Opinion ID: 613010
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scheme to Conceal

Text: Mubayyid claims that Count 1 of the indictment, which charged him with a scheme to conceal material information from a federal agency, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(1), was not supported by sufficient evidence. The crime under § 1001(a)(1) is the concealment of a material fact by scheme, trick, or device. [36] The charge in the indictment, which covered all three defendants, alleged that the defendants concealed material facts . . . to wit: the Defendants concealed the fact that Care International, Inc., was an outgrowth of and successor to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center and was engaged in non-charitable activities involving the solicitation and expenditure of funds to support and promote mujahideen and jihad. Mubayyid emphasizes that the language of the indictment following to wit stated that the defendants concealed the fact that before proceeding to describe two facts. Then, with echoes of his challenge to the Count 2 conspiracy, he asserts that the government necessarily charged each defendant with a single-object scheme that embraced both facts as if one. He notes that the government presented insufficient evidence at trial to demonstrate that his scheme encompassed one of those facts for the simple reason that the Form 990 does not request any information regarding whether the organization filing the return is the outgrowth or successor of another organization. As he did with the conspiracy charge, Mubayyid thus contends that his conviction must be vacated because the government failed to prove the specific scheme charged. The government was not required to prove that Mubayyid schemed to conceal that Care was an outgrowth of, or successor to, Al-Kifah. It is well established that an indictment may charge alternative theories of guilt in the conjunctive, and that, [w]hen a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive, the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged. United States v. Murray, 621 F.2d 1163, 1171 n. 10 (1st Cir.1980); see also Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, 90 S.Ct. 642, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970). Moreover, indictments are to be read in a plain and commonsense manner. United States v. Flemmi, 245 F.3d 24, 29 (1st Cir.2001). The indictment charged Mubayyid with concealing two facts by scheme, trick, or device. Under our settled precedent, proof that he concealed either fact is sufficient to support his conviction. Mubayyid attempts to extend the defendants' constructive amendment argument from the conspiracy charge in Count 2 to the charge in Count 1; the argument is as unconvincing here as it was there. Cf. Dowdell, 595 F.3d at 68; Garcia-Paz, 282 F.3d at 1212 (holding that language preceded by the phrase to wit in the indictment is mere surplusage that may be disregarded and needs not be proven). As a second line of attack, Mubayyid contends that his false statements on the Form 990s are legally insufficient to support his conviction under § 1001(a)(1) because they were not affirmative acts of concealment in the face of a legal duty to disclose. [37] As just described, § 1001(a)(1) criminalizes the concealment of material facts from a government agency by scheme, trick, or device. A separate provision of the statute, under which Mubayyid was not charged, criminalizes the making of materially false or fraudulent statements. 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). Reflecting this statutory separation, we have held that simple omissions fall short of constituting affirmative acts of concealment, which are required to prove a scheme, trick, or device. United States v. St. Michael's Credit Union, 880 F.2d 579, 589 (1st Cir.1989). Additionally, under § 1001(a)(1), the concealment must occur in the face of a legal duty to disclose the material fact. See generally United States v. Anzalone, 766 F.2d 676, 682-83 (1st Cir.1985). Mubayyid fails to acknowledge that one has a legal duty to disclose information when a response is required by statute, government regulation, or government form. See, e.g., United States v. Calhoon, 97 F.3d 518, 526 (11th Cir.1996); United States v. Kingston, 971 F.2d 481, 489 (10th Cir.1992); United States v. Bucey, 876 F.2d 1297, 1307 (7th Cir.1989). Moreover, by filing the false Form 990s, which he signed under penalty of perjury, Mubayyid did not passively fail to disclose material facts; he engaged in an affirmative act of concealment. Cf. St. Michael's Credit Union, 880 F.2d at 590-91. His conduct is therefore sufficient grounds for a conviction under § 1001(a)(1). Lastly, Mubayyid contends that, if the government did not charge Count 1 as a unitary scheme, his conviction needs to be set aside under the rationale of Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957). See generally United States v. Nieves-Burgos, 62 F.3d 431, 434-37 (1st Cir.1995) (explaining Yates ). Yates stands for the principle that a conviction must be vacated where the charged crime was submitted to the jury on two independent theories of guilt, one of which depends upon conduct that falls outside of the relevant limitations period, and where  it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected.  See id. at 312, 77 S.Ct. 1064 (emphasis added). Yates is inapplicable to Mubayyid's conviction under § 1001(a)(1) because it is not impossible to tell whether the jury rested their verdict upon evidence of time-barred conduct. Cf. United States v. Zvi, 168 F.3d 49, 55 (2d Cir.1999); United States v. Hudgins, 120 F.3d 483, 487 (4th Cir.1997) (describing Yates's impossible to tell requirement as integral to the rule's application). The indictment charged all three defendants with scheming to conceal two facts: that Care was a successor to Al-Kifah, and that Care was engaged in non-charitable activities that included supporting the mujahideen and jihad. In separate counts, the jury convicted Mubayyid of filing false tax returns within the five-year limitations period by failing to disclose that Care was involved in non-charitable activities that involved supporting the mujahideen and jihad. As noted above, the filing of false tax returns is an affirmative act of concealment sufficient to support a conviction for scheming to conceal material facts under § 1001(a)(1). By contrast, there was no evidence at trial that Mubayyid engaged in any effort to conceal the fact that Care was a successor to Al-Kifah (the conduct which Mubayyid now claims would have occurred outside of the limitations period, if it had been proven). Thus, far from being impossible to tell whether the jury based its verdict on a theory of guilt that depends on time-barred conduct, it is obvious that Mubayyid's conviction under § 1001(a)(1) rests exclusively on his false Form 990 filings within the limitations period. The argument fails.