Court Opinion

ID: 9480576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:51:57.660681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:46.292773
License: Public Domain

DUMBAULD, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
The statute for violation of which defendants-appellants stand convicted (wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343) requires a scheme “for obtaining money or property” by false representations. The statute does not require that a defendant get the property. It is enough if someone or anyone obtains property pursuant to the fraudulent scheme “devised” by defendant. Tickets issued pursuant to the scheme of defendants-appellants in the case at bar which are usable or used for air travel, I am persuaded, are property. And defendants-appellants utilized wire transmission “for the purpose of executing such scheme.”
As stated in Judge Logan’s excellent opinion
Evidence was introduced that coupons were issued for mileage credited to G. Johnson [a fictitious name furnished to the airline by defendants-appellants]. The coupons were exchanged for tickets and those tickets were used, although no evidence was presented linking the Schreiers [the defendants-appellants] to the issuance or use of the tickets.
Upon these facts, [and assuming that the indictment suffices under Stirone v. U.S., 361 U.S. 212, 217, 80 S.Ct. 270, 273, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960) ], a violation of the statute has been established.
Accordingly, I join in the judgment of affirmance and in the majority opinion. I write separately merely to disavow explicitly the Government’s contention, accepted by the District Court, that the “miles” traveled by some passenger and utilized by someone else to obtain a free ticket good for air travel constitute “property” and property of American Airlines. (If a mere number manipulable in a computer is property at all, it would be property of the passenger who earned it under the airline's promotional plan, not of the airline itself). Noncompliance with that plan is pertinent in proving the fraudulent representation element of the offence, not the element of obtaining property.
A judgment can properly be affirmed for reasons other than those given by the District Court. Lindsey v. Dayton-Hudson Corp, 592 F.2d 1118, 1124 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 856, 100 S.Ct. 116, 62 L.Ed.2d 75 (1979).