Court Opinion

ID: 9895706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-08 16:01:19.718625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:26.607574
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10766        Document: 00516960082             Page: 1      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                    United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                    Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________
                                                                                  FILED
                                                                          November 7, 2023
                                       No. 22-10766
                                     ____________                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                  Clerk
   United States of America,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                            versus

   Timothy Ray Vasquez,

                                              Defendant—Appellant.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 6:20-CR-1-1
                     ______________________________

   Before Wiener, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Defendant–Appellant Timothy Ray Vasquez, former Police Chief for
   the City of San Angelo, Texas, accepted money from a city vendor in
   exchange for Vasquez’s support of the vendor’s future contracts with the
   city. A jury convicted Vasquez of bribery and honest-services mail fraud. On
   appeal, Vasquez challenges the district court’s jury instructions and the
   sufficiency of the government’s evidence against him. We AFFIRM.

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10766      Document: 00516960082          Page: 2   Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                    No. 22-10766

                                         I.
          In 2007, Vasquez was the elected Police Chief of San Angelo. He was
   part of a twelve-member committee tasked with overseeing a competitive
   bidding process for a new radio system for the city’s public safety agencies.
   The committee awarded the contract, worth approximately $6 million, to
   Dailey & Wells Communications, Inc. (“D&W”).
          Vasquez was not merely a police officer: He also had a side gig in rock
   and roll. His band, Funky Munky, played at events and weddings across the
   San Antonio area. In April 2007—after the committee had recommended
   D&W for the radio contract but before the contract had been officially
   awarded—D&W began hiring Funky Munky to play at corporate events.
   D&W would pay Funky Munky at least three times more than the band
   usually charged. Between 2007 and 2014, D&W paid Vasquez a total of
   $84,000 for ten performances. As leader of the band, Vasquez deposited
   D&W’s payments into his personal bank account. D&W also gifted Vasquez
   tickets to various professional sporting events.
          In 2014, after two successful reelection campaigns by Vasquez, it was
   again time for the city to update its radio systems. Although the city usually
   used a competitive bidding model to award such contracts (as it had in 2007),
   Vasquez invoked a “public safety exception” to avoid the lengthy process for
   requesting proposals. At a June 2015 City Council meeting, Vasquez
   advocated for D&W to receive the new contract. Although some
   councilmembers had concerns about D&W, they ultimately voted to approve
   the contract, again worth almost $6 million. Several councilmembers noted
   that Vasquez’s support of D&W was crucial to their decision to vote in favor
   of the contract. Many of the councilmembers who testified at Vasquez’s trial
   stated that, had they known about his financial relationship with D&W, they
   would have voted differently.

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          From 2016 to 2019, Vasquez received another $86,000 from D&W.
   That total included a $50,000 lump sum given in December 2016, considered
   a “retainer” for ten future performances, which were played over the next
   three years. That payment was made soon after Vasquez discovered that he
   was being investigated by law enforcement.
          Vasquez was indicted in January 2020, charged with one count of
   federal-programs bribery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B), and three
   counts of honest-services mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and
   1346. At trial, Vasquez testified that he made a mistake by failing to disclose
   his relationship with D&W to the City Council, but that he saw his band’s
   performances and his work on the radio contracts as “two totally different
   things.” The jury found Vasquez guilty of all charges, and he was sentenced
   to 186 months of imprisonment. On appeal, Vasquez contends that the
   district court gave an incorrect instruction on the honest-services fraud count
   and challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of bribery.
                                           II.
          Section 1346 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code proscribes using mail or wire
   fraud to “deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” This
   statute was intended to reach fraud that did not result in the traditional
   symmetry between benefit to the perpetrator and harm to the victim. Skilling
   v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 400 (2010) (“Skilling I”). For example, if a
   city official accepts a bribe from a third party in exchange for awarding a
   contract to that party, that official defrauds the public, even if the contract
   resulted in savings for the city. See id. The acceptance of the bribe deprives
   the public of its right to the official’s honest services. See id.
          The Supreme Court has construed § 1346 to encompass only bribery
   and kickback schemes. Id. at 408–09. Thus, in proving honest-services fraud,
   the government must also prove that the defendant engaged in either bribery

