Opinion ID: 567200
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the defendant's testimony

Text: 9 On the 22nd day of December, 1988, in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY, having duly taken an oath that he would testify truthfully, testified on his oath in a deposition taken in connection with proceedings in the United States Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Texas, Waco Division 10 At the time and place alleged, counsel for Peoples Savings, were conducting an investigation to determine, in part, whether federal civil laws had been violated in connection with the issuance of a $25,000 letter of credit on the accounts of Peoples Savings for the benefit of Eileen Marcus. 11 It was material to the bankruptcy proceeding whether the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY had knowledge regarding the execution of a letter of credit issued in the amount of $25,000 for the benefit of Eileen Marcus 12 At the time and place alleged, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY, appearing as a witness under oath being deposed in connection with a federal bankruptcy proceeding, knowingly did make false, material declarations which are underlined below, in the course of some of his testimony during the deposition which is set forth below. During his deposition, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY was asked a number of questions and made a number of declarations, including the following questions (Hereafter a question will be introduced by the letter Q.) and the following declarations (Hereafter defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY'S declarations will be introduced by the letter A.) Q. Okay. Why don't you take a look at Exhibit Number 262. Have you ever seen that before? The record I guess should reflect it's another irrevocable standby letter of credit from Peoples Savings and Loan on behalf of Eileen Marcus for $25,000.00 to Midway Development Company, and on Page 2, the signature says, 'By Jerry Holley' which is crossed out, and then it is signed, 'Mary Kam, Secretary.' I guess my first question is: Have you ever seen this before? A. Yes, I have. Q. When was the first time you saw it? A. I don't recall. Q. Did you see it when it was signed? Were you present when it was signed? A. No, I was not present when it was signed. Q. Were you present when it was drafted? A. No, I was not. Q. Do you recall what connection you saw this before? A. Vaguely I can recall some facts that I think might clear it up. Q. Okay, if you would. A. I may have the chronological order maybe mixed up, but I think Eileen Marcus had first found another shopping center, and according to what I was looking at a minute ago, this one was found September 27, 1985, roughly, whereas, the one on Arapaho Station was October 18th of '85, and she talked to Joel again earlier about this letter of credit, and she signed a contract herself to buy this particular shopping center, but either the agent or Midway Development Company kept on calling her, and they even called me and said, 'Well, how come we don't have the letter of credit from Eileen Marcus?' The long and the short of it was that Joel had not checked her out thoroughly enough to issue a letter of credit. This Mary Kam, I understand, is an employee of Midway Development Company or the agent, but she was no employee or agent or even friend of Peoples Savings and Loan, me, Joel Daniel, or anybody. The letter of credit never was issued. Q. Well, let me make some representations to you, and you can check them out, and I'll be happy to provide the documentation. Let me represent to you that this letter of credit was signed in your office at 8222 Douglas, that somebody from the title company brought it over, that ultimately they attempted to collect on it, that there was some litigation over it, and that it was ultimately decided that they couldn't collect on it because there was nobody named Mary Kam who was authorized to sign it at Peoples but that the person who signed as Mary Kam was sitting in your office where I assume your secretary normally would sit. Does that refresh your recollection in any way? A. No. No. I know for a fact that that was not any of my employees who signed a letter of credit. There must be, in fact, a Mary Kam that worked for one of those companies I just mentioned. Q. You personally never authorized this letter of credit? A. Not at all, no. Q. And you never discussed with Joel the issuance of this letter of credit? A. I may have discussed it with him, but it was never issued by Joel Daniel or myself or any employee of Peoples Savings and Loan. Q. If I understand right, and again correct me if I'm wrong, you and Joel had discussions about the fact that she needed a letter of credit, but neither you nor Joel felt that it was appropriate to issue this letter of credit, so it was never, in fact, to the best of your knowledge issued? A. I don't think Joel had the proper documentation at the time to do it. I think he asked her for the credit application whatever was necessary to do it, and at that particular time, he didn't have documentation. 