Opinion ID: 3049934
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conspiracy and Corrupt Intent

Text: All defendant-appellants challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support their convictions on various counts.54 Defendants’ primary arguments are the government failed to prove a conspiracy among the defendants (as to Counts 1, 51, 53 We also find no merit to defendant-appellants’ claims on appeal as to any other proposed jury instructions because they were either incorrect, too argumentative or flawed in some way, not necessary, or already adequately covered by the court’s charge as a whole. In particular, we conclude the court’s charge adequately covered defendants’ theory of defense that the payments were gifts made out of friendship or to foster good will and adequately charged the jury on the honest services mail fraud counts (90-100) as discussed later. 54 “This Circuit reviews the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, examining the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and resolving all reasonable inferences and credibility issues in favor of the guilty verdicts.” US Infrastructure, 576 F.3d at 1203. We “will not overturn a conviction on the grounds of insufficient evidence unless no rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Wright, 392 F.3d 1269, 1273 (11th Cir. 2004) (quotation marks omitted). 71 75, and 78) or any corrupt intent as to all the bribery counts.55 To sustain the conspiracy convictions, the government must prove (1) “the existence of an agreement to achieve an unlawful objective, here, giving things of value” to County employees with the corrupt intent to influence or reward them; (2) “the defendant[s’] knowing and voluntary participation in the conspiracy;” and (3) “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.” US Infrastructure, 576 F.3d at 1203; see also United States v. Jennings, 599 F.3d 1241, 1250-51 (11th Cir. 2010). Defendants argue the government failed to present any evidence of an agreement among them. The problem for defendants is direct evidence of an agreement is unnecessary; the existence of the agreement and a defendant’s participation in the conspiracy may be proven entirely from circumstantial evidence. Id.; United States v. Massey, 89 F.3d 1433, 1439 (11th Cir. 1996). “A defendant may be found guilty of conspiracy if the evidence demonstrates he knew the ‘essential objective’ of the conspiracy, even if he did not know all its details or played only a 55 Defendants PUGH, Roland Pugh, Yessick, RAST, Bobby Rast, Danny Rast, FWDE, and Dougherty were convicted on Count 1 for participating in a conspiracy to bribe defendant McNair. Defendants PUGH, Yessick, RAST, Bobby Rast, FWDE, and Dougherty were convicted on Count 51 of participating in a conspiracy to bribe defendant Swann. Defendants PUGH and Wilson were convicted on Count 75 of participating in a conspiracy (between PUGH, Grady Pugh, and Wilson) to bribe Wilson. Defendant PUGH was convicted on Count 78 of participating in a conspiracy (between PUGH, Roland Pugh, Barber, and Yessick) to bribe Barber. 72 minor role in the overall scheme.” United States v. Guerra, 293 F.3d 1279, 1285 (11th Cir. 2002). The government need not show “each defendant had direct contact with each of the other alleged co-conspirators.” Id. “It is not necessary for the government to prove that a defendant knew every detail or that he participated in every stage of the conspiracy.” United States v. Jones, 913 F.2d 1552, 1557 (11th Cir. 1990). “For a wheel conspiracy to exist those people who form the wheel’s spokes must have been aware of each other and must do something in furtherance of some single, illegal enterprise.” United States v. Fernandez, 892 F.2d 976, 986 (11th Cir. 1989) (quotation marks omitted). “[A] common purpose or plan may be inferred from a development and collocation of circumstances.” US Infrastructure, 576 F.3d at 1205 (quotation marks omitted). Extensive witness and documentary evidence firmly established that the things of value described in the conviction counts were given by the contractordefendants and accepted by McNair, Swann, Barber, Wilson, and other County employees. The defendants in the McNair and Swann trials mainly dispute whether the government proved they acted (1) with corrupt intent (versus for friendship), and (2) in agreement (versus independently). The government presented more than sufficient evidence of both corrupt intent and a conspiracy agreement. 73 First, ample evidence showed that the contractor-defendants worked together on McNair’s studio and Swann’s home and that they did so with a common purpose of providing sizable benefits to influence McNair and Swann in the billion-dollar sewer rehabilitation program. There was no evidence of gifts to these “friends” before the sewer projects began. Instead, the gifts to McNair and Swann and other County employees were made during the same time period of the sewer projects. The large sums — both in bribes and sewer payments — indicate a common scheme of all defendant-appellants to receive County sewer money through illegal means. The jury was free to disbelieve the defendants’ claims of gifts for friendship and to find corrupt intent to influence McNair and Swann in connection with the County’s massive sewer payments to the contractordefendants. The juries could readily believe the gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to