Court Opinion

ID: 9464918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:46:19.943751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:52.886016
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority in its decision that the conviction of the defendant, Leslie Anderson, on the substantive counts of the indictment should be reversed and that a judgment of acquittal on those counts should be entered. I also agree that in the circumstances Judge Anderson should be resenteneed on Count I assuming that his conviction on that count is to be upheld.
However, in my opinion the conviction of both defendants on Count I should be reversed and judgments of acquittal on that count should be entered. For that reason I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision with respect to the count in question.
I think that the jury was fully justified in finding that the defendants conspired to defraud Sharp County, that the result of their conspiracy was to inflict some financial loss on the County and to require the federal government ultimately and indirectly to pay twice for some of the same work that the CETA employees performed on the Grange Road project.
But, as far as Count I is concerned, the question is not whether Judge Anderson and his son, and perhaps others, conspired to defraud the County or whether or to what extent their plan succeeded. The question is whether they conspired to defraud the United States or any of its agencies in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
I recognize that the concept of “fraud against the government” has been defined broadly in cases arising under § 371. Such a conspiracy is not limited to schemes to cheat the government or its agencies out of their money or property. As the majority opinion correctly recognizes, the government is defrauded in legal contemplation if *461federal programs or functions are knowingly interfered with, subverted or obstructed. See the cases cited in the majority opinion.
The opinion of the court characterizes the alleged conspiracy as having been one to divert County funds to James Anderson in the manner described in the court’s opinion and with the ultimate impact on the federal agencies that has been mentioned. And, the majority says that such a scheme would necessarily interfere with the government’s interest in seeing its road aid program (the 70-30 program) and its public employment program (CETA) administered honestly and efficiently and without corruption and waste and was, therefore, a conspiracy to “defraud” the Transportation Department and the Labor Department.
Conceding arguendo that the conspiracy postulated by the majority would be a conspiracy to defraud the United States and its agencies, that conspiracy in my view is not the one charged in the indictment and is not the one that the government undertook to prove at the trial.
The thrust of the conspiracy charge against the Andersons was not that the CETA employees of the County had been assigned to a project that had been subcontracted to a private party, but, on the other hand, was that the employees in question were assigned to work on a road project that ultimately and indirectly would be paid for to the extent of 70% with federal funds disbursed by the Department of Transportation to reimburse the Arkansas State Highway Department for funds that it had paid over to the County on approved estimates as the work progressed.
Under the government’s theory, at least one of the two federal agencies would have been defrauded even if the fencing work on the Grange Road had not been subcontracted at all. In other words, under that theory the government would have been defrauded automatically and the County unjustly enriched by the mere assignment of CETA employees to a project that ultimately was being funded in whole or in part with federal money from another source. However, the government has cited nothing by way of authority to sustain such a fraud per se theory.
The assignment of CETA personnel to the Grange Road project did not cost the government any money that it would not have spent anyway. Nor did the assignment interfere with or obstruct either the CETA program or the road aid program. The purpose of the former program was to give work to people who needed it; the purpose of the latter program was to enable counties to build roads; when the CETA employees were assigned to the Grange Road project, both of the federal agencies involved got exactly what they had bargained for.
As stated, I would reverse the conviction of both defendants on Count I as well as the conviction of Judge Leslie Anderson on Counts II-V.