Opinion ID: 791824
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 2 Several weeks before Thomas retired as president and branch manager of the Ashdown, Arkansas branch of Regions Bank, he invested $50,000 in EKBA, Inc. During the week before he retired, Thomas served as the initiating loan officer for a $300,000 lease loan to EKBA. His actions in causing the Bank to make this loan form the basis for his two counts of conviction. In reviewing his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict. United States v. Flores, 362 F.3d 1030, 1035 (8th Cir.2004). 3 The government presented evidence that Thomas knew the Ashdown branch loan committee could not unilaterally approve the $300,000 loan because a loan in excess of $250,000 must also be approved by the loan committee at the Bank's regional headquarters in Texarkana. Thomas nonetheless sent a loan memo to the Bank's leasing department in Little Rock stating that the $300,000 loan had been approved by the Ashdown loan committee, knowing that it was leasing office practice to fund a lease loan without verifying that the originating branch had authority to approve the loan. Thus, although the Texarkana office neither received nor approved an application for the lease loan, Thomas's loan memo caused the leasing office to release $300,000 in loan proceeds. EKBA subsequently defaulted. An FBI agent testified that Thomas admitted in a pretrial interview that he bypassed the Texarkana office because he was afraid the loan would not be approved and he wanted to get these loans before he left the employment of the bank. 4 The first count turned on whether the loan memo Thomas sent to the leasing department contained a knowingly false representation that the Ashdown loan committee had approved the $300,000 lease loan. Thomas was one of four members of the Ashdown loan committee. On appeal, he argues that the evidence was insufficient to convict him on this count because he testified that the committee approved the loan, and another member of the committee testified that Thomas presented the loan and no one objected, which constituted informal approval. This contention misconstrues our standard of review. The determinative question is not whether there was evidence to support Thomas's defense, but whether that evidence was so powerful that reasonable jurors must have entertained reasonable doubt as to his guilt. Two of the three other members of the loan committee testified that the committee never approved the $300,000 loan, and the third member's testimony was equivocal. When combined with the evidence of Thomas's financial conflict of interest, this testimony was sufficient to convict Thomas of sending a knowingly false loan memo to influence the leasing department to fund the $300,000 loan. 5 The second count accused Thomas of willful misapplication of bank funds, a crime that requires proof of intent to defraud or injure the Bank. See United States v. Beran, 546 F.2d 1316, 1321 (8th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 916, 97 S.Ct. 1330, 51 L.Ed.2d 595 (1977). Thomas argues there was insufficient evidence that he wrongfully took the Bank's money or intended to defraud the Bank because [t]he Ashdown loan committee approved the lease loan and the loan was funded. However, as we have noted, there was ample evidence that the Ashdown loan committee never approved the loan. Moreover, because Thomas knew the Ashdown loan committee lacked authority to approve a $300,000 loan without the additional approval of the Texarkana loan committee, the Ashdown loan committee's approval would not have insulated Thomas from the charge that he willfully misapplied bank funds by fraudulently representing to the Little Rock leasing department that Ashdown's approval was sufficient to authorize funding of the loan. Finally, the fact that the Bank mistakenly funded the loan is irrelevant to Thomas's criminal liability. As Judge Posner said in United States v. Angelos, 763 F.2d 859, 861 (7th Cir.1985): 6 To cause a loan to be made — knowing that you are violating proper banking procedure ... from the bank that employs you to a firm in which you have a substantial financial interest — to do all this and actively conceal what you are doing — is willful misapplication of bank funds. 7 The evidence was sufficient to convict Thomas of willfully misapplying the lease loan proceeds with intent to defraud the Bank.