States v. Chavis, 461 F.3d 1201, 1207 (10th Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks, alteration, and citations omitted). Mr. Washington asserts that where the commercial agent's use of a commercial carrier is not an essential part of a scheme, then evidence of the use of Federal Express to send the closing documents in a fraudulent scheme is insufficient for conviction of commercial carrier fraud. This argument finds no support in our precedent. It suffices that Mr. Washington knew of the industry custom of overnighting closing documents by way of commercial carrier. To be part of the execution of the fraud . . . the use of the mails need not be an essential element of the scheme. It is sufficient for the mailing to be incident to an essential part of the scheme or a step in the plot. Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 710-11, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see, e.g., United States v. Parker, 553 F.3d 1309, 1319 (10th Cir.2009). To be actionable, the use of the mails must be part of the execution of the scheme as conceived by the perpetrator at the time, and, where the perpetrator does not personally effect the mailing, it will suffice if the perpetrator `does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended.' United States v. Weiss, 630 F.3d 1263, 1269 (10th Cir.2010) (quoting Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 8-9, 74 S.Ct. 358, 98 L.Ed. 435 (1954)). Here it was well within reason for the jury to conclude that Mr. Washington was knowledgeable of industry practices such that he would foresee the use of Federal Express in closing.