Court Opinion

ID: 9406143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-30 00:00:23.559999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:27.333174
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-60350     Document: 00516804930         Page: 1    Date Filed: 06/29/2023

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

                                ____________                               FILED
                                                                       June 29, 2023
                                 No. 22-60350                         Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________                               Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                            Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                      versus

   Kevin L. Crandell,

                                           Defendant—Appellant.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Mississippi
                            USDC No. 1:20-CR-61-1
                  ______________________________

   Before Jones, Clement, and Haynes, Circuit Judges.
   Edith H. Jones, Circuit Judge:
          Kevin Crandell brings this appeal after a jury found him guilty of tax
   evasion in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201. The evidence against him supports
   this charge, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying a
   motion for mistrial. Therefore, we AFFIRM.
                               I. Background
          Kevin Crandell is a medical doctor. At the times relevant to this
   appeal, he contracted with two hospitals, one in Mississippi and one in
   Alabama. He usually made $30,000 to $40,000 per month. Because he was
Case: 22-60350      Document: 00516804930          Page: 2    Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                    No. 22-60350

   a contractor, the hospitals did not withhold any wages for tax purposes—
   Crandell was solely responsible for satisfying his federal tax obligations.
          From 2006 through 2012, Crandell did not pay any income taxes or
   file any timely tax returns. He racked up $943,493 in owed taxes, interest,
   and penalties as a result. Although Crandell testified that he briefly visited a
   certified public accountant in 2008, he took no substantive steps towards
   addressing his tax debt until 2010, right after the IRS began garnishing his
   bank accounts.
          Around the same time, Crandell created two corporations: a
   Mississippi corporation called “Kevin Crandell, M.D., Inc.” and a Wyoming
   corporation called “CHBK, Inc.” He used Kevin Crandell, M.D., Inc. to
   receive the money he earned as a contractor, and then paid himself a salary
   through the corporation. He created CHBK, Inc. to shield various assets he
   owned from liability lawsuits. Crandell exercised complete control over both
   entities.
          In 2010, Crandell hired Blue Tax to help him sort out his tax situation.
   Yet his tax returns were not filed for another four years. Part of the delay was
   due to Crandell’s failure to send Blue Tax his information in a timely manner,
   and part was due to Blue Tax misplacing Crandell’s finalized returns. Even
   when his returns had been filed, Crandell did not pay off the tax liability he
   had accumulated.
          Crandell worked with Blue Tax to submit a Form 433-A to the IRS.
   This form is used by the IRS to craft a financially viable payment plan for
   people who are behind on their taxes. To help Blue Tax draft the form,
   Crandell submitted payroll stubs from Kevin Crandell M.D., Inc. indicating
   that he made about $17,000 per month. But when Blue Tax sent him a
   preliminary draft of the Form 433-A, Crandell told them that his income had
   declined and that the draft was inaccurate. He provided new pay stubs

                                          2
Case: 22-60350      Document: 00516804930           Page: 3    Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                     No. 22-60350

   indicating that he made $11,783 per month. This income was $350 lower
   than his estimated living expenses. Blue Tax submitted the form using this
   new information.
          The submitted Form 433-A downplayed Crandell’s income and
   omitted key assets. Although different documents state or imply a large
   range of incomes ($17,000–$30,000 per month) on Crandell’s part, the
   $11,783 per month figure was well below all other contemporaneous evidence
   of his income. Moreover, Crandell wrote himself two checks from Kevin
   Crandell M.D., Inc. for a total of $40,000 shortly after submitting the Form
   433-A, providing a substantial financial boost. The form did not accurately
   list his personal assets, including a $50,000 gun collection. And it did not list
   the bank accounts associated with Crandell’s corporations, even though he
   often used the accounts to pay for personal expenses.
          Crandell was indicted and tried for submitting a fraudulent Form 433-
   A, which the government characterized as tax evasion in violation of
   26 U.S.C. § 7201.
          At trial, the prosecution asked Crandell two questions during cross-
   examination that led the defense to move for mistrial. When Crandell took
   the stand to testify in his defense, he stated that “from the minute I hired
   Blue Tax until now, I only want to do one thing. . . . I just want to pay the
   taxes and get left alone.” The prosecution followed up on this statement by
   asking, “So, 2006 to 2012, you don’t file a tax return, and then you don’t pay
   anything on those taxes, and now—what you said. That’s your word, now—
   2022, you still haven’t paid?” The district court sustained an objection from
   the defense on relevance grounds before Crandell could answer.              The
   prosecution then asked, “You have not filed a personal tax return since 2014,
   have you?” The court again sustained a relevance objection before Crandell
   responded. Crandell’s counsel moved for a mistrial; the district court denied