13 The above underlined declarations made under oath by the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY were material and to the defendant's knowledge false, in that when he was being deposed on December 22, 1988, JERRY DON HOLLEY knew that (1) he had told Paulette Hubbard to bring the unsigned $25,000 letter of credit, which was drawn on the accounts of Peoples Savings for the benefit of Eileen Marcus, to his office to be executed, (2) that he had told his secretary, Carol Allegro, to sign the letter of credit for him told Ms. Allegro to give the fraudulently executed letter of credit to Paulette Hubbard All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1623. COUNT 2 [18 U.S.C. § 1623; Perjury] 1 Paragraphs 1 through 8 of Count 1 are hereby realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full herein.Note 5--Continued 2 On the 10th day of January, 1989[ ] in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY, having duly taken an oath that he would testify truthfully, testified on his oath in a deposition taken in connection with proceedings in the United States Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Texas, Waco Division 3 At the time and place alleged, counsel for Peoples Savings, were conducting an investigation to determine, in part, whether federal civil laws had been violated in connection with the issuance of a $25,000 letter of credit on the accounts of Peoples Savings 4 It was material to the bankruptcy proceeding whether the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY had knowledge regarding the execution of a letter of credit issued in the amount of $25,000 for the benefit of Eileen Marcus 5 At the time and place alleged, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY, through his counsel, Vance Dunnam, requested that he be allowed to clarify statements made earlier during the taking of his deposition on December 22, 1988. In making said clarifications the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY knowingly did make false, material declarations under oath which are underlined below. During his testimony, the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY was asked a number of questions by Richard Kamp, an attorney for Peoples Savings, and made a number of declarations, including the following questions by Mr. Kamp and the following declarations by the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY MR. DUNNAM: Jerry has a clarification to make in his deposition with regard to this. MR. HOLLEY: I know now what happened on this one we're talking about, this Mary Kam deal. The real estate agent came to me through Eileen Marcus and said that Midway Development Company had been stung before on a letter of credit, and they wanted to see a copy of an LC, unsigned, that was not proper that could be called upon, just to have their lawyer study the LC to see if in fact that would be appropriate for them to accept. It was sent down by someone at our association from a phone call by me. A copy, unsigned, typed up by someone at the association, was sent down either to me or directly to Midway Development Company. During that course of time while they were studying this LC, it was determined she was not creditworthy and no one at that particular time would in fact sign the LC. Time got down to the wire, and they went ahead and someone at Midway Development or the broker representing the company transaction signed the LC anyway, hoping it would go through. But that was just strictly a copy sent for their benefit to review to see if they would accept the LC. That's what happened. MR. KAMP: Somebody at the title company asked you for a sample letter of credit? MR. HOLLEY: Yes, from Midway Development Company, through their agent or through their broker. MR. KAMP: As opposed to going to a lawyer or asking the lawyer for one? Was this for their lawyer's benefit? MR. HOLLEY: In order for them to sign a contract that was binding, they wanted to make sure that the LC was acceptable. They wanted a solid LC, so we requested an LC be sent to them directly so they could study it with their attorney to make sure that they would accept the LC, that they had no clause in the LC that it was not an irrevocable line of credit. So it was sent to them unsigned for them to study, and then at some period of time in the future it was to have been signed. But after the credit check was done, we decided we would not sign the LC. Just sending an LC unsigned didn't mean anything, but it was giving them an opportunity to study it to see if they would accept it. That's what happened. MR. KAMP: Were you dealing with Midway Development Company at the time? MR. HOLLEY: With the broker. MR. KAMP: So there was a broker from Midway Development Company that you had some sort of an ongoing relationship with? MR. HOLLEY: Yes. MR. KAMP: And I assume then as a favor to her, or she said to you, 'You know, I would like to see a decent letter of credit so that in case I have to get one in the future I know what one looks like,' or something like that? MR. HOLLEY: No, they wanted to make sure our LC would be acceptable to them. MR. KAMP: Oh, your letter, Peoples' letter of credit? MR. HOLLEY: Yes. They wanted to make sure our LC was acceptable. You can word a letter