Opinion ID: 781139
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relationship Between Mail Fraud & Money Laundering Convictions

Text: 5 A conviction for money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1957 requires the government to show: (1) the defendant knowingly engaged in a monetary transaction; (2) he knew the transaction involved criminal property; (3) the property's value exceeded $10,000; and (4) the property was derived from a specified unlawful activity. See United States v. Messer, 197 F.3d 330, 341 (9th Cir.1999). Mail fraud is included as such a specified unlawful activity. See 18 U.S.C. § 1957(f)(3); 18 U.S.C. § 1956(c)(7)(A); 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). The elements of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 are: (1) proof of a scheme to defraud; (2) using or causing the use of the mails to further the fraudulent scheme; and (3) specific intent to defraud. See United States v. Munoz, 233 F.3d 1117, 1129 (9th Cir.2000). The two offenses, money laundering and mail fraud, are separate and distinct. 6 Rogers argues that because he was convicted of only one count of mail fraud involving a $5,000 cashier's check, he could not have been convicted of money laundering in excess of the requisite statutory floor of $10,000. It is apparent from the record, however, that Rogers was laundering the proceeds of the larger operation, which bilked hundreds of people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is therefore clear to us that regardless of how much money Rogers personally, fraudulently solicited to form the basis of the mail fraud conviction, Rogers' conduct in laundering the money brought in by the entire Ponzi scheme is the relevant standard for determining if the elements of the money laundering statute have been met. They clearly were. 7 While this is an issue of first impression in this circuit, it has been raised in three of our sister circuits and they have reached the identical conclusion. In United States v. Massey, 48 F.3d 1560, 1566 (10th Cir.1995), the Tenth Circuit rejected the defendant's argument that scheme or artifice to defraud in 18 U.S.C. § 1341 is limited to each individual, defrauded client. The court wrote, To the contrary, `scheme to defraud' has a wider meaning than an individual act of fraud. A scheme refers to the overall design to defraud one or many by means of a common plan or technique. Id. at 1566. See also United States v. Morelli, 169 F.3d 798, 806-07 (3d Cir.1999) (We think the money was the proceeds of the entire ongoing fraudulent venture ... and that this venture was a wire fraud scheme.); United States v. Tencer, 107 F.3d 1120, 1131 (5th Cir.1997) (Because the money laundering counts do not define `specified unlawful activity' in terms of the mail fraud activities described in counts 218, this court is not limited to considering only those activities.).