                                          3
Case: 22-60350      Document: 00516804930           Page: 4     Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                     No. 22-60350

   the motion but gave the jury a limiting instruction directing them to disregard
   any tax activity after the date alleged in the indictment (January 6, 2015).
          The jury convicted Crandell, and the court sentenced him to 33
   months’ imprisonment and $972,493.86 of restitution. He timely appealed.
                                 II. Discussion
          Crandell raises two claims on appeal: first, that the evidence at trial
   was insufficient to support a conviction for tax evasion under 26 U.S.C.
   § 7201; and second, that the district court abused its discretion by denying his
   motion for a mistrial. Both claims fail.
                            A. Sufficiency of the Evidence
          Preserved challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence are reviewed
   de novo. United States v. Kieffer, 991 F.3d 630, 634 (5th Cir. 2021). Appellate
   courts affirm on the sufficiency of the evidence if, “after viewing the
   evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of
   fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable
   doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789 (1979).
   At this stage, the “evidence need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis of
   innocence or be wholly inconsistent with every conclusion except that of
   guilt, and this court will accept all credibility choices that tend to support the
   verdict.” United States v. Stevenson, 126 F.3d 662, 664 (5th Cir. 1997).
          Crandell’s sufficiency challenge takes two independent forms. The
   first is that submitting a false Form 433-A cannot support a conviction for tax
   evasion as a matter of law. The second is that the evidence does not show
   that he willfully evaded his tax obligations. These arguments miss the mark.
          Title 26 U.S.C. § 7201 penalizes “[a]ny person who willfully attempts
   in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment
   thereof.”     Courts have long held that § 7201 has three elements:

                                           4
Case: 22-60350         Document: 00516804930               Page: 5       Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                           No. 22-60350

   “(1) willfulness, (2) existence of a tax deficiency; and (3) an affirmative act
   constituting an evasion or attempted evasion of the tax.” United States v.
   Nolen, 472 F.3d 362, 377 (5th Cir. 2006); see also Sansone v. United States,
   380 U.S. 343, 351, 85 S. Ct. 1004, 1010 (1965).
           Crandell argues that submitting a fraudulent Form 433-A is per se
   insufficient evidence that a defendant has violated 26 U.S.C. § 7201.
   Taxpayers like Crandell send these forms to the IRS to solicit a payment
   plan—a schedule of payments that reflects the amount owed as well as the
   taxpayer’s capacity to pay. A payment plan does not change the amount
   owed. Therefore, Crandell concludes that even if his Form 433-A was
   intentionally falsified, it would not “evade or defeat any tax imposed,” but
   merely change the timetable for repayment.                    He contrasts soliciting a
   payment plan with submitting an “offer in compromise,” which is a
   settlement offer submitted by the debtor that can reduce the amount owed.
   Young v. United States, 535 U.S. 43, 53, 122 S. Ct. 1036, 1042 (2002). An
   offer in compromise involves submitting a special version of Form 433-A as
   well as meeting several other requirements, an option Crandell does not seem
   to have pursued.
           We disagree. The Fifth Circuit has not previously ruled on this issue,
   and the parties have identified little precedent from other courts. 1 Yet the

           _____________________
           1
             Of the federal courts of appeals, only the Ninth Circuit has squarely held that false
   statements on a Form 433-A can sustain a conviction for tax evasion. United States v.
   Memmott, 667 F. App’x 206, 207 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[F]alse statements on the Form 433–A
   alone are sufficient evidence that [the defendant] attempted to evade paying his back
   taxes.”). However, the Eighth Circuit seems to have assumed as much. United States v.
   Montanari, 863 F.3d 775, 780 (8th Cir. 2017) (“To convict Montanari of tax evasion, the
   jury was required to find that he willfully performed one of two affirmative acts alleged in
   the indictment. Those acts were Montanari’s filing of a false and fraudulent Form 433-A in
   December 2009 and his transfer of funds from his companies to the Bella Luca bank
   account.”).

                                                 5
Case: 22-60350         Document: 00516804930           Page: 6    Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                        No. 22-60350

   text of the statute proscribes evading “any tax imposed by this title or the
   payment thereof.” 26 U.S.C. § 7201 (emphasis added). Understating one’s
   financial status on a Form 433-A does not change one’s tax liability in the
   abstract, but it does reduce the payments due on that debt. This is especially
   so where, as here, the form states that the debtor’s expenses exceed his
   income. Barring any law to the contrary, a taxpayer could string the IRS along
   for his entire lifetime by racking up huge debts and then arranging generously
   slow repayment schedules using Form 433-As that undersell his income and
   assets.     But that would be an “attempt[] . . . to evade or defeat” the
   “payment” of due taxes.           26 U.S.C. § 7201.        Therefore, Crandell’s
   conduct—the intentional filing of a false Form 433-A—violates 26 U.S.C.
   § 7201.
             Crandell also argues that there is insufficient evidence that he willfully
   took any affirmative actions to evade taxes. He avers that IRS garnishments
   account for why his salary was lower when he submitted the Form 433-A,
   citing an October 2014 garnishment that accounted for his entire pay for the
   month. He also notes that he supplied other documents to the IRS and Blue
   Tax that reflected a much higher income around the same time. He claims
   that the existence of such documents proves he was not willfully attempting
   to hide his income from the IRS. And he argues that the documents establish
   that Blue Tax had access to all his financial information and thus bears the
   responsibility for any errors in the Form 433-A.
             Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, a
   rational juror could disagree. Even if it was legitimate for Crandell to deduct
   IRS garnishments from his income, that does not explain why Crandell
   neglected to mention key assets on the form—such as the $50,000 gun
   collection and the corporate bank accounts that he used to pay personal

