Court Opinion

ID: 9906421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-02 01:00:25.290919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:21.725161
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-50380        Document: 00516987207              Page: 1      Date Filed: 12/01/2023

               United States Court of Appeals
                    for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                           Fifth Circuit

                                     ____________                                        FILED
                                                                                  December 1, 2023
                                       No. 21-50380                                 Lyle W. Cayce
                                     Consolidated with                                   Clerk
                                      No. 22-50659
                                     ____________

   United States of America,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Bradley Lane Croft,

                                              Defendant—Appellant.
                     ______________________________

                    Appeals from the United States District Court
                         for the Western District of Texas
                              USDC No. 5:18-CR-603-1
                    ______________________________

   Before Graves, Higginson, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
   Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:
           In 2019, Bradley Lane Croft was convicted of four counts of aggra-
   vated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. 1 After this court affirmed those
   convictions, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Dubin, 599 U.S. 110,

           _____________________
           1
            Croft was also convicted of eight counts of wire fraud, two counts of money
   laundering, and two counts of making false tax returns. As discussed in this opinion, these
   convictions are not challenged on remand.
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   132 (2023), which articulated a new standard for convictions under § 1028A.
   Subsequently the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case, vacated this
   court’s judgment, and remanded for consideration in light of Dubin. United
   States v. Croft, 143 S. Ct. 2635 (2023). Croft asks that this court vacate his
   convictions under § 1028A and remand this case for resentencing. During
   the pendency of this case, Croft also filed a pro se appeal after the district
   court denied his third motion for a new trial, in which he alleged newly dis-
   covered evidence that the government should have, but did not, produce un-
   der Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). At the same time, he moved for
   release pending appeal, arguing that he was likely to prevail in his direct ap-
   peal and his pro se appeal. Because of the interrelatedness of Croft’s direct
   and pro se appeals, No. 21-50380 and 22-50659, we sua sponte consolidate
   these cases.
          Having evaluated the evidence adduced at Croft’s trial under the
   “crux of the criminality” standard articulated in Dubin, we affirm Croft’s
   four convictions under § 1028A. We further affirm the district court’s de-
   nial of Appellant’s motion for a new trial, and deny as moot his motion
   for release pending appeal.
                                         I.
          Croft owned and operated Universal K-9, a school that primarily
   trained handlers and dogs for police work. Croft sought to expand the
   business by offering courses to veterans, who would pay tuition using G.I. Bill
   funds paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). However, to be
   eligible to receive such funds, Universal K-9 had to first obtain certification
   from the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC), the state agency designated by
   the VA to approve educational institutions and programs that sought to
   receive certain kinds of veterans’ educational benefits. For a program like the
   dog handling program, certification depended on the organization’s

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   employment of dog trainers with certain qualifications, and Croft was
   required to attach to his application a roster listing Universal K-9’s
   instructors and administrative staff along with instructor qualifications.
          Over the course of several years, Croft submitted multiple
   applications to the TVC. Finally, via application of March 2016, Universal
   K-9 was certified by the TVC, and accepted by the VA, in June 2016. On the
   March 2016 application that the TVC approved, Croft listed four instructors
   whose duties were teaching classes and training dogs: Wes Keeling, Dustin
   Bragg, Jesse Stanley, and Art Underwood. The application included several
   certificates showing the qualifications of these four instructors.
          However, at trial, Keeling, Bragg, and Stanley testified that, while
   they had prior involvements with Universal K-9, they had never given their
   permission to be named as instructors for the purposes of the TVC
   application, nor had they actually served as instructors for the courses listed.
   The fourth trainer listed on the roster, Underwood, died in March 2014, two
   years before Croft certified to the TVC that he would be a trainer at Universal
   K-9. Rufus Coburn, the Assistant Director of the TVC during the relevant
   timeframe, testified that Universal K-9’s application would not have been
   approved without the names of the instructors, their qualifications, and
   information about the classes they would teach.
          After a bench trial, Croft was convicted of eight counts of wire fraud,
   four counts of aggravated identity theft, two counts of money laundering, and
   two counts of making or subscribing a false tax return. He was sentenced to
   70 months of imprisonment on the wire fraud and money laundering counts,
   36 months of imprisonment on the false tax return counts, and 24 months of
   imprisonment on two of the aggravated identity theft counts, all to be served
   concurrently. Croft was sentenced to 24 months of imprisonment on each of
   the remaining two aggravated identity theft counts, to be served

