Opinion ID: 165717
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admission of Lulling Letters and other Documents

Text: 64 Appellant Griffith challenges the district court's admission of letters, emails, and recorded telephone calls between Ms. Griffith and various investors. The parties refer to these communications as lulling letters, because they generally take the form of Ms. Griffith attempting to reassure concerned investors that they would get their money back. See United States v. Trammell, 133 F.3d 1343, 1352-53 (10th Cir.1998) (quoting United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, 403, 94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603 (1974)) (defining lulling letter as a communication designed to lull the victims into a false sense of security, postpone their ultimate complaint to the authorities, and therefore make the apprehension of the defendant... less likely). Ms. Griffith maintains that these communications were not probative of her criminal intent because she made them more than a year after Wealth-Mart had stopped soliciting investments and because she disclosed to some of the investors that the FBI was investigating Wealth-Mart. According to Ms. Griffith, the communications' probative value was therefore outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, and the district court should have excluded them under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. 65 The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the communications. The communications were relevant to the jury's consideration of whether Ms. Griffith knew that Wealth-Mart was a fraud. The fact that Ms. Griffith was constantly fending off frustrated investors' calls and letters with increasingly implausible excuses was probative of whether she was knowingly defrauding people or innocently following orders from Dr. Craft. The communications do not lose that relevancy simply because Ms. Griffith made them after Wealth-Mart stopped soliciting investors or because she acknowledged an FBI investigation. Moreover, Ms. Griffith has not explained how the evidence raised the danger of unfair prejudice, as opposed to simply asserting that the evidence harmed her defense. 66 Ms. Griffith also challenges the admission of evidence regarding a civil securities fraud suit. At trial, the government moved for admission of a civil securities fraud complaint that some Wealth-Mart investors filed against Dr. Craft and Ms. Griffith. Defense counsel objected, and the district judge called all counsel to the bench to discuss the objection. Tr. 1697. Dr. Craft's counsel did not want the complaint itself admitted because its allegations were unsubstantiated, but offered to stipulate to the facts that Dr. Craft and Ms. Griffith had been sued for securities fraud, had been served with the complaint, and that a default judgment had been entered against Dr. Craft. Tr. 1698. The government and Ms. Griffith's counsel agreed to the stipulation. Id. The district judge then suggested that the government could implement the stipulation by withdrawing its request to admit the documents in exchange for being allowed to ask the witness (an FBI agent) questions about the lawsuit to elicit only the stipulated facts. Tr. 1699-1700. The judge asked whether that arrangement was satisfactory to everyone, and no one objected. Tr. 1700. The agent then testified to the stipulated facts only, saying nothing about the details of the suit's allegations. 67 On appeal, Ms. Griffith challenges the admission of the civil securities fraud petition on confrontation clause grounds. The district court, however, did not admit the petition. Instead, the only facts that the jury heard about the securities fraud suit were the facts to which defense counsel stipulated. Defense counsel's stipulation to admission of evidence effectively waives the defendant's confrontation rights unless the defendant can show that the waiver constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Aptt, 354 F.3d 1269, 1284 (10th Cir.2004). Ms. Griffith has made no such showing. 68 Finally, Appellant Griffith contends that the district court should not have permitted cooperating witness Denise Jones to testify that she heard Ms. Griffith and others at Wealth-Mart devising a plan to induce complaining investors to re-enter their money into the program in order to buy themselves more time. Although defense counsel did not object at trial, Ms. Griffith argues that the testimony was inadmissible hearsay and highly prejudicial and that it was plain error to allow it. However, the challenged testimony appears to be statements of Ms. Griffith herself and other co-conspirators made in furtherance of the conspiracy, and if so the statements are not deemed to be hearsay and are admissible. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E). The district court therefore did not plainly err in admitting the testimony.