Court Opinion

ID: 9489951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:28:50.039515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:49.278512
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
Appellant Antonio Angotti was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1014 for filing false statements in a loan application he submitted to Western Federal Bank in the Northern District of California. Section 1014 makes it a crime to “knowingly make[] any false statement ... for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of ... any institution the accounts of which are [federally] in-sured_” 18 U.S.C. § 1014. A violation of § 1014 is “a crime of subjective intent.” United States v. Kennedy, 564 F.2d 1329, 1341 (9th Cir.1977) (defendant violated § 1014 even though bank officer was a party to the fraud and thus had decided to authorize the loan in advance of receiving the false statement); see also United States v. Phillips, 606 F.2d 884, 886 (9th Cir.1979). The jury found that when Angotti filed the loan application in the Northern District of California, he did it with the intent of influencing Western Federal. At that point, the § 1014 crime was “committed.”
The Sixth Amendment guarantees an accused the right to be tried in the district wherein the alleged crime was “committed.”1 U.S. Const, amend. VI. In Angotti’s case, that district was the Northern District of California.
The majority holds that venue was proper in the Central District of California — where Angotti was tried — because Western Federal sent Angotti’s loan application to that district for approval. I dissent because this holding has no support in the Sixth Amendment, in case law or in logic. The subjective intent crime of which Angotti was convicted was committed when he submitted the loan application to Western Federal in the Northern District. What Western Federal did or did not do with the application thereafter is irrelevant.
The Loan Application Counts. The majority accepts that the crime was committed when the loan application was submitted to Western Federal in the Northern District. Maj. op. at 543 (“[t]here is no question that a crime was committed once Angotti’s statements reached the bank office in the Northern District”). The majority holds, however, that the crime was also committed in the Central District. I am at a loss to understand how. What is painfully clear from the majority’s opinion, however, is that under the majority’s holding, a person accused of making false statements in a loan application filed with a bank in San Francisco may be prosecuted in Los Angeles, or New York, or Chicago, or any other city where the loan application happens to be sent for approval, regardless whether the applicant has any idea where the bank will send it.
The majority bases its holding upon its characterization of the § 1014 crime as one that “continues until the communication is received by the person or persons whom it is intended to affect or influence.” See maj. op. at 543. However, the majority cites no authority — Ninth Circuit or otherwise — for the proposition that fraudulent statements intended to influence an “institution the accounts of which are [federally] insured,” see 18 U.S.C. § 1018, are not received by that institution until they find their way to the individual officers with authority to act upon them. United States v. Zwego, 657 F.2d 248 (10th Cir.1981), for example, does not hold that the § 1014 crime “continues” after the bank as an “institution” receives the fraudulent statements. It holds, rather, that “the crime of making false statements for a loan application was completed when the Bank employee transcribed the information tele-phonically received onto the application form.” Id. at 251. Zwego is thus not authority for the majority’s holding that the § 1014 crime continued until the false statements found their way to the bank officers with authority to approve Angotti’s loan.
*547United, States v. Greene, 862 F.2d 1512, 1515-16 (11th Cir.1989), and United States v. Ruehrup, 333 F.2d 641, 643 (7th Cir.1964), also have nothing to do with the question whether a § 1014 offense “continues” after the bank — as distinguished from individual officers — receives the false statements. The holding of each case is that venue was proper in a district where the defendant performed acts preliminary to the bank’s receipt of the false statements. Greene, 862 F.2d at 1516; Ruehrup, 333 F.2d at 643-44.
