Court Opinion

ID: 9460746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:59:22.87903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:46.014223
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Chief Judge
(dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent in part. I cannot agree with the majority that there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction of Wallace on Count 5 and Joyce on Count 8, and accordingly I would reverse the convictions on these counts.
I
Count 5, briefly restated, charged all four defendants with the mailing of a letter to Tom Paterson of International Excess Agency, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio from codefendant Burton Sherre. In his letter, Sherre represented that codefendants Wallace, Joyce, and Ostrander agreed that “some of the cost” of Sherre’s legal fees for settling claims should come from Global funds held by *24International. The sum of $1,000 was specified. Sherre was found not guilty-on this count by the jury, and the trial judge granted Joyce’s post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal. Thus Wallace is the only defendant who now stands convicted under Count 5.
The majority has affirmed Wallace's conviction upon a finding of the following: Wallace was active in the affairs of Global at the time the letter was sent; the count letter falls within the conversion scheme; and Wallace was responsible for any letter which any other member of the scheme caused to be mailed in execution of the scheme.
I am unpersuaded that the count letter falls within the conversion scheme. The scheme as outlined in the indictment alleges that Global Surplus and Excess had represented that defendant held out inflated and non-existent assets to insurance brokers and state insurance agencies. The scheme was not use of the mails to defraud by settling claims and seeking payment from retained premiums to pay legal counsel. The letter upon which the conviction under Count 5 is based is solely an effort by Sherre to secure compensation for legal services rendered in effecting settlement of claims.
Assuming, arguendo, that the count letter can be said to fall within the conversion scheme, I cannot agree that the Government proved Wallace was in any way responsible for the letter. That letter, written by Sherre, merely indicates that Wallace along with the other codefendants, agreed to Sherre’s request made to Paterson. Conspicuous by its absence from the record, however, is any evidence of the following: that Wallace and the other codefendants had in fact agreed on how Sherre should be compensated for his services; that Wallace knew of the letter or of its mailing; that Wallace asked Sherre to send the letter; or that Wallace in any way ratified Sherre’s letter. Reliance upon the language in the letter without more is insufficient to support a finding of authorization or ratification by Wallace for the mailing of the letter.
I also harbor doubt as to how active Wallace was in the affairs of Global at the time the letter was sent since the record is replete with evidence that Wallace at the time was estranged from his codefendants.
II
I am additionally disposed to disagree with the majority in their affirmance of Joyce’s conviction on Count 8. That count charged defendants with causing International to send Joyce a copy of its letter to Carl Brown of Royal Excess Underwriters, St. Louis. The count letter informed its recipient that a financial statement of Global was enclosed with the consent of Joyce. Joyce is the only defendant who now stands convicted under this count. His eodefendants were acquitted on the count on the basis of their post-trial motions.
Setting aside the question of whether the letter can be construed as a part of the scheme alleged in the indictment, I find the record will not support a conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to establish proof of mailing a copy of the letter to Joyce or his receipt of it. The concession by the Government, “that the proof of mailing as to Count 8 is probably the most circumstantial” is close to demonstrating the vulnerability of the proof of mailing.
The Government unsuccessfully attempted to establish proof of mailing through the testimony of Tom Paterson who directed a subordinate to draft the letter and enclose a financial statement of Global. While Paterson testified to the customary procedures for mailing letters and copies in his office, it is significant that he did not personally prepare the letter and that he did not know whether he was in his office on the date shown on the letter. In this posture, Paterson could not say that a copy of the letter was ever mailed or received by Joyce in Chicago. No other testimony was offered by the Government to estab*25lish proof of mailing. The notation in the count letter “ec: Mr. Thomas Joyce” standing by itself is an insufficient basis from which to conclude that a copy was mailed to Joyce. Accordingly, the conclusion is inevitable that even when the evidence is viewed in a light most favorable to the Government, the record will not support a reasonable inference that a copy of the letter was sent to Joyce. ■
After the notice of appeal had been filed in this court, we remanded to the district court for the limited purpose of disposing of certain post-trial motions filed by Joyce. On remand a motion for judgment of acquittal on Counts 3 through 7 and 12 and 14 (on which Joyce had been found guilty) was granted. The district court denied the motion as to Count 8.
Later, Joyce’s codefendants secured a similar remand to the district court. The motion for acquittal on Count 8 was granted to Joyce’s codefendants Sherre and Wallace. In ordering acquittal, the district judge stated:
Count 8 alleges that defendants caused a letter to be mailed from Cleveland, Ohio, to defendant Joyce in this district. No such letter was ever offered in evidence. Instead, the government merely proved the mailing of a letter from Cleveland to St. Louis, Missouri, which bore the notation “cc: Mr. Thomas Joyce.” This is not a sufficient basis for a reasonable inference that a copy was mailed to Joyce. Without such an inference, a reasonable mind could not fairly conclude that the evidence showed the essential element of mailing beyond a reasonable doubt.
Afterward, Joyce asked for equal treatment. His request was denied, the judge reasoning that the district court had lost jurisdiction over Joyce because the limited remand as to him had terminated when his post-motions had been acted upon. This recitation of facts clearly demonstrates the unfairness to this defendant through an affirmance of Count 8.
Moreover, since the record is barren of any evidence to establish that Joyce ever received a copy of the letter in Chicago, it must be concluded that proper venue has not been established.
Ill
Although I do not dissent from the affirmance of the convictions under Counts 1, 10, and 11, I am troubled by them.
In my opinion, the Government has stretched to the breaking point the mail fraud statute by using as the count letter in Count 1 the acknowledgment from W. Kenneth Clark of the Industrial Valley Bank and Trust Company, Philadelphia, of Joyce’s request for a monthly bank statement of the Global account. The- acknowledgment letter was only tangentially related to the fraudulent scheme. I believe the intent of the statute would be better served by using mailings that have something more than a strained relation to the scheme, and not a miscellaneous, random piece of correspondence that requires tortuous reasoning on the Government’s part to sustain the conviction. •
The foregoing observation is equally applicable to Counts 10 and 11 where the count letter in Count 10 becomes the underlying basis for Count 11 since the latter count dealt with merely a forwarding of a photostatic copy of the Count 10 letter from the original addressee, Cosmopolitan National Bank, to Global. If the copy of the original letter had been forwarded several times through the mail, presumably the Government would have been able to indict for each separate mailing. It seems to me the prosecutor has a responsibility to exercise restraint and should not approve indictments on essentially irrelevant or duplicative mailings in order to increase the number of counts.
ORDER
Wallace’s petition for rehearing asserts that he must be acquitted on Count 5 since the jury acquitted code*26fendant Sherre and since the district court “erroneously” acquitted codefendant Joyce on that count (see p. 16). His claim is wide of the mark, for Count 5 is a substantive count, making inapplicable the federal rule that a jury may not convict one defendant of conspiracy and acquit his alleged conspirators.
When, as here, the jury found a scheme to defraud and that Wallace, Sherre and Joyce joined it,* any inconsistency in its verdict as to one of the substantive crimes in furtherance of the scheme is governed by Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356. Furthermore, this point was not previously raised and comes too late.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
SWYGERT, Chief Judge, voted to grant the petition for rehearing.

 Sherre remains convicted on.Counts 9, 10, 11 and 15 and Joyce on Counts 1, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 15.