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   consecutively with each other and the above sentences, for a total of 118
   months. His sentence also included supervised release, forfeiture, and resti-
   tution.
                                           II.
             This court affirmed the district court’s judgment on direct appeal, de-
   termining that the evidence was sufficient to support Croft’s convictions of
   wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering, and rejecting
   challenges to the orders of forfeiture and restitution. See United States v.
   Croft, No. 21-50380, 2022 WL 1652742, at *2–6 (5th Cir. May 24, 2022) (per
   curiam). To do so, it relied on United States v. Dubin, 27 F.4th 1021, 1021-22
   (5th Cir. 2022) (en banc). See Croft, 2022 WL 1652742, at *4. However, the
   Supreme Court then vacated and reversed the en banc Dubin decision, Dubin
   v. United States, 599 U.S. at 132, then vacated this court’s judgment in
   Croft’s appeal and remanded for further consideration in light of its Dubin
   decision. See Croft, 143 S. Ct. 2635.
             When a case is remanded from the Supreme Court, with the
   “[e]xcept[ion] [of] that which we are mandated to review, our previous rul-
   ings are the law of the case and will not now be reconsidered.” Gradsky v.
   United States, 376 F.2d 993, 996 (5th Cir. 1967). Accordingly, we consider
   only whether Croft’s four convictions for aggravated identity theft should be
   upheld under Dubin.
                                           III.
             The aggravated identity theft statute provides that “[w]hoever,
   during and in relation to” certain enumerated felonies, including wire fraud,
   “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means
   of identification of another person shall, in addition to the punishment
   provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.”
   U.S.C. 18 § 1028A(a)(1), §1028A(c) (listing enumerated felonies). The term

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   “means of identification” is defined in relevant part as “any name or number
   that may be used, alone or in conjunction with any other information, to
   identify a specific individual.” Id. § 1028(d)(7).
          But the statute itself does not define the meaning of “during and in
   relation to.” In Dubin, the Supreme Court set out to clarify this meaning,
   holding that not every instance in which a person uses another person’s
   means of identification “during” a fraud is “in relation to” that fraud such
   that it constitutes aggravated identity theft. The Court held that, under
   § 1028A(a)(1), “[a] defendant ‘uses’ another person’s means of
   identification ‘in relation to’ a predicate offense when this use is at the crux
   of what makes the conduct criminal.” Dubin, 599 U.S. at 131. The Court
   added that, “[t]o be clear, being at the crux of the criminality requires more
   than a causal relationship, such as ‘facilitation’ of the offense or being a but-
   for cause of its ‘success.’” Id. (some internal quotation marks omitted). For
   crimes that involve fraud or deceit, “the means of identification specifically
   must be used in a manner that is fraudulent or deceptive. Such fraud or deceit
   going to identity can often be succinctly summarized as going to ‘who’ is
   involved.” Id. at 132.
          In that case, the defendant overbilled Medicaid by inflating the
   qualifications of an employee who performed a test and claiming a higher
   reimbursement based on those qualifications. Dubin, 599 U.S. at 114. The
   defendant billed Medicaid as if the test had been done by a licensed
   psychologist, when in fact it had been done by a more junior “psychological
   associate.” Id. The fraudulent bill submitted by the defendant included a
   patient’s name and Medicaid reimbursement number, which are “means of
   identification.” Id. at 115. Because he misrepresented the employee’s
   qualifications and overbilled Medicaid, the defendant was convicted of
   healthcare fraud pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1347. Id. at 114. Because he used a
   patient’s name and Medicaid number, he was convicted of aggravated