The principal case the majority relies on is United States v. Candella, 487 F.2d 1223 (2nd Cir.1973). There, the defendants delivered the fraudulent documents to an office of the City of New York in Brooklyn for transmittal to City Hall in Manhattan. The Second Circuit held that venue for a § 1001 false statement count was proper in the Southern District (Manhattan) because the City had accepted the documents at the Brooklyn office for transmission to their intended destination — City Hall — as a matter of convenience to the defendants. Candella, 487 F.2d at 1227 (“the affidavits and bills of lading in question were simply accepted at the City’s branch offices ... for the convenience of the parties seeking to file papers with the Department of Relocation”) (emphasis added). Thus, Candella is not authority for the majority’s holding that a § 1014 crime continues until the false statements find their way to the individual bank officers with authority to approve the loan. Candella says nothing about individual City officials; it merely holds on the particular facts of that case that venue was proper in the Southern District because the defendants intended the documents to be delivered to City Hall. As the Second Circuit put it, “[t]he force propelled ... by the defendants immediately contemplated Manhattan.” Id. at 1228. Here, there is no evidence that Angotti intended the loan application documents to be delivered to the Central District. In other words, there is no evidence that “[t]he force propelled ... [by Angotti] immediately contemplated [the Central District].” In sum, Candella is not authority for the majority’s far-reaching holding that venue for the subjective intent crime of violating § 1014 lies in any district where the bank chooses to send the loan application for approval.
The bottom line is that Angotti committed the § 1014 subjective intent crime when the federally insured institution — Western Federal — received the false statements. That, of course, happened in the Northern District of California. Where Western Federal chose to send the loan application for approval thereafter is irrelevant for the purpose of deciding Angotti’s guilt or innocence and irrelevant for the purpose of determining venue. The crime was committed — it was over — when Angotti delivered the fraudulent documents to Western Federal in the Northern District. It was at this point that Angotti “knowingly ma[de the] false statement^] ... for the purpose of influencing” that institution. See 18 U.S.C. § 1014.
The Verification of Deposit Count. Venue in the Central District was also improper on the count relating to the Verification of Deposit (“Verification”). In upholding venue on this count, the majority relies on the fact that Arthun “prepared and transmitted the false statement in the Central District, and [on the fact that the false statement] was acted upon in the Central District.” Maj. op. at 544. Arthun’s preparation and transmission of the Verification were, however, merely acts that were preparatory to the crime. And the law of this circuit is that “‘[a]ctions which are merely preparatory or prior to the crime are not probative in determining venue.’ ” Corona, 34 F.3d 876, 879 (9th Cir.1994) (venue does not lie for the crime of distributing cocaine in the district where the initial arrangements for the drug deal took place) (citation omitted).
The majority ignores Corona in its analysis of venue on the Verification count, citing only out-of-circuit cases: United States v. Greene, 862 F.2d 1512 (11th Cir.1989); United States v. Marchant, 774 F.2d 888 (8th Cir.1985); United States v. Zwego, 657 F.2d 248 (10th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 919, 102 S.Ct. 1275, 71 L.Ed.2d 460 (1982); and United States v. Ruehrup, 333 F.2d 641 (1964). To the extent these cases are authority for the proposition that actions preparatory to a crime are probative in determining venue, they are in conflict with Corona.
The Conspiracy Count. Because the preparation by Arthun of the Verification consti*548tuted an overt act by a coconspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy, I agree with the majority that venue in the Central District was proper on this count.
The Money Laundering Count. I also agree with the majority that venue for a money laundering count is proper in the district where the underlying crime producing the funds was committed. See United States v. Beddow, 957 F.2d 1330, 1336 (6th Cir.1992). I further agree that venue for the money laundering count in this case was proper in the Central District. I do so, however, for a reason different than the one stated by the majority in its opinion. In my view, venue on the money laundering count was proper in the Central District because the conspiracy was a crime which produced the funds involved in the money laundering, and Arthun committed overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy in the Central District. See id. (“[T]he funds involved in both money laundering counts were acquired by selling drugs in the Western District of Michigan.... We conclude that [this] act[ was] sufficient to confer venue under section 3237(a).”).
In sum, I would affirm the convictions on the conspiracy and money laundering counts, and reverse the convictions on the false statement counts for improper venue.

. The Sixth Amendment provides:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law....
U.S. Const, amend. VI.