of credit a lot of different ways, and they wanted to study that LC to make sure it was acceptable to them. If it had flaws in it, it wasn't worth anything to them. MR. KAMP: So in other words, they wanted to see a sample of Peoples' letter of credit in anticipation of a deal that was going to be done with Eileen Marcus and Peoples? MR. HOLLEY: That's correct. MR. KAMP: And so in anticipation I suppose of the deal that you were contemplating doing, and I guess that would have been the Arrapahoe Station deal, you had one of these sent so that they would be able to see what Peoples' form looked like? MR. HOLLEY: No. This was on another shopping center that was separate and apart from Arrapahoe Station that she intended to do. I went out and looked at this shopping center also. I called someone at the MR. KAMP: But there was a deal that was contemplating being done that Peoples was going to finance for Eileen Marcus, and Midway Developing [sic] Company was in some way involved? MR. HOLLEY: They were the seller. MR. KAMP: Okay, they were the seller. They were going to require a letter of credit on behalf of Eileen Marcus, and I guess she represented to them that Peoples was gong to do it. MR. HOLLEY: That's right. MR. KAMP: And they wanted to make sure that everything went through, so they asked you for a sample. You called down and somebody at the association drafted this and sent it to you, and you furnished it to Midway Development? MR. HOLLEY: That's exactly right. MR. KAMP: When they went ahead and signed this thing and tried to call it, didn't that make you mad? MR. HOLLEY: Well, I didn't know about it till after it was sent to Peoples. Sure it made me mad, and I found out that it was someone either at Midway Development or the broker's house that did this. MR. KAMP: Well, when you got mad and found out about it, what did you do about it? Did you talk to anybody over there and complain, or what? MR. HOLLEY: Well, first of all, it was not even--it wasn't signed by anyone that was authorized so it wasn't any good anyway, and they knew that. MR. KAMP: But still, they attempted to defraud your association out of $25,000. MR. HOLLEY: Well, Joel or Lloyd or someone called me and told me what had happened. MR. KAMP: I understand. I'm not saying that you tried to defraud them out of $25,000. What I'm saying is that somebody tried to defraud Peoples out of $25,000. I mean they didn't take this over to Peoples as a joke. I'll represent to you--in fact I will show you that apparently they contemplated a lawsuit over the thing. MR. HOLLEY: Either someone from Midway Development or the title company or the broker had one of their employees sign the letter. It could have even been the title company, but some--and I tried to trace this down, and it was one of these three places. It could have been the title place that did this. MR. KAMP: That's what I'm asking you. Obviously somebody tried to defraud your institution out of $25,000. MR. HOLLEY: Right. MR. KAMP: And I'm just asking you what you did about it or tried to do about it since, you know, that's $25,000. MR. HOLLEY: I remember getting several phone calls from either the broker or the title company wanting to know, 'When are you going to get this LC to us?' And I said, 'Well, we haven't got the credit approved yet.' When it came down to the hour the conflict [sic] was going to be nullified, cancelled because of time limits, they went ahead and had someone there sign the LC and send it on through. MR. KAMP: I understand that, but what I am asking you is when you found out that the letter of credit had been signed by somebody who didn't even work at Peoples, and that they had made an attempt to cash it, somebody had made an attempt to defraud Peoples out of $25,000, what did you do about it? MR. HOLLEY: No more than told Joel or Marvin about what had happened. MR. KAMP: And left it to them to do if anything was going to be done? MR. HOLLEY: Well they didn't honor the LC, so there wasn't anything else to do I don't guess. MR. KAMP: Did you have any conversations, you personally, with anybody over at Midway about this? MR. HOLLEY: The broker I did, and Eileen Marcus. MR. KAMP: And what was their explanation for why this thing went through? MR. HOLLEY: I don't recall. MR. KAMP: And did Eileen Marcus offer any explanation as to why this went through? MR. HOLLEY: I don't recall at this time. 13 The above underlined declarations made under oath by the defendant JERRY DON HOLLEY were material and to the defendant's knowledge false, in that when he was being deposed on January 10, 1989, the defendant knew (1) that no broker, agent, or other person connected with the contract between Midway Development Company and Eileen Marcus had requested a sample letter of credit, (2) that he had told Paulette Hubbard to bring the unsigned $25,000 letter of credit, which was drawn on the accounts of Peoples Savings for the he [sic] benefit of Eileen Marcus, to his office to be executed, (3) that he had told his secretary, Carol Allegro, to sign the $25,000 letter of credit for him using her mother's name, and (4) that he had told Ms. Allegro to give the fraudulently executed $25,000 letter of credit to Paulette Hubbard All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1623. 