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   identity theft based on his unlawful use of a means of identification. See
   Dubin, 599 U.S. at 114-15.
          The Supreme Court reversed the aggravated identity theft conviction,
   determining that the “means of identification” used—the patient’s name—
   “was not at the crux of what made the underlying overbilling fraudulent” but
   was merely “an ancillary feature of the billing method employed.” Id. Rather,
   “the crux of the healthcare fraud was a misrepresentation about the
   qualifications of [an] employee.” Id. The Court explained that the fraud at
   issue “was in misrepresenting how and when services were provided to a
   patient, not who received the services.” Id. The Court thus concluded that
   there had not been a “use [of] the patient’s means of identification in relation
   to a predicate offense within the meaning of § 1028A(a)(1).” Id.
          We now turn to analyzing Croft within the framework articulated by
   the Supreme Court in Dubin.
                                         IV.
          On remand, Croft argues that, because neither he nor any other
   Universal K-9 employee falsely claimed to be one of the four individuals
   Croft submitted in the application, no aggravated identity theft occurred. But
   Dubin did not hold that the defendant in that case was innocent of aggravated
   identity theft because he did not present himself to be someone else. Rather,
   it held that when a predicate felony involving “fraud and deceit crimes”
   hinges on “how and when services were provided to a patient, not who
   received the services,” Dubin, 599 U.S. at 132, it cannot sustain an
   aggravated identity theft conviction. As the Eleventh Circuit has explained,
   “Section 1028A's reach is thus limited to situations where ‘a genuine nexus’
   exists between the use of a means of identification and the predicate offense.”
   United States v. Gladden, 78 F.4th 1232, 1244 (11th Cir. 2023).

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            In Dubin, the Supreme Court identified a mismatch between the
   “crux” of the predicate felony—overbilling Medicaid by misrepresenting
   Person A’s qualifications—and the § 1028A conviction that the government
   argued the predicate felony supported—the incidental use of Person B’s
   name and Medicaid ID on the billing statement. Because the billing statement
   was rendered fraudulent by the misrepresentation about Person A, and not
   by the misrepresentation about Person B, Person B’s means of identification
   was not used “in relation to”—that is, central to—the predicate offense of
   fraud.
            There is no such mismatch here. Croft’s misrepresentations about
   “who” was teaching courses at Universal K-9 were the basis—and “heart
   of”—his wire fraud convictions. See Dubin, 599 U.S. at 123; see also Gladden,
   78 F.4th at 1245 (“[Defendant’s] forgery of the [victims’] identities is at the
   heart of the deception.”). Trial testimony established that Universal K-9’s
   March 2016 application to the TVC was fraudulent because it identified
   Keeling, Bragg, Stanley, and Underwood as qualified trainers who worked for
   the company and would be teaching the classes to veterans. In his letter brief
   to this court, Croft acknowledges that the trial court heard evidence that he
   identified these four men as instructors “to receive VA approval to open his
   dog-handler training school” but that “none of the four individuals ever
   reported to work.” He further acknowledges that “three of these individuals
   testified that they did not give Croft permission to put their names on the
   application,” and that the fourth individual was deceased.
            Rufus Coburn of the TVC testified that the roster of instructors and
   their qualifications was “particularly important” to the application, and that
   veterans would not get G.I. Bill benefits if they took courses with unapproved
   instructors. Far from being “ancillary feature[s]” of Croft’s application to
   the TVC, the material misrepresentations that Croft made—that these four
   men were qualified instructors employed by Universal K-9 to teach classes to

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   veterans—were the basis of his conviction for the predicate felony of wire
   fraud. 2 As is required by Dubin, the use of the four men’s names and
   information was “at the crux of what made the underlying [conduct]
   fraudulent.” Dubin, 599 U.S. at 132.
           Croft presents his claim to us as one of evidentiary insufficiency,
   arguing that the government failed in its burden to prove with convincing
   force that his use of a means of identification of others was integral, not
   ancillary, to his wire fraud predicate offense. See generally United States v.
   Cosentino, 869 F.2d 301, 308-09 (7th Cir. 1989). We answer this evidentiary
   argument by affirming that the government met its “core” or “crux” burden
   under Dubin. At its core, Croft’s application to the TVC was fraudulent
   because of his misappropriation of the victim trainers’ means of
   identification. This theft was the “key mover in [his] criminality.” Dubin,
   599 U.S. at 122-123.
                                                V.
           In the light of Dubin, the evidence supports the trial court’s findings
   that Croft used means of identification belonging to Keeling, Bragg, Stanley,
   and Underwood during and in relation to wire fraud. Accordingly, we
   Affirm his convictions and sentences for the four aggravated identity theft
   counts. This court has also considered Croft’s pro se appeal of the district
   court’s denial of his motion for a new trial under Brady, 373 U.S. 83, and we
   hold that the district court properly denied that motion. Finally, since this
   court has adjudicated both underlying appeals on the merits, and held that

