Court Opinion

ID: 9466770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:27:12.491564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:56.995052
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court so far as it affects the conviction of Enstam, but with deference I dissent from the judgment affirming the conviction of Holley, and the part of the opinion dealing with his conviction.
The record here clearly demonstrated that Enstam and Oldham had conspired to set up a number of corporations, within the United States and in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of laundering money from United States citizens to hinder and delay the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of income taxes. It is also clear that Oldham and Enstam dealt with IRS agents, thinking they were candidates for such service. The record also disclosed that Holley was president of a corporation known as Brittle Oaks and that he had taken title to some land he had bought by placing it in Brittle Oaks. It also discloses that there were letters purporting to be from Brittle Oaks to the Grand Cayman corporation which Enstam and Oldham knew to be engaged in the money washing scheme. There was also evidence that the Grand Cayman corporation made a series of loans to Brittle Oaks at about the time that Holley purchased the land whose title he placed in that corporation. My difficulty is that the IRS agents’ testimony as to what Old-ham told him was the purpose of the Grand Cayman corporation and Brittle Oaks cannot be imputed to Holley unless and until it is shown by substantial evidence that Hol*872ley had knowledge of the income tax — money washing scheme. The only evidence we have that Holley knew of this is from statements made by Oldham to the IRS agents.
In United States v. James, 590 F.2d 575 (5th Cir. 1979), this Court en banc held that before a hearsay statement can be used to inculpate an alleged co-conspirator:
The court must determine as a factual matter whether the prosecution has shown by a preponderance of the evidence independent of the statement itself (1) that a conspiracy existed, (2) that the co-conspirator and the defendant against whom the co-conpirator’s statement is offered were members of the conspiracy, and (3) that the statement was made during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy .
590 F.2d at 582.
Here, I do not find any evidence in this record from which a jury could infer that because Oldham and Enstam had set up a scheme to enable anyone whom they could interest in such a deal to use their corporations to wash their ill-gotten gains for tax purposes, then Holley must be deemed to have been aware that these corporations were of such a character, and that his dealing with them could be the basis of a jury finding that he participated in such conspiracy.
In this case, the only way the jury could properly know of the existence even of the conspiracy between Oldham and Enstam was the agents’ testimony as to what Old-ham told him. Other than this, there is nothing in the record from which a jury could infer that when Holley dealt with Brittle Oaks and when that corporation dealt with the Grand Cayman corporation, Holley was dealing with members of a conspiracy to defraud the United States Internal Revenue.
I fully agree that the proven transaction that Holley engaged in appears to be quite similar to the transactions that Oldham had explained to the revenue agents, and in which they purported to participate. I simply do not believe that the fact of this similarity of dealings between Holley and the other two corporations is sufficient to justify the submission to a jury of the question of Holley’s knowing participation in the conspiracy.
I would affirm as to Enstam and reverse as to Holley.