Court Opinion

ID: 9940541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-14 18:02:17.513425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:44:58.791965
License: Public Domain

This opinion is subject to administrative correction before final disposition.

                                Before
                      HACKEL, KISOR, and MIZER
                       Appellate Military Judges

                        _________________________

                          UNITED STATES
                              Appellee

                                     v.

                        Moises A. SALGADO
                Staff Sergeant (E-6), U.S. Marine Corps
                               Appellant

                             No. 202300224

                        _________________________

                        Decided: 14 February 2024

    Appeal from the United States Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary

                            Military Judges:
                         John J. Stephens (trial)
                   Derek D. Butler (Entry of Judgment)

 Sentence adjudged 4 May 2023 by a general court-martial convened at
 Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, consisting of a military judge
 sitting alone. Sentence in the Entry of Judgment: reduction to E-1, con-
 finement for six months, and a bad-conduct discharge.

                            For Appellant:
                Captain Kimberley D. Hinson, JAGC, USN
                United States v. Salgado, NMCCA No. 202300224
                              Opinion of the Court

   Judge MIZER delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Senior Judge
   HACKEL and Senior Judge KISOR joined.

                            _________________________

            This opinion does not serve as binding precedent, but
                 may be cited as persuasive authority under
                  NMCCA Rule of Appellate Procedure 30.2.

                            _________________________

MIZER, Judge:
    Appellant was convicted, consistent with his pleas, of one specification of
larceny, in violation of Article 121, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 1
and one specification of fraudulent use of credit cards, debits cards, and other
access devices, in violation of Article 121a, UCMJ. 2
   Many of the judge advocates appearing at courts-martial today have no ex-
perience with military justice as it existed before the enactment of the Military
Justice Act of 2016 (MJA 16). And so it is incumbent upon senior judge advo-
cates, and especially military judges, to remain vigilant in cases that straddle
the MJA 16’s effective date. This case presents a legacy issue that appears to
have evaded notice before being submitted to this Court without assignment of
error. 3

                                 I. BACKGROUND

    In the 1980s, Congress, along with nearly every state, enacted legislation
specifically penalizing the misuse of credit cards and other so-called access de-
vices. 4 But the UCMJ remained unchanged, and by 2015, it was apparent the

   1 10 U.S.C. § 921.

   2 10 U.S.C. § 921a.

   3 We note that, at his arraignment on 16 February 2023, Appellant unambiguously

elected to be sentenced pursuant to the MJA 16. R. at 5. But when he appeared at the
next Article 39(a) session of his court-martial on 4 May 2023, he pleaded guilty pursu-
ant to a pretrial agreement and was sentenced under the pre-MJA 16 procedures. R.
at 10. The Record contains no explanation for this disparity, and Appellant has waived
any issue this may have presented. We are also unable to identify prejudice under the
circumstances of this case.
   4 Dep’t of Defense, Report of the Military Justice Review Group 894 (2015) (citation

omitted).

                                          2
                 United States v. Salgado, NMCCA No. 202300224
                               Opinion of the Court

UCMJ’s 1950s-era larceny statute, Article 121, UCMJ, was a clumsy tool with
which to address modern-day, access-device fraud. As noted by the Military
Justice Review Group (MJRG) 5 in December 2015, Article 121, UCMJ, re-
quired the Government to allege from whom the accused had stolen money,
and in the case of a wrongful credit or debit transaction, that entity was usually
a bank. 6
   This caused charging authorities and the Courts of Criminal Appeals to
repeatedly “flounder and misstep” 7 regarding this elemental requirement,
which led to a string of decisions 8 and summary dispositions 9 by the Court of
Appeals for the Armed Forces.
    The MJRG sought to remedy this situation by proposing the adoption of a
new statute, Article 121a, UCMJ, which would specifically address access-de-
vice fraud. Congress agreed, and Article 121a, UCMJ, took effect on 1 January
2019.

                                  II. DISCUSSION

   While the MJRG was endeavoring to address access-device fraud in the
military, Appellant was endeavoring to commit it. From his perch as his unit’s
Agency Program Coordinator (APC) for the Government Travel Charge Card
(GTCC) Program, which at the time of the charged offenses was administered
by Citibank, Appellant was able to see the balances that his fellow Marines
had on their Citibank credit cards.
   Beginning in September 2017, Appellant transferred money from the Citi-
bank accounts of eight Marines to his personal Navy Federal Credit Union

    5 The MJRG, “which was so ably chaired by Senior Judge Andrew Effron,” United

States v. Hale, 78 M.J. 268, 275 (C.A.A.F. 2019) (Ohlson, J. concurring and dissenting
in part), is responsible for the bulk of changes Congress ultimately adopted in the MJA
16.
    6 Id. at 893 (citing Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (2012 ed.) (MCM), pt.

IV, para. 46.c.(1)(i)(vi)).
    7 United States v. Williams, 75 M.J. 129, 132 (C.A.A.F. 2016).