           _____________________
           2
            Indeed, in his written closing argument to the trial court, Croft argued that “the
   government must first establish that there is Aggravated Identity Theft in order for there to
   be Wire Fraud.”

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   Croft’s convictions stand, we deny as moot his motion for release
   pending appeal.

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   James C. Ho, Circuit Judge, dubitante:
          Congress has defined “aggravated identify theft” in admittedly broad
   terms: Anyone who “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful
   authority, a means of identification of another person”—and does so “during
   and in relation to” certain enumerated felonies such as Medicaid or wire
   fraud—is subject to a mandatory two-year term of imprisonment. 18 U.S.C.
   § 1028A(a)(1).
          On its face, this language doesn’t just cover those acts that people
   would ordinarily consider “identity theft.” It also appears to include acts
   that we might not consider “identity theft” in the colloquial sense—but that
   plainly constitute theft involving the use of another person’s identity. For
   example, it would cover a person who is authorized to use another person’s
   identity to charge a certain amount—but who then abuse that authority to
   charge some additional, impermissible sum.
          Or at least that’s what the United States—and this court—thought.
   In United States v. Dubin, 27 F.4th 1021 (5th Cir. 2022) (en banc), a majority
   of our en banc court adopted the position of the United States and affirmed
   the § 1028A(a)(1) convictions accordingly.
          But that view was subsequently rejected by the Supreme Court. 599
   U.S. 110 (2023). The Court dismissed the notion that § 1028A(a)(1) covers
   “defendants who fraudulently inflate the price of a service or good they
   actually provided.” Id. at 114. Such a reading, the Court feared, might sweep
   in “[a] lawyer who rounds up her hours from 2.9 to 3,” or “a waiter who
   serves flank steak but charges for filet mignon.” Id. It might encompass
   “[e]very contractor who has rounded up his billed time by even a few
   minutes,” and “[e]very bill splitter who has overcharged a friend.” Id. at 133
   (Gorsuch, J., concurring in the judgment).

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          In anticipation of these hypotheticals, the Solicitor General
   acknowledged that her reading would sweep in modest acts of theft. But she
   nevertheless maintained that hers was the correct reading of the statute. See
   U.S. Br. 21 (proposed hypotheticals present “archetypal scenarios in which
   a defendant ‘uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification’ in
   furtherance of a predicate crime”); see also Oral Arg. Tr. 65–66.
          The Solicitor General’s views are well taken. Congress could have
   included a minimum loss requirement in § 1028A(a)(1). But it did not do so.
   Instead, Congress decided that “the small fraud is going to be punished the
   same way as the big fraud,” as the United States put it during oral argument.
   Oral Arg. Tr. 66. Congress imposed “a flat two-year penalty, regardless of
   the size of the fraud in a particular case.” Id.
          That’s a judgment call for legislators to make. Cf. Ewing v. California,
   538 U.S. 11 (2003); Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263 (1980). And it’s a
   reasonable one for them to make. If you take only a modest item from a local
   CVS, you’re still a shoplifter. If you grab just a few dollars worth of quarters
   from a parked car, you’re still a thief. Cf. George L. Kelling & James Q.
   Wilson, Broken Windows, The Atlantic, March 1982 (discussing social
   consequences when “courts do not punish petty [offenses]”).
          Moreover, the purported absurdity of applying § 1028A(a)(1) to even
   minor economic losses proves too much. After all, no one would dispute that
   § 1028A(a)(1) criminalizes prototypical acts of identity theft, even when they
   cause only a small economic loss. A person who steals your identity just to
   buy a meal at McDonald’s is still subject to a flat two-year prison sentence.
          The real underlying concern appears to be that § 1028A(a)(1) covers
   acts that just don’t look like the sort of “identity theft” that legislators
   thought they were targeting. Admittedly, not every theft involving the use of
   another person’s identity will sound like identity theft to the lay person.

