Opinion ID: 202748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Conspiracy with Respect to Mirandes Loans

Text: 90 The jury also found Muñoz-Franco and Sánchez-Arán guilty of conspiracy with respect to the Mirandes loans. Although there was no formal agreement among Muñoz-Franco, Sánchez-Arán and Mirandes, the three acted in concert to defraud the bank. As described above, Muñoz-Franco originally approached Mirandes to assume the Reparto Valenciano loans, and Mirandes agreed. After this initial agreement, Mirandes met frequently with Sánchez-Arán and on several occasions with Muñoz-Franco. 91 The appellants participated voluntarily in the conspiracy and took overt actions in its furtherance. When the Reparto Valenciano project was unable to pay its debts, Muñoz-Franco and Sánchez-Arán always attempted to find solutions to sustain the project, frequently by transferring funds from one project to another. Such transfers, as well as their approval of certifications for work not completed, constituted overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. Thus, we find sufficient evidence to sustain the jury's verdict on charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344 with respect to the Mirandes loans. 92 The district court held that the evidence of conspiracy to commit bank fraud was sufficient in itself to sustain the conspiracy charges, but also noted that there was sufficient evidence that appellants conspired to misapply bank funds in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 657 and make false entries in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1006. However, because we agree with that court's assessment of the bank fraud conspiracy, we need not discuss the other two bases for the conspiracy conviction.