Opinion ID: 199098
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Honest Services Theory

Text: 51 Alternatively, the jury could have found that Martin and Camp's e-mail communications and mail deposits constituted a scheme to deprive IDEXX of Camp's honest services. Although the honest services doctrine has mainly been used to punish fraud against the citizenry perpetrated by government officials, 20 see, e.g.,Czubinski at 1076-77, courts both before McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987), and after the passage of § 1346 have been willing to expand the doctrine to the employer-employee relationship, see id. at 1077; United States v. Sun Diamond Growers of California, 138 F.3d 961, 973 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (§ 1346 has also been used, as here, to prosecute private citizens who defraud private entities). However, courts have been hesitant to impose federal mail and wire fraud liability upon every employee transgression, and have required a failure to disclose something which in the knowledge or contemplation of the employee poses an independent business risk to the employer, or creates reasonably foreseeable economic harm to the employer. Sun Diamond, 138 F.3d at 973 (quoting United States v. Lemire, 720 F.2d 1327, 1337 (D.C. Cir. 1983)). 21 While this Court has held that merely examining confidential information for one's own purposes does not rise to this level, see Czubinski at 1077, use of confidential information for private purposes may rise to the necessary level of self-dealing. See id. 22 52 A jury could reasonably have found that Camp's disclosure of confidential information was in knowing breach of her fiduciary duty to IDEXX. 23 Moreover, the evidence supports a finding that Camp's failure to disclose her communication with Martin posed an independent business risk to IDEXX and created reasonably foreseen economic harm to IDEXX. By July 1998, Camp knew that Martin intended his company to compete with IDEXX - in fact, she was authoring proposals detailing how that competition would be most successful. 53 Under 18 U.S.C. § 2, Martin is guilty of aiding and abetting a crime if he willfully participated in it, that is, wished it to occur and affirmatively participated in its successful outcome. See United States v. Indelicato, 611 F.2d 376, 385 (1st Cir. 1979). The government has offered substantial evidence of Martin's willing participation in (in fact, sponsorship of) Camp's breach of fiduciary duty. A jury could have found that Martin's request for information about IDEXX's competitive stance, his willing receipt of IDEXX materials and inventory, and his request that Camp gather as much information as possible prior to leaving the company both encouraged and aided Camp in breaching her fiduciary duty to IDEXX. Moreover, in Martin's use of spy terminology, in his specific requests for information, and in his apparent willingness to use the information to compete directly with IDEXX, a reasonable jury could have found that his participation in the scheme to defraud IDEXX of Camp's honest services, i.e., to have Camp breach her fiduciary duties for personal gain and harm to IDEXX, was sufficient to maintain liability for aiding and abetting pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2. 54