Opinion ID: 2974600
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mail Fraud (Counts 5, 7, and 13)

Text: Kuehnemund similarly attacks his conviction on three of the mail-fraud counts, arguing that the government failed to present sufficient evidence of his intent to use the mails to further a fraudulent scheme. This attack, like the first, falls short. 4 “Mail fraud consists of (1) a scheme or artifice to defraud; (2) use of mails in furtherance of the scheme; and (3) intent to deprive a victim of money or property.” United States v. Turner, 465 F.3d 667, 680 (6th Cir. 2006). As Kuehnemund notes, the mail-fraud statute does not require that the defendant himself actually use the mails. United States v. Griffith, 17 F.3d 865, 874 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 850 (1994). Instead, evidence that the “use of the mails would follow in the ordinary course of business, or that a reasonable person would have foreseen [the] use of the mails,” is sufficient to support a conviction. United States v. Crossley, 224 F.3d 847, 857 (6th Cir. 2000); see also Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1954); United States v. Cantrell, 278 F.3d 543, 546 (6th Cir. 2001). Kuehnemund’s sole argument against his mail-fraud conviction is that there was insufficient evidence that he knew the mails would be used. In support of this argument, he points to testimony from his insurance agent indicating that the agent generally did not specify to his clients that he sent documents through the United States Postal Service. Notwithstanding this argument, the government put on sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that it was reasonably foreseeable that the insurance company would use the mails to transmit the documents necessary to the fraud. The government introduced testimony that Kuehnemund delivered documents that furthered the fraud to his insurance agent, who then regularly in the course of his business mailed the documents to the insurance company. Because he was interacting with an agent of an insurance company, the jury could reasonably conclude that Kuehnemund should have foreseen the use of the mails, or that use of the mails would follow in the ordinary course of business. Other courts have noted that use of the mails by an 5 insurance company in response to a fraudulent claim submitted is foreseeable. See, e.g., United States v. Markum, 4 F.3d 891, 895 n.3 (10th Cir. 1993); United States v. Smith, 934 F.2d 270, 273 (11th Cir. 1991) (“We agree that it is foreseeable that communications involving the policy, the details of the claim, or requests for the payment of the claim would be mailed.”).1 Since these cases were decided, our society has witnessed a proliferation of digital networks, which has made electronic transmission of documents much more common than it was in the early 1990s. Nonetheless, Kuehnemund cites no authority for his suggestion that the government must introduce evidence that a reasonable person would expect that the company would be more likely to mail the documents than to fax them. To the contrary, the government was required to show only that it was reasonably foreseeable that the mails would be used, and this standard falls short of the “more likely than not” standard Kuehnemund appears to advocate. For all these reasons, we reject Kuehnemund’s challenge to Counts 5, 7, and 13.