Opinion ID: 3185495
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lareka Laws

Text: Lareka Laws challenges the district court’s denial of her motion for a judgment of acquittal. She asserts that the government’s evidence was insufficient to establish who in fact owned the real estate identified on the tax returns, or that the properties could not properly qualify for the homebuyer tax credit. She also argues that the government failed to prove that she had sufficient intent to defraud, or that any fraudulent claims she made were material. We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal de novo. United States v. Ford, 726 F.3d 1028, 1033 (8th Cir. 2013), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 131 (2014) (citing United States v. Lewis, 557 F.3d 601, 612 (8th Cir. 2009)). When a motion for judgment of acquittal is based on insufficiency of the evidence, we view all evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, accept all reasonable inferences in support of the verdict, and reverse only if no reasonable jury could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. We conclude that the evidence against Laws was sufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdict. The evidence included more than 200 tax returns that improperly claimed a first-time homebuyer tax credit, a significant number of which Laws personally prepared; deposit of the credits into one of 17 accounts owned by a -12- member of the Laws family, including two accounts owned or co-owned by Lareka Laws; an admission by Laws that she had filed some of the relevant tax returns; testimony that Laws knew that the individuals she was filing returns for were not entitled to the homebuyer credit; and testimony that Laws had fabricated information on the tax returns she filed. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict and accepting all reasonable inferences in favor of the verdict, we cannot say that no reasonable jury could have found Laws guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Though the jury could alternatively have accepted the arguments Laws advances on appeal, it was not required to do so. See United States v. Hively, 437 F.3d 752, 761 (8th Cir. 2006). Because the evidence was sufficient to support a verdict of guilty, the district court did not err in denying Laws’ motion for a judgment of acquittal.