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           But it is the statutory text, not Congress’s subjective expectations,
   that is supposed to govern the interpretive process. See, e.g., Smith v. United
   States, 508 U.S. 223, 239 (1993) (“It may well be that Congress, when it
   drafted the language of § 924(c), had in mind a more obvious use of guns in
   connection with a drug crime, but the language of the statute is not so limited
   . . . Whether guns are used as the medium of exchange for drugs sold illegally
   or as a means to protect the transaction or dealers, their introduction into the
   scene of drug transactions dramatically heightens the danger to society.”)
   (quoting United States v. Harris, 959 F.2d 246, 262 (D.C. Cir. 1992)) (cleaned
   up); Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 79 (1998)
   (“[M]ale-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly not the
   principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. But
   statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably
   comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than
   the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed.”).
           In any event, that’s why a majority of our court—including every
   member of this panel—endorsed the United States position. But that
   position has now been rejected by the Supreme Court. And it goes without
   saying that we’re duty bound to follow Supreme Court precedent, whether
   we agree with it or not. See, e.g., Akhil Reed Amar, America’s
   Unwritten Constitution 232 (2012).
           So it doesn’t matter if I’m sympathetic with the panel majority’s
   decision to affirm the convictions in this case, in light of the breadth of the
   governing text. 1      Nor does it matter if I’m sympathetic with Justice

           _____________________
           1
            I was a member of the panel that originally affirmed Croft’s conviction, prior to
   the Supreme Court’s decision in Dubin. See United States v. Croft, 2022 WL 1652742 (5th
   Cir.).

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   Gorsuch’s concern that the test articulated in Dubin may present
   “intractable interpretive challenges of their own.” 599 U.S. at 135.
          All that matters is that we faithfully interpret and apply the Supreme
   Court’s decision in Dubin. And in that spirit, I wonder if Dubin requires us
   to reverse the § 1028A(a)(1) convictions presented in this case.
          Dubin holds that a person has committed aggravated identity theft
   under § 1028A(a)(1) only if his use of another person’s identity is “at the
   crux of what makes the conduct criminal”—and not if the person’s identity
   is merely “ancillary” to the crime. Id. at 131–32.
          The panel majority reasonably theorizes that Dubin doesn’t foreclose
   affirmance here because Croft’s “application would not have been approved
   without the names of the instructors, their qualifications, and information
   about the classes they would teach.” Ante, at 3.
          But it would also be reasonable to respond that the real “crux” of
   Croft’s fraud turned, not on any person’s name, but rather on their
   qualifications to teach.
          In Dubin itself, for example, the Court concluded that the crux of the
   fraud was the qualifications of the defendant’s employee—not the name of
   the consumer. The defendant’s “use of the patient’s name was not at the
   crux of what made the underlying overbilling fraudulent. The crux of the
   healthcare fraud was a misrepresentation about the qualifications of [the
   defendant’s] employee. The patient’s name was an ancillary feature of the
   billing method employed.” Dubin, 599 U.S. at 132 (emphasis added).
          Put simply, the “fraud was in misrepresenting how and when services
   were provided . . . , not who received the services.” Id.
          So how do the principles articulated in Dubin cut in this appeal? Was
   the crux of the fraud here the names of the defendant’s employees—or their

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   qualifications? Was the crux of Croft’s fraud “who received the services”—
   or who delivered them? Or was it “how . . . services were provided”?
          Be that as it may, a majority of the panel has decided to affirm, and
   they do so in a typically thoughtful opinion. I respect the decision of my
   distinguished colleagues, even if I am personally not so sure that affirmance
   can be reconciled with Dubin. If nothing else, this case may help illustrate
   Justice Gorsuch’s observation that the new test announced by the Supreme
   Court in Dubin could prove difficult to administer in practice.

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