6 Holley's deposition, which commenced December 21, 1988, continued on December 22, 1988, at which time it recessed until, and recommenced on, January 9, 1989. On January 9 Holley was sworn again by the court reporter, and the deposition continued throughout that day until at 4:00 p.m. Peoples' lawyer, Mr. Kamp, said Well, it's a minute to 4:00, so I'm going to stop. Holley replied Thank you. Kamp then said: Why don't we say sometime in the next two weeks, if you want to reconvene and put anything on the record, we will reconvene at a mutually convenient time and place and you can put anything on the record that you want. Holley responded Okay. Thank you. There were no further proceedings that day. On the next day, January 10, 1989, during the oral deposition of Daniel taken by Peoples in the same adversary proceeding before the same court reporter taking Holley's January 9 deposition, at which Daniel deposition Holley and his counsel, Mr. Dunnam, were present, there was a break during which an on-the-record discussion before the reporter between Peoples' counsel, Mr. Kamp, Holley, and Mr. Dunnam took place. Mr. Kamp suggested Holley had said something to Daniel earlier during that break to the effect that Daniel's testimony indicated that Holley's previous deposition testimony was incorrect in one or more respects. Holley acknowledged he had been in error, saying It was an honest mistake, and I remember that now. Kamp then stated If you want to clarify that on the record--can you add a page to the deposition that we took yesterday? Holley again said I made a mistake in that portion of my testimony. Kamp then responded we can clarify that and went on to say but I would like to just make sure we get everything on the record, and ultimately all our interests will probably be protected. Mr. Dunnam responded I'll agree. Following some further statements by Kamp and Holley, there occurred the testimony of Holley quoted in count two of the indictment, as prefaced by Dunnam's there-quoted statement: Jerry has a clarification to make in his deposition with regard to this. Following all of that testimony by Holley there was further testimony by Holley prefaced by a statement by Dunnam: He wants to make one correction. These January 10 proceedings were transcribed under the heading addendum to Mr. Holley's deposition as taken on 1-10-89 and were put in the same single volume along with, and just after, the transcription of the January 9 Holley deposition testimony, and were covered by the same single certificate of the deposition court reporter. This volume (along with the volumes of the December 21 and 22 Holley deposition testimony) was furnished to Holley to be read and signed and to make corrections on. Holley read these volumes of transcriptions, but made no corrections 7 Additionally, Holley challenges the district court's jury instructions on diverse other grounds and claims that the court erred in refusing to admit the testimony of an expert witness on the usual and customary practices of court reporters in administering the oath. He also contends that the court committed reversible error by allowing the indictment to be given to the jury. In view of our disposition, we do not address these contentions Holley further contends, without citation of relevant authority, that his conviction on count two must be set aside because the evidence does not show (as indeed it does not) that he was resworn on January 10. We reject this contention and agree with the government that (under all the particular circumstances here) there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could rationally conclude that Holley's January 10, 1989 testimony alleged in the indictment was a continuation of his sworn testimony in the January 9, 1989 deposition and was given under the oath he then took. 8 The record does indicate that the bankruptcy court entered an order on March 1, 1990, discharging Holley's debts. Holley has informed us through counsel that the district court dismissed Peoples' adversary proceeding on May 8, 1991, by an order reciting that Peoples' counsel advised the court on May 2, 1991, that it did not intend to pursue its claims in this matter. 9 This provision of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits discharge of an individual debtor's debts for fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity, embezzlement, or larceny. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(4) 10 Haass was a major shareholder in Peoples. The White loan and the Corona loan are two of the three specific transactions described elsewhere in the complaint 11 Respecting not requiring juror unanimity as to which of several possible legally equivalent means were employed to commit a single crime, Justice Scalia in his Schad separate concurrence observes: ... [I]t has long been the general rule that when a single crime can be committed in various ways, jurors need not agree upon the mode of commission. [Citations omitted]. That rule is not only constitutional, it is probably indispensable in a system that requires a unanimous jury verdict to convict. When a woman's charred body has been found in a burned house, and there is ample evidence that the defendant set out to kill her, it would be absurd to set him free because six jurors believe he strangled her to death (and caused the fire accidentally in his hasty escape), while six others believe he left her unconscious and set the fire to kill her. Id. 111 S.Ct. at 2506. 