                                             6
Case: 22-60350         Document: 00516804930                Page: 7        Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                            No. 22-60350

   expenses. 2 Moreover, the prosecution presented evidence suggesting that he
   manipulated his wages to artificially depress his income at the time he
   submitted the Form 433-A. A month after submission, he paid himself a
   $40,000 “bonus,” increasing his income considerably.                          And a credit
   application that Crandell prepared around this time stated his monthly
   income was over $22,000, roughly double what he claimed on the Form 433-
   A. Based on this evidence, a rational juror could conclude that Crandell knew
   that his true income was considerably higher than that listed on the form and
   willfully misled the IRS about his ability to pay.
           Crandell’s reliance on Blue Tax also does not constitute a sufficient
   defense. “To establish reliance as a defense, [a defendant] must show that:
   (i) he relied in good faith on a professional and (ii) he made complete
   disclosure of all the relevant facts.” United States v. Masat, 948 F.2d 923,
   930 (5th Cir. 1991). The problem for Crandell is that he did not fully rely on
   Blue Tax nor disclose all the relevant facts. When Blue Tax drafted a
   Form 433-A that reflected an income about $5,000 higher than his living
   expenses, Crandell submitted new pay stubs that suggested, contrary to all
   other documentation, that his income was slightly lower than his living
   expenses. Crandell’s intervention is incompatible with the reliance defense.
                                       B. Mistrial Motion
           “When the issue is preserved, as here, this court reviews the denial of
   a mistrial for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Hill, 63 F.4th 335, 351
   (5th Cir. 2023). If a motion for mistrial is based on the presentation of

           _____________________
           2
              Crandell claims that he was only borrowing the money he spent on personal items,
   and that he “trued up” at the end of the year—shortly after the Form 433-A was submitted.
   But a reasonable jury could conclude that this arrangement amounted to an “affirmative
   act[] [that] had the likely effect of misleading the IRS” as to his ability to pay. United States
   v. Miller, 588 F.3d 897, 907 (5th Cir. 2009) (brackets and quotation marks omitted).

                                                  7
Case: 22-60350      Document: 00516804930           Page: 8    Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                     No. 22-60350

   prejudicial testimony, “a new trial is required only if there is a significant
   possibility that the prejudicial evidence had a substantial impact upon the
   jury verdict, viewed in light of the entire record.” United States v. Paul,
   142 F.3d 836, 844 (5th Cir. 1998). “We give great weight to the trial court’s
   assessment of the prejudicial effect of the evidence, and prejudice may be
   rendered harmless by a curative instruction.”         United States v. Valles,
   484 F.3d 745, 756 (5th Cir. 2007).
          Crandell argues that the prosecution’s questions about his post-2014
   taxes were irrelevant, prejudicial, and violated the rules for character
   evidence in a criminal trial. He emphasizes that he was not on trial for post-
   2014 conduct and contends that the implication that he has not paid taxes
   since 2014 is false. He avers that the prosecution’s decision to ask a second
   question along these lines—after the district court sustained an objection to
   the first one—shows that the prosecution did not act in good faith. He also
   argues that the question was impermissible character evidence under Federal
   Rule of Evidence 404(b). Moreover, he states that even if the question was
   permissible character evidence, the prosecution failed to give the defense
   notice as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(3).
          The government argues that this line of questioning was defensible
   under Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b), which allows inquiries into a
   witness’s character for truthfulness. “Whether Rule 404(b) or Rule 608(b)
   applies to the admissibility of other-act evidence depends on the purpose for
   which the prosecutor introduced the other-acts evidence.” United States v.
   Tomblin, 46 F.3d 1369, 1388 (5th Cir. 1995). Rule 404(b) applies where the
   evidence is meant to prove an issue in the case, such as identity or intent. Id.
   Rule 608(b) applies where evidence is offered to impeach the credibility of a
   witness. Id. In the government’s view, the defendant opened the door to
   questions about his post-2014 tax conduct when he testified that “from the
   minute I hired Blue Tax until now, I only want to do one thing. . . . I just want

                                          8
Case: 22-60350      Document: 00516804930          Page: 9   Date Filed: 06/29/2023

                                    No. 22-60350

   to pay the taxes and get left alone.” Thus, whether Crandell had paid taxes
   was arguably admissible because it was “probative of [the defendant’s]
   character for truthfulness.” Id. at 1389.
          But even assuming that the district court was right to sustain the
   defense’s objection, Crandell offers no reason to believe that the questions
   incurably prejudiced the jury. Given the weight of evidence presented to the
   jury in this case, there is no “significant possibility” that these two
   questions—to which Crandell never provided an answer and which the court
   quickly instructed the jury to disregard—had a substantial impact on the
   verdict. Paul, 142 F.3d at 844. The trial court assessed the prejudicial effect
   of the questions, and this court defers to its conclusion. Valles, 484 F.3d at
   756.
                               III. Conclusion
          For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is
   AFFIRMED.

                                         9