McNair and Swann after the sewer work began were actually bribes intended to make sure the contractors profited excessively from the work. In fact, the evidence recounted above showed pervasive and entrenched corruption. Second, the evidence of how the contractor-defendants divided up and coordinated their work on the same personal projects for McNair (his studio) and Swann (his home) during the same time frame is strong evidence of a conspiracy. For example, FWDE’s Bailey supervised the construction of McNair’s studio 74 while PUGH and RAST provided labor and materials. RAST furnished the labor to build the deck, and PUGH furnished the materials. RAST excavated for the footings, and PUGH ordered the concrete and poured concrete walls. FWDE paid Mosley Construction for the wood framing initially, and then RAST began paying Mosley. FWDE ordered the aluminum handrails, PUGH paid for them, and RAST installed them. The same pattern of dividing up the work was followed for the Swann home. For example, an FWDE employee supervised the work at Swann’s home. PUGH’s Yessick hired a company to install a koi pond for Swann, and PUGH listed Danny Rast as a point of contact.56 Third, the extent to which the parties went to conceal their bribes is powerful evidence of their corrupt intent. For example, evidence in the McNair trial showed FWDE employed Bailey as a full-time construction superintendent for the McNair studio renovation and reported Bailey’s time as purportedly performed on a JCESD sewer project. FWDE concealed a $50,000 payment Dougherty made to subcontractor George Word Construction for building McNair’s Arkansas retirement home.57 FWDE has no record of the transaction at all. The only 56 In addition, after McNair’s retirement, PUGH, FWDE, and Bobby Rast each gave McNair a check for the same amount — $5,000 — all within a two-day period. 57 Earlier, PUGH had paid Word $44,192.75 in the first half of October 2001, and, per Yessick’s instruction, internally charged the expense to miscellaneous jobs/construction materials. McNair told George Word that FWDE would make the next payment. 75 existing record of this transaction was made by a bookkeeper, who copied the invoice and check and kept them at home because of his suspicions. FWDE also supplied a construction superintendent, Hendon, for Swann’s home remodel. For nearly two years, Hendon was on FWDE’s payroll but actually spent half of every workday at Swann’s home. FWDE’s Stanger replaced Hendon for an additional nine months. Dougherty was aware of this work at Swann’s home. FWDE paid a subcontractor over $28,000 — with checks signed by Dougherty — to frame the addition to Swann’s home. Likewise, RAST paid nearly $77,000 for materials and subcontractors for McNair’s studio. RAST also supplied significant amounts of labor for McNair’s studio, including excavating for the footings and constructing its deck and metal steps. RAST hid these expenses by coding them to JCESD projects. After a newspaper article revealed RAST’s work on Swann’s home, Bobby Rast told his bookkeeper that they “didn’t need any document invoices in the files with Jack Swann’s or Chris McNair’s shipping address on them,” causing her to discard these invoices. Before the article, RAST had treated its payments to McNair and Swann as business expenses, deducting them on its tax returns. After the article, RAST amended several years’ returns to eliminate more than $140,000 76 of those deductions.58 Similarly, RAST crews performed demolition work and poured concrete for the basement, walls, stairs, and elevator pit at Swann’s home. RAST also spent more than $28,000 purchasing concrete and bricks and paying subcontractors to repair the plumbing, paint Swann’s home, and install hardwood floors and stairs. As with McNair, RAST concealed its work for Swann, in particular avoiding the use of Swann’s name on invoices, delivery tickets, and accounting reports, and coding the work and expenses either to miscellaneous or JCESD projects. PUGH also concealed its work on McNair’s studio. For example, when Besco delivered steel to McNair’s studio, Besco’s delivery tickets identified PUGH and Yessick as its customer and indicated that some of the steel was for the Valley Creek Treatment Plant, a JCESD sewer job on which PUGH was the contractor and FWDE the consulting engineer. Defendants claim they could not have intended to corruptly influence McNair because his authority was purely “ministerial,” since he only ratified what JCESD officials below him (such as Swann) had already approved. Given 58 Sufficient evidence also supports the Rast defendants’ convictions for bribing Chandler and Ellis. First, Chandler asked Bobby Rast for money to attend technical conferences that Ellis was also planning to attend. Instead of giving Chandler a check for $250-$500 as Chandler expected, Bobby Rast gave Chandler an envelope containing $5,000 cash and told Chandler to split it with Ellis. 77 McNair’s ultimate authority and responsibility, a jury could infer McNair became a “rubber-stamp” for the defendants’ pay requests, field directives, and contract modifications that crossed his desk because of the large sums in goods and services he received from the contractor-defendants. And because he was responsible for placing sewer items on the County Commission’s weekly agenda, McNair controlled every sewer matter requiring Commission approval.59