Opinion ID: 149873
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fraudulent Confirmation Letters

Text: Finally, the government alleged that Kaiser attempted to hide the inflated PA income from Deloitte auditors by drafting and sending confirmation letters to certain selected vendors requesting confirmation that USF had earned and was owed the PA amounts reflected on its books. Lee testified that one vendor, Pactiv, was shocked by a letter asking it to confirm that it owed $5.6 million in promotional allowances for 2001. Another vendor, Ken's Foods, refused to sign a letter unless Lee signed off on an additional letter stating that the amount in the confirmation was not actually owed. Redgate testified that his company had signed confirmation letters after receiving assurances from Kaiser that it would not have to pay the amounts set forth in the letters. The government introduced evidence at trial, the admissibility of which is now at issue on this appeal, that Redgate contemporaneously recorded these conversations in business planners. Kaiser argued that the government relied almost exclusively on these planner entries to show that the confirmation letters signed by Kaiser were not good faith estimates of the vendors' PA obligations. The trial court admitted the planners over Kaiser's objection under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. Fed.R.Evid. 803(6).