Opinion ID: 2774634
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: admission of rani sabban testimony

Text: As his third challenge, Plato appeals the jury’s consideration of certain testimony by Sabban, an investigator for the Texas State Securities Board who testified as a government witness. Generally, Sabban testified regarding the financial condition of MPC at various points in time, as well as his investigation of MPC in his investigator capacity. Plato asserts error in the admission of three instances of Sabban’s testimony: that Plato was untruthful 27 Herring, 422 U.S. at 856. 15 Case: 13-20222 Document: 00512919459 Page: 16 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 No. 13-20222 regarding investor awareness of his criminal history; that Plato’s business practices bore characteristics of a Ponzi scheme; and that certain payments had characteristics of “lulling payments,” payments meant to placate investors.
On direct examination, Sabban testified that, during his investigation, he had asked Plato “if he had been disclosing his criminal convictions to the investors,” and that Plato had answered “that some of the investors knew and some didn’t.” Since some of the investors had independently discovered Plato’s criminal history, Plato’s response to Sabban’s question was technically true, and the prosecution did not challenge the veracity of Plato’s response during direct examination. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked Sabban whether Plato’s statement was correct; Sabban disagreed, before finally explaining that he took Plato’s statement as responding affirmatively to his question (i.e., “as Mr. Plato telling me if he told some of his invest -- some of the investors, whether they knew or not, and I received conflicting information later”). The challenged statement came about on re-direct, as follows: Q Now, Mr. Cogdell asked you if you thought the Defendant was being truthful when he made these statements to you; is that right? A Yes, sir. Q Now, based on your review of this evidence, do you believe he was being truthful when he made these statements? A No, I do not. Defense counsel did not object, and we review Plato’s challenge to this testimony for plain error. 28 28 See United States v. Williams, 343 F.3d 423, 434 (5th Cir. 2003). 16 Case: 13-20222 Document: 00512919459 Page: 17 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 No. 13-20222 The Government argues that defense counsel “opened the door” to Sabban’s opinion testimony on Plato’s truthfulness. We agree. In United States v. Ruppel, this court found that a series of questions by defense counsel “[w]hether intentional or not[] . . . conveyed the impression” that an actor in the conspiracy did not believe the defendant was aware of the activity’s criminal aspect. 29 In response, the prosecution elicited a specific “No, sir” in response to the question of whether the actor believed the defendant was aware of their activity’s criminality. 30 The Ruppel panel did not find error in the statement’s admission because “counsel may not mislead the jury or convey an erroneous impression without opening the avenue for cross-interrogation for purposes of clarification.” 31 Here, the efforts by defense counsel to establish that Sabban thought Plato’s response was a “true statement” (when the prosecution had not made its accuracy an issue during direct examination) ambiguously characterizes Plato’s response as truthful regarding investor knowledge, or truthful regarding Plato’s disclosure of the information. This ambiguity “opened the door” for the challenged statement’s admission as helpful to understand Sabban’s testimony, and to clarify any erroneous impression of Plato’s truthfulness in responding to Sabban’s inquiry. We find no error, plain or otherwise, in the admission of the challenged testimony.
We now address the Ponzi-scheme and lulling-payments testimony. Regarding the former, Plato asserts that Sabban was allowed “to give an opinion that he observed that Mr. Plato was conducting a Ponzi scheme.” Plato 29 666 F.2d 261, 270 (5th Cir. 1982). 30 Id. 31 Id. at 269. 17 Case: 13-20222 Document: 00512919459 Page: 18 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 No. 13-20222 takes the position that a witness may describe the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme, but that a witness “crosses the line when he is allowed to testify that the defendant on trial was running a Ponzi scheme.” Plato argues that, once over the line, Sabban’s testimony was speaking to Plato’s intent, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b)’s prohibition of opinion testimony regarding a defendant’s intent. The Government counters that Sabban’s testimony was of the former type and did not cross the line, characterizing the testimony as merely addressing the definition of a Ponzi scheme and whether Sabban’s analysis of MPC’s payments and expenses had characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. Regarding lulling payments, Plato similarly charges that Sabban opined on Plato’s making lulling payments to investors, such that it implicated Plato’s intent, and the Government similarly argues that Sabban’s testimony was limited to factual characterizations of payments. In the first instance, we conclude that the Government’s characterization is more consistent with the trial record, such that the admission did not constitute error. While Sabban’s testimony approached the point of stating that Plato was conducting a Ponzi scheme or making lulling payments, Sabban refrained from direct attribution to Plato. Indeed, as the Government points out, the district court sustained Plato’s objection to a more direct attribution, when the Government questioned whether Sabban found “characteristics of a Ponzi scheme in the records concerning MPC.” Furthermore, at least regarding the Ponzi-scheme testimony, Plato was not prejudiced by any error since Wagner later testified to the practice of paying old investors with new-investor money, testimony which provided sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to infer Ponzi-scheme characteristics. Prejudice from the admission of both instances of testimony was further 18 Case: 13-20222 Document: 00512919459 Page: 19 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 No. 13-20222 prevented through Sabban’s cross-examination by Plato’s counsel. We find no error in the admission of Sabban’s complained-of testimony and, even presuming error, find any such error harmless.