12 The last paragraph of the first count provides that: [t]he above underlined declarations made under oath by the defendant [Holley] were material and to the defendant's knowledge false, in that when he was being deposed on December 22, 1988, [he] knew that (1) he had told Paulette Hubbard to bring the unsigned $25,000 letter of credit, which was drawn on the accounts of Peoples Savings for the benefit of Eileen Marcus, to his office to be executed, (2) that he had told his secretary, Carol Allegro, to sign the letter of credit for him using her mother's name, and (3) that he had told Ms. Allegro to give the fraudulently executed letter of credit to Paulette Hubbard. 13 Analogously to the last paragraph of the first count, the last paragraph of the second count states that: [t]he above underlined declarations made under oath by the defendant [Holley] were material and to the defendant's knowledge false, in that when he was being deposed on January 10, 1989, the defendant knew (1) that no broker, agent or other person connected with the contract between Midway Development Company and Eileen Marcus had requested a sample letter of credit, (2) that he had told Paulette Hubbard to bring the unsigned $25,000 letter of credit, which was drawn on the accounts of Peoples Savings for the he [sic] benefit of Eileen Marcus, to his office to be executed, (3) that he had told his secretary, Carol Allegro, to sign the $25,000 letter of credit for him using her mother's name, and (4) that he had told Ms. Allegro to give the fraudulently executed $25,000 letter of credit to Paulette Hubbard. 14 See also North, 910 F.2d at 876; Duncan, 850 F.2d 1104, 1108 n. 4 (Courts rejecting duplicity challenges to multiple-predicate counts, however, often premise their rulings on the condition that later augmented jury instructions will adequately protect the defendant against the risk of an ununanimous verdict) 15 Kam and Holley were the only two Peoples employees in its small Dallas office. Holley had hired Kam to work at Peoples in the spring of 1985, after meeting her at a restaurant where she was working as a waitress. While with Peoples, she had been to Holley's Dallas house, and had used the swimming pool there. At trial, Holley testified that not until some time after January 10, 1989, did he realize that Mary Kam was his secretary Carol. He maintained that he never told or authorized her to sign the letter of credit. He suggested that she had likely signed the letter of credit at the direction of Lloyd Kitchens, a Peoples vice president who visited its Dallas office from time to time, had some interest in the transaction, and, according to Holley, was then dating Kam. Kam's testimony, denied by Holley, was the only direct evidence that he told her to sign the letter of credit. Holley continued to claim that someone from or for Midway had asked him for a sample letter of credit in advance. There was evidence from Midway, Marcus, Safeco, and others that no such request was ever made and that Midway had never been stung before on a letter of credit. 16 We recognize that the last paragraph of each count (see notes 12 and 13 supra ) could be read to inferentially limit the basis on which each statement could be found to be knowingly false. The last paragraph in count one, for example, states that the underlined deposition testimony was false in that Holley knew that he told Hubbard to bring the letter of credit to his office to be signed and that he told Kam to sign the letter with her mother's maiden name and return it to Hubbard. The paragraph might be read to inferentially provide that an underlined statement could be found knowingly false only on the basis of Holley's knowledge as specifically alleged in the final paragraph, and it is further possible that such an implied requirement would also require a juror who found at least one of the underlined statements to be knowingly false to find that every underlined statement was knowingly false. However, the final paragraph does not expressly state that Holley's knowledge as specifically alleged in that paragraph is the only basis on which the underlined statements may be found to have been knowingly false, nor is it entirely clear that such a reading would lead to the conclusion that for any of the statements to be found knowingly false all of them would have had to be so found. Nor was such a construction of the final paragraph suggested by anything in the court's instructions or the arguments of counsel. The final paragraph does not clearly prevent a juror from finding, for example, that Holley knowingly lied when he said Mary Kam was not a Peoples employee, even though that juror was not convinced that Holley told her to sign the letter of credit. We can not say that the wording of the final paragraph of each count obviated the deficiency in the charge