Opinion ID: 222568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: A Loan Officer's Testimony About a $50,000 Loan to Langford

Text: Langford also claims that the district court erred in allowing a bank employee to testify that when she evaluated a loan application made by the defendant she learned that Langford was already a customer of the bank, albeit at a branch thirteen miles away from the employee's branch. The defendant says that this was hearsay, and that it was prejudicial because somehow it suggested that Langford was trying to hide his activity from those with whom he normally did business. The challenged testimony was elicited in connection with the $50,000 loan for Langford that Blount helped to arrange through his girlfriend and Colonial Bank employee, Caryn Cope. Copewho headed Colonial Bank's credit department for the State of Alabamacontacted Yvette Campbell, the Roebuck Branch Manager of Colonial Bank, to tell her that the $50,000 loan for Langford had been approved. According to Campbell, when we do the loan, we have to pull up to see if the customer already has a profile on file, i.e., to determine if the loan applicant is already a customer of Colonial Bank. Campbell testified that she discovered Langford was a bank customer at the Shades Valley Location, which, Campbell explained was thirteen miles away from her branch. The government does not claim that Campbell's testimonybased on her review of business records not introduced into evidencewas not hearsay. However, it argues, and we agree, that Langford's assertion of prejudice is belied by the testimony of the other bank employee, Caryn Cope. Specifically, Cope testified that typically she was not involved in these kinds of loans, but she approved this one because Bill Blount had called me and asked me about it. She did so despite the fact that Langford had a lower credit score. She further testified that she had decided to call Campbell and send Langford to Roebuck because Cope had worked with [Campbell] for a long time. Thus, the jury learned from Cope that Langford had gone to the Roebuck branch not because he wanted to conceal his activities, but because Cope had sent him there based on her personal relationship with the manager of the Roebuck branch. We can discern no way that Campbell's testimony affected Langford's substantial rights, and thus conclude that the admission of this testimony, even if it was hearsay, caused the defendant no prejudice. Hands, 184 F.3d at 1329. We add that the evidence of Langford's guilt in accepting many bribesincluding testimony by Blount, corroborated by extensive documentation, that he paid Langford $240,000 in cash, clothing and jewelry so that Blount's investment-banking firm would receive millions of dollars' worth of fees from financial transactions in Jefferson Countywas overwhelming. Thus, even if the challenged evidence taken in concertabout Langford's gambling winnings, his purported relationship with McGregor, special treatment in receiving an NBC credit card (which was not tied to any charges, but used to show Langford's intent to be bribed in his interactions with Blount), or his efforts to obtain a loan from a different bank branchwas erroneously admitted (and none of it was), we could not find any basis for concluding that this evidence affected Langford's substantial rights. See id.