Court Opinion

ID: 9482258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:44:53.803314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:52.043699
License: Public Domain

CYR, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I write separately on the jury instruction challenge relating to Count One. Fontana concedes that the government proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he violated subsection 1344(1) by engaging in a scheme or artifice to defraud. He contends nevertheless that the jury instruction on Count One became the law of the case and had the effect of saddling the government with the gratuitous burden of proving that Fon-tana defrauded the banks by means of “false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises,” as would be required to establish the separate offense criminalized under subsection 1344(2).
Under the holding in Williams v. United States, 458 U.S. at 284-85, 102 S.Ct. at 3091-92, mere presentation or deposit of a check does not constitute a “representation” to the honoring bank that there are sufficient funds in the checking account. Fontana therefore argues that his conviction under Count One must be set aside since the government produced no evidence of a false representation, pretense, or promise. In light of the discussion in Part III of the majority opinion, however, the court need not have reached Fontana’s “law of the case” claim.1
Part III of the majority opinion discusses Fontana’s conviction, under Counts Two and Thirteen, for interstate transportation of “falsely made” securities. See 18 U.S.C. § 2314. The court correctly concludes that the Williams holding is inapposite to the section 2314 charge and that Fontana’s conviction under section 2314 can be predicated on Fontana’s proven conduct in signing a series of checks with the knowledge that he was not an authorized signatory.
The very same evidence supports Fonta-na’s conviction under Count One, even assuming Fontana’s “law of the case claim” is well founded. The knowing execution of checks by an unauthorized signatory unquestionably constitutes a series of “false or fraudulent pretenses [or] representations” within the meaning of subsection 1344(2). See United States v. Bonnett, 877 F.2d 1450, 1456-57 (10th Cir.1989) (collateral conduct, independent of actual contents of checks, designed to give false impression and lull banks into false sense of security may constitute false pretenses, representations or promises).2 There was ample evidence that Fontana engaged in a pattern of conduct designed to defraud the banks by holding himself out as a true maker of the corporate checks. The government presented direct evidence that Fontana was not an authorized signatory on these corporate checks. It presented circumstantial evidence that Fontana knew *808he was not an authorized signatory at the time he executed the checks. Thus, there was sufficient evidence to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Fontana executed the fraudulent scheme by means of false pretenses or representations. I would affirm Fontana’s convictions under Counts One, Two, and Thirteen on the same ground.

. Furthermore, the majority’s treatment of the claim is met with considerable difficulty. The “law of the case” issue is whether the jury instruction had the effect of making the "false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises” requirement in subsection 1344(2) an element of the crime charged in Count One. The majority opinion notes that the district court read section 1344 to the jury verbatim, including the disjunctive "or” separating subsections (l) and (2). Since its discussion as to whether the reading of the statute disposed of Fontana's claim is inconclusive, the majority proceeds, with decidedly less success, to identify other indications that the jury instruction interpreted section 1344 in the disjunctive. I am particularly concerned by the majority’s reliance on jury instruction language to the effect that the government was required to prove the completion or success of neither a false representation nor a scheme to defraud. The relevant passage in the jury instruction continued, however, and concluded with the following language: "as such scheme or plan, even if it is not successful, is as illegal as it would be if it were successful.” Viewed in context, it is crystal clear that the disjunctive negatives used by the court were merely to disabuse the jury of any notion that Fontana could not be convicted under Count One unless the government proved that the conduct he engaged in was successfully completed. This is standard language in jury instructions relating to a fraudulent scheme. See, e.g., United States v. Kelley, 929 F.2d 582, 585 (10th Cir.1991); United States v. Solomonson, 908 F.2d 358, 363-64 (8th Cir.1990). Thus, the language alluded to in the majority opinion says nothing about whether the government had to prove both a scheme to defraud and a false pretense, representation or promise.

. It is well recognized that “false pretenses" may be shown by either written or oral statements, or by conduct, designed to deceive. See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 541-42 (5th Ed. 1979).