Court Opinion

ID: 9469732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:47:36.643751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:32.094291
License: Public Domain

FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Defendants wished to argue to the jury that the government had not proved that the services misapplied had value. They contend that because CETA was a training program and the payments were “more of a welfare-type payment,” the payments to a particular worker did not reflect the value of the worker’s services. The court did not permit this argument to be made, noting that the administrators of the program had determined that the services of each worker were worth a particular rate of pay.
I do not go so far as to say that there could be no set of facts in which a similar argument would have validity. Nevertheless, the undoubted purpose of the statute is to protect the assets and funds granted under the Act. Considering that purpose, and the evidence in this case, it seems to me that it was correct to rule that the value of the services misapplied was established by the wages and benefits. Those were the amount of program funds required to generate the services misapplied.