Opinion ID: 746484
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Continuing Financial Crimes Enterprise (Count Forty-Seven).

Text: 32 The manager of a continuing financial crimes enterprise (CFCE) violates 18 U.S.C. § 225 if (i) he supervises a series of mail or wire fraud transactions which affect a financial institution, (ii) receives at least $5,000,000 in gross receipts from the criminal enterprise in a twenty-four-month period, and (iii) acts in concert with at least three other persons in executing the crimes. 4 The jury found that Lefkowitz violated § 225 when CEG raised more than $5,000,000 from FSM-VI and FSM-VIII investors within a two-year period, because banks invested in those offerings and at least three other persons acted in concert with Lefkowitz in executing mail and wire frauds. 33 The evidence is clear that banks invested a total of $1,120,000 in FSM-VI and FSM-VIII. Those offerings together grossed over $5,000,000. Given CEG's practice of making all invested funds available to Lefkowitz personally, it is clear he received at least $5,000,000 from this part of the CEG enterprise in a two-year period. Lefkowitz suggests that banks investing in FSM-VIII were not affected by the fraud because Lefkowitz used funds from later projects to repay FSM-VIII investors. However, whatever the banks finally realized on their investments, they were affected when deceived into investing funds that CEG then fraudulently misused. 34 Lefkowitz primarily argues that the government failed to prove he acted in concert with at least three other persons in defrauding financial institutions. [T]he plain meaning of the phrase 'in concert' signifies mutual agreement in a common plan or enterprise. Rutledge v. United States, 517 U.S. 860, ----, 116 S.Ct. 1241, 1247, 134 L.Ed.2d 419 (1996). While acknowledging that numerous CEG employees acted in concert with him in executing the overall scheme to defraud, Lefkowitz argues that there was no knowing complicity by his subordinates in the continuing FSM fraud against financial institutions. The jury was carefully and properly instructed on this issue: 35 In order to sustain its burden of proof for the crime of managing a continuing financial crimes enterprise as charged in Count Forty Seven of the indictment, the government must prove the following: 36 One. The defendant committed three or more violations of the mail fraud and/or the wire fraud statutes affecting financial institutions; 37