Opinion ID: 687669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court's Jury Instruction on Intent.

Text: 38 Clapp lastly argues that the district court erred by giving an instruction on intent to defraud which allowed the jury to equate intent to defraud with mere intent to deceive. The court instructed the jury as follows: 39 To act with an intent to defraud means to act knowingly and with [the] intention or the purpose to deceive or to cheat[;] an intent to defraud is accompanied ordinarily by a desire or a purpose to bring about some gain or benefit to oneself or some other person or by a desire or a purpose to cause some loss to some person. 40 VIII Tr. at 242 (emphasis added). Clapp argues that the use of the disjunctive word or in both sentences permitted the jury to find him guilty of having a purpose to deceive without regard to whether he had a purpose to cause harm or loss to another. This instruction, he argues, allowed mere deception, without any intent to deprive a third party of its property, to satisfy the intent element under the bank fraud statute. Appellant's Br. at 43. 41 A district court has wide discretion in formulating jury instructions. United States v. Sleet, 893 F.2d 947, 949 (8th Cir.1990); United States v. Hiland, 909 F.2d 1114, 1128 (8th Cir.1990). That discretion is not abused when the instructions as a whole accurately and adequately state the applicable law. Sleet, 893 F.2d at 949; United States v. Brake, 596 F.2d 337, 339 (8th Cir.1979). Viewing the instructions as a whole, we do not believe the district court's instruction on intent to defraud allowed the jury to convict Clapp for mere deception without regard to whether he intended to deprive a third party of its property. The court instructed the jury that the government had to prove not only that Clapp acted with an intent to defraud, but that he knowingly executed a scheme or plan to obtain money, funds or other property owned by or under the control of a financial institution by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises. VIII Tr. at 239; see 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344. The court defined a scheme or artifice for obtaining money as any deliberate plan of action or course of conduct by which someone intends to deceive or to cheat another or by which someone intends to deprive another of something of value. VIII Tr. at 240. Taken together, the court's instructions on intent to defraud and the specific elements of the charged offense adequately informed the jury that it had to find that Clapp intended to do more than merely deceive. The district court did not err in refusing to give Clapp's proffered instruction. 42 For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.