Opinion ID: 738948
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Customer Complaint Letters

Text: 43 Appellants assert the district court erred in admitting certain customer complaint letters. The government introduced those letters for the limited purpose of proving that the Appellants knew of their existence. Appellants contend that the district court erred in admitting the letters because no independent evidence existed to suggest that Appellants had knowledge of them. United States v. Lasky, 600 F.2d 765, 769 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 979 (1979). This argument is without merit. The district court may admit complaint documents based on circumstantial evidence. Id. In the present case, sufficient circumstantial evidence linked Bakhshekooei, Laros, and Cooper to the telemarketing companies' customer complaint departments. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the customer complaint letters. 44 Furthermore, 45 [w]here documents are admitted on the theory that a defendant's actual knowledge of them shows that he must have realized the scheme was fraudulent, the jury should be told in plain and direct language, that such documents may be considered only if it has been independently shown that such defendant had actual knowledge of the documents while the asserted scheme was in progress. 46 Phillips v. United States, 356 F.2d 297, 306 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 452 (1966). In this case, the district court properly gave such a limiting instruction. 47 Appellants also argue that the probative value of the customer complaint letters was outweighed by the irrelevant and prejudicial descriptions of suffering contained in each letter. The district court's limiting instruction, however, warned jurors not to accept the contents of the letters as true because they could not be verified. Under the circumstances, the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that the prejudicial impact of the letters did not outweigh their probative value.