Opinion ID: 1248604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is This an Ex Post Facto Application of the Guidelines?

Text: To decide whether a criminal law is ex post facto, we apply a two-part test: first, the law must be retrospective, applying to events that occurred before its enactment; second, the law must be disadvantageous to the individual affected by it. Miller, 482 U.S. at 430, 107 S.Ct. 2446; Keller, 58 F.3d at 889. In this case, it is not disputed that defendant was disadvantaged by the application of the 2002 Guidelines. If appellant had been sentenced under the 2000 Guidelines, he would have been subject to a recommended Guidelines range of 97 to 121 months imprisonment. Under the 2002 Guidelines, he was subject to a recommended range of 188 to 235 months. That is roughly 8 to 10 years compared to 16 to 20 years. Our inquiry is thus focused on the first prong of the ex post facto test: Was the application of the 2002 Guidelines to Kilkenny's crimes retrospective? The application of a particular version of the Guidelines is retrospective if the version went into effect after the last date of the offense of conviction. See United States v. Fitzgerald, 232 F.3d 315, 318-19 (2d Cir. 2000) (per curiam). The district court determined the last date of offensive conduct in this case was May 8, 2002. This finding rested on the following bases: (1) the statement in the information that the M & T Bank fraud scheme lasted [f]rom in or about September 2000 through on or about May 8, 2002; (2) Kilkenny's failure to make payments on the M & T Bank loan until the loan was foreclosed on May 8, 2002; and (3) the entire range of conduct which extended into 2003. We address each of these bases in turn.
To determine the last date of the offense of conviction, a sentencing court looks at the conduct charged in the information or indictment. See United States v. Broderson, 67 F.3d 452, 456 (2d Cir.1995); U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11 cmt. n. 2. Like any other factual determination made by a sentencing court, the finding of the last date of the offense of conviction must withstand clear error review. See, e.g., United States v. Carter, 410 F.3d 1017, 1027 (8th Cir.2005); United States v. Nash, 115 F.3d 1431, 1441 (9th Cir.1997). Because a sentencing court may not consider uncharged or acquitted conduct in determining the last date of the offense of conviction, see United States v. Zagari, 111 F.3d 307, 324-25 (2d Cir.1997), the dates alleged in the charging instrument will generally be determinative for ex post facto purposes, see Broderson, 67 F.3d at 456. However, circumstances may arise where a date in the charging instrument clearly exceeds the offensive conduct. See, e.g., United States v. Foote, 413 F.3d 1240, 1250 & n. 6 (10th Cir.2005) (finding that uncontradicted evidence established that offense ended on December 7, 1998 despite statement in indictment that conspiracy continued until October 2000). In such circumstances, it is clearly erroneous for a sentencing court to rely on the date charged in the indictment to determine the last date of the offense of conviction. For example, in Nash, the Ninth Circuit had a case before it in which the indictment charged that the defendant's fraudulent scheme continued until 1988, but all of the specific incidents described in the indictment occurred before November 1, 1987. 115 F.3d at 1441. The Nash court upheld the district court's determination that, contrary to the statement in the indictment, the offense was completed prior to November 1, 1987. Id. Admittedly, we have not always made perfectly clear that dates in an indictment are not necessarily dispositive. In Broderson, for example, we stated, [t]he last date of the offense, as alleged in the indictment, is the controlling date for ex post facto purposes. 67 F.3d at 456. Read in context, however, this language only stands for the unsurprising proposition that a sentencing court must look to the conduct alleged in the count of the charging instrument under which the defendant was convicted to determine the last date of offensive conduct. The defendant in Broderson was charged with illegally transmitting an interstate wire communication on October 1, 1990. Id. On appeal, Broderson asserted the government could have charged the crime differently, but he did not contest that he had transmitted the wire communication on that date. Id. at 456-57. We ruled that the district court had correctly determined the last date of offensive conduct was October 1, 1990, as charged in the indictment. Id. at 457. Broderson thus did not consider or decide the question of whether a district court should rely on a date in a charging instrument that clearly exceeds the offensive conduct. We now hold that it may not. The time period provided for in the charging instrument in this case clearly exceeds the offensive conduct. Although the information states that Kilkenny executed the M & T bank fraud scheme from in or about September 2000 through on or about May 8, 2002, neither the information nor the stipulated facts accompanying the plea agreement describe any offensive conduct taken by Kilkenny with respect to the M & T bank fraud scheme after 2000. It is instead uncontested that the M & T loan was applied for and received by Kilkenny in September 2000 and that he took no further action with respect to that loan  apart from failing to repay it  after September 2000. There is no evidence that any offensive conduct regarding the M & T bank fraud scheme occurred after 2000. It was therefore clear error for the district court to rely on the May 8, 2002 date.