    8 United States v. Lubasky, 68 M.J. 260 (C.A.A.F. 2010); United States v. Sharpton,

73 M.J. 299 (C.A.A.F. 2014).
    9 United States v. Gaskill, 73 M.J. 207 (C.A.A.F. 2014); United States v. Endsely,

74 M.J. 216 (C.A.A.F. 2015).

                                          3
                  United States v. Salgado, NMCCA No. 202300224
                                Opinion of the Court

(NFCU) account. 10 By the time of the last of these transactions on 10 December
2018, he had stolen $21,966.19.
    As will become relevant later, Appellant made one more fraudulent trans-
action on 21 January 2019—20 days after Article 121a, UCMJ, took effect. As
with the others, he transferred money from Citibank to his NFCU account, this
time in the amount of $1,336.46.
   The Government charged Appellant’s two-year, credit-card-fraud scheme
under both Article 121 and Article 121a, UCMJ, a decision that in and of itself
should have prompted everyone to proceed with caution.
    Appellant signed a stipulation that he transferred money “out of other Ma-
rine’s [sic] Citibank accounts and into my own.” 11 He further explained during
the providence inquiry that as “the APC, [he] could see other Marines’ Citibank
balances that had extra money from the DTS” 12 and “could access their Citi-
bank accounts and request to transfer their excess balances” to his NFCU ac-
count. 13
    When the military judge asked Appellant about a Citibank spreadsheet
documenting the fraud, and asked if Appellant had transferred money from
Citibank to NFCU, Appellant admitted that he had. 14 Appellant added, “Citi-
bank was the main program for all that…and that’s how I did it, sir.” 15 He then
discussed each named victim and described how he used Citibank’s accounts
to transfer money to his NFCU account. 16
    This case is on all fours with United States v. Simpson, and, as in Simpson,
here, “the military judge abused his discretion in failing to reject [Appellant’s]
guilty plea and entering a finding of guilty as to the larceny specification.” 17 As

   10 Pros. Ex. 1 at 2.

   11 Pros. Ex. 1 at 2.

   12 The Defense Travel System (DTS) is the Department of Defense’s (DoD) official

travel system.
   13 R. at 30.

   14 R. at 30-31.

   15 R. at 31.

   16 R. at 32 (“Same thing, Your Honor. Excess amount from Citibank transferred to

my NavyFed account…Your Honor, money from Citibank, excess amount transferred
to my NavyFed account.”).
   17 77 M.J. 279, 284 (C.A.A.F. 2018).

                                          4
                  United States v. Salgado, NMCCA No. 202300224
                                Opinion of the Court

a matter of law, the money stolen by Appellant belonged to Citibank, and Ap-
pellant “obtained nothing from the account holders.” 18 “Appellant’s actions con-
stituted a garden-variety larceny by unauthorized use of debit card infor-
mation, and the usual rule—that the person stolen from…was the merchant
from whom the goods were obtained or the bank from whom the money was
obtained—applies.” 19
    “While it is both intuitively and objectively true” that the eight Marines
named in the larceny specification were victims and suffered losses, and Ap-
pellant was “the but-for cause of their financial problems, that does not consti-
tute larceny from them.” 20
    But because this case is on all fours with Simpson, we conclude, as in Simp-
son, “the stipulation of fact and the providence inquiry provide an adequate
basis to affirm a finding of guilty to the lesser included offense of attempted
larceny under Article 80, UCMJ[.]” 21 Appellant “did, in fact, commit and plead
guilty to larceny—he was merely mistaken about who he was stealing from.” 22
Appellant’s admissions during the providence inquiry, together with the stip-
ulation of fact, establish all the elements of the lesser included offense of at-
tempted larceny and we affirm a finding of guilty to that offense.
    This Court has broad discretion to cure prejudicial error by reassessing the
sentence and, in accordance with United States v. Winckelmann, we do so
here. 23 We note that Appellant was sentenced by a military judge who, with
agreement of the parties, wrongly determined the maximum authorized pun-
ishment to include 15—instead of 20—years of confinement. 24 The violation of
Article 121a, UCMJ, alleged in Charge II, authorizes a maximum punishment
including 15 years of confinement just for the $1,336.46 theft that occurred on
21 January 2019. And we leave Appellant’s conviction for that offense undis-
turbed.
   Further, our decision to affirm the lesser included offense of attempt under
Charge I does not impact the five additional years of confinement Appellant

   18 Id. at 283 (citing United States v. Williams, 75 M.J. 129, 134 (C.A.A.F. 2016)).

   19 Williams, 75 M.J. at 134.

   20 Id. (emphasis in original).

   21 Simpson, 77 M.J. at 284 (citation omitted); Article 59(b), UCMJ.

   22 Id. at 285.

   23 73 M.J. 11, 13 (C.A.A.F. 2013).

   24 R. at 38.

                                          5
               United States v. Salgado, NMCCA No. 202300224
                             Opinion of the Court

faced for attempting to steal $21,966.19 from eight other Marines. 25 We are
confident that, absent the error set forth above, the sentence adjudged would
have been at least as severe as the adjudged sentence. 26 A sentence to confine-
ment for six months, reduction to E-1, and a bad-conduct discharge 27 is also
appropriate for an Appellant who abuses a position of trust to steal $23,302.65,
regardless of whether, as a matter of law, the victim is a bank or his fellow
Marines.

                                III. CONCLUSION

    After careful consideration of the record and brief of appellate counsel, the
finding of guilty as to Specification 1 of Charge I, larceny, is SET ASIDE, and
we AFFIRM instead a finding of guilty to the lesser included offense of at-
tempted larceny under Article 80, UCMJ. Charge II and its sole specification
are AFFIRMED. The sentence, as reassessed, is AFFIRMED. 28

                                   FOR THE COURT:

                                   MARK K. JAMISON
                                   Clerk of Court

   25 See MCM (2019 ed.), pt. IV, para. 4.e; para. 64.d.(c).

   26 United States v. Sales, 22 M.J. 305, 308 (C.M.A. 1986).

   27 Our decision does not impact the apparent suspension of Appellant’s bad-conduct

discharge, which was negotiated between the parties below.
   28 Articles 59 & 66, UCMJ.

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