The district court's finding that Kilkenny failed to repay the bank loan in 2002 does not change this result. Failure to repay a fraudulently obtained bank loan does not constitute conduct for the offense of bank fraud. Under the federal bank fraud statute, it is a crime to knowingly execute[ ], or attempt[] to execute, a scheme or artifice . . . to obtain any of the moneys, funds, credits, assets, securities, or other property owned by, or under the custody or control of, a financial institution, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises. 18 U.S.C. § 1344. The language of § 1344 punishes each execution of a fraudulent scheme, not each act in furtherance of such a plan. United States v. Harris, 79 F.3d 223, 232 (2d Cir.1996). Although the statutory text does not define execution, there is helpful case law interpreting that term. In analyzing when a fraudulent scheme was executed, courts look to a number of factors, including the overall contours of the fraudulent scheme and  perhaps most importantly  the point at which the financial institution was put at risk of financial loss. See United States v. De La Mata, 266 F.3d 1275, 1287-88 (11th Cir.2001) ([A] bank fraud offense is complete upon the `execution,' or attempted execution of the scheme. . . . [E]ach part of the scheme that creates a separate financial risk for the financial institution constitutes a separate execution.); United States v. Anderson, 188 F.3d 886, 888 (7th Cir.1999) ([T]he crime of bank fraud is complete when the defendant places the bank at a risk of financial loss, and not necessarily when the loss itself occurs.); United States v. Rimell, 21 F.3d 281, 287 (8th Cir.1994) (stating that to determine what constitutes an execution of a bank fraud scheme one must first ascertain the contours of the scheme); United States v. Hord, 6 F.3d 276, 282 (5th Cir.1993) (finding that bank fraud plan was executed with each deposit of a bogus check in part because it was the deposits that put the bank at risk); see also United States v. Reitmeyer, 356 F.3d 1313, 1318 (10th Cir. 2004) (holding, in the context of the Major Fraud Act, that determining when a scheme is executed will depend on factors including the goal of the plan, its nature, the benefits intended, and whether the conduct created a new and independent financial risk.). There are of course situations where conduct for the offense of bank fraud occurs after the point at which the bank is first put at risk of financial loss. Our decision in United States v. Duncan, 42 F.3d 97 (2d Cir.1994), provides a useful illustration of such a situation. In Duncan, several directors of a savings and loan association conspired to purchase two parcels of real estate in order to lease or sell the property back to the bank at a profit. Id. at 99-100. The transactions were orchestrated so as to hide the conspirators' interest in the real estate from the other bank directors. Id. After his conviction for bank fraud, Duncan raised an ex post facto challenge on appeal. He contended the bank fraud was complete once the conspirators agreed to secretly purchase the property. Id. at 103-04. We rejected that characterization, holding instead that the offensive conduct was not complete until the real estate was sold back to the bank. Id. at 104. Key to the result in Duncan was the fact that the sale of these properties to the bank was the  central object of the charged criminal conduct. Id. (emphasis added). Notably, the resale of the properties to the bank in Duncan posed a risk of financial loss that was separate and independent from the defendant's initial usurpation of the corporate opportunity. See id. (stating that conspirators intended to both seize for themselves two pieces of property at a bargain and sell the properties to the bank at a premium). There are no facts in the case presently before us analogous to those at issue in Duncan. It is clear that the main purpose of Kilkenny's bank fraud scheme was to obtain the M & T bank loan on false pretenses. The bank was put at risk of financial loss as soon as Kilkenny had submitted the fraudulent loan application and obtained the funds. The information alleges no further conduct on Kilkenny's part that created a new or additional risk of loss. The government insists that, by failing to make payments on the fraudulently obtained loan, appellant extended the life of the illegal plan through his enjoyment of the proceeds. Adopting this approach would go too far, potentially extending the offense of bank fraud indefinitely. No doubt, the vast majority of bank fraud schemes entail not only obtaining but also retaining the ill-gotten gains. But when the proceeds of a criminal venture are spent may not be viewed as part of a plan to defraud. See Anderson, 188 F.3d at 891. To rule otherwise and hold that failure to repay a fraudulently obtained bank loan constitutes conduct for the offense of bank fraud would extend the life of the offense so indefinitely as to render the ex post facto prohibition ineffective. The Supreme Court has cautioned against such a result in other contexts. See Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 402, 77 S.Ct. 963, 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957) (holding a conspiracy to conceal should not be inferred from acts of concealment because every conspiracy will inevitably be followed by actions taken to cover the conspirators' traces and the opposite result would extend the life of a conspiracy indefinitely). Kilkenny's M & T bank fraud scheme was executed no later than when he received the funds from his fraudulent loan application. Consequently, it was error for the district court to treat defendant's subsequent failure to repay the fraudulently obtained bank loan as conduct that was part of the offense of bank fraud.
Finally, the district court based its decision to apply the 2002 Guidelines on the entire range of conduct committed in the case that continued actually even into 2003 in relation to additional individual victims which were not specifically charged but detailed in the presentence report. However, the law in this Circuit is plain that uncharged conduct occurring after the conduct of conviction cannot be considered when determining which version of the Guidelines to apply. See Zagari, 111 F.3d at 324-25. Commentary to the Guidelines, which we have found to be highly persuasive evidence of the Sentencing Commission's intent, addresses this precise issue Under subsection (b)(1), the last date of the offense of conviction is the controlling date for ex post facto purposes. For example, if the offense of conviction ( i.e., the conduct charged in the count of the indictment or information of which the defendant was convicted) was determined by the court to have been committed between October 15, 1991 and October 28, 1991, the date of October 28, 1991 is the controlling date for ex post facto purposes. This is true even if the defendant's conduct relevant to the determination of the guideline range under § 1B1.3 (Relevant Conduct) included an act that occurred on November 2, 1991 (after a revised Guideline Manual took effect). U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11 cmt. n. 2. Reliance on defendant's uncharged conduct in 2002 and 2003 was accordingly in error. Application of the 2002 version of the Guidelines was both retrospective and disadvantageous to the defendant. As a consequence, we remand to the district court for resentencing under the 2000 Guidelines.