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   or kickbacks, as defined by those federal statutes. Id. at 412–13 (citing 18
   U.S.C. §§ 201(b) (bribery of public officials), 666(a)(2) (bribery concerning
   federal programs); 41 U.S.C. § 52(2) (definition of kickback)1); see also United
   States v. Nagin, 810 F.3d 348, 351 (5th Cir. 2016).
          At Vasquez’s trial, the district court gave the government’s requested
   jury instruction on honest-services mail fraud based on bribery or kickbacks,
   which was taken from the Department of Justice’s Criminal Appellate
   Division’s suggested charge:

          Bribery and kickbacks involve the exchange of a thing or things
          of value for official action by a public official, in other words, a
          quid pro quo (a Latin phrase meaning “this for that” or “these
          for those”). Bribery and kickbacks also include offers and
          solicitations of things of value for official action . . . . [A]ll that
          must be shown is that payments were made with the intent of
          securing a specific type of official action in return. Payments
          may be made with the intent to retain the official’s services on
          an as needed basis so that whenever the opportunity presents
          itself, the public official will take specific official actions on the
          giver’s behalf.
   The court further instructed that a kickback is “any money, fee, commission,
   credit, gift, gratuity, thing of value, or compensation of any kind.” That
   definition comes from the statute, 41 U.S.C. § 52(2), which has also been
   incorporated into this court’s pattern instructions. See Fifth Circuit Pattern
   Jury Instructions (Criminal) § 2.56 (2019).

          _____________________
          1
              The definition of a kickback is now codified at 41 U.S.C. § 8701(2) (2011).
   Because the cases that the parties cite predate the statutory amendment, we continue to
   refer to 41 U.S.C. § 52(2) as the source of the kickback definition.

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          On appeal, Vasquez challenges two components of the instruction:
   (1) the inclusion of the word “gratuity” in the definition of kickback, and
   (2) the “whenever the opportunity presents itself” language.
                                           A.
          First, the parties dispute the appropriate standard of review for a
   challenge to jury instructions. Vasquez asserts that the court should apply a
   harmless error standard, given the district court’s “alternative-theory
   error,” which allowed the jury to convict him on an improper theory of guilt.
   The government counters that plain error analysis is appropriate because
   Vasquez failed to object properly to the instruction at the charge conference.
   Because Vasquez’s arguments fail even the less stringent standard of
   harmless error, we decline to engage in the issues of waiver and forfeiture
   raised by the government.
          An alternative-theory error occurs when “a jury rendering a general
   verdict was instructed on alternative theories of guilt and may have relied on
   an invalid theory.” United States v. Skilling, 638 F.3d 480, 481 (5th Cir. 2011)
   (“Skilling II”). Vasquez alleges that the district court wrongfully instructed
   the jury that it could convict on either a bribery or a gratuity theory of honest-
   services fraud. He claims the gratuity basis is an “invalid theory” of guilt of
   this crime, making the district court’s instruction an alternative-theory error.
   Under the harmless error standard, we will affirm the jury’s findings if we
   “conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been
   the same absent the error,” or “if the jury, in convicting on an invalid theory
   of guilt, necessarily found facts establishing guilt on a valid theory.” Id. (first
   quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 19 (1999), then citing United States
   v. Howard, 517 F.3d 731, 738 (5th Cir. 2008)).

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                                           B.
          Bribery requires that an impermissible gift be given with the intent to
   influence an official act, whereas a gratuity is given “for or because of” an
   official act. United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of Cal., 526 U.S. 398, 404
   (1999). While bribery thus requires a quid pro quo, a gratuity may be a “reward
   for some future act that the public official will take . . . or for a past act that
   he has already taken.” Id. at 405. Vasquez contends that the district court’s
   instruction allowed the jury to convict him of honest-services fraud under an
   impermissible definition of bribery and kickback, which allowed for a gratuity
   (as opposed to a quid pro quo) theory of fraud.
          The instruction did no such thing. Section 1346 itself does not require
   a quid pro quo such that a gratuity can never satisfy its “predicate” offense.
   Federal-programs bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2) and bribery of public
   officials under § 201(b) both require a quid pro quo, but the kickback statute,
   41 U.S.C. § 52(2), does not. See Sun-Diamond, 526 U.S. at 405–06; United
   States v. Hamilton, 46 F.4th 389, 398 (5th Cir. 2022). And the only mention
   of the word “gratuity” by the district court came in its instructions’
   definition of “kickback,” which came directly from the federal statute. See
   Whitfield v. United States, 590 F.3d 325, 354 (5th Cir. 2009) (“It is well-
   settled that a district court does not err by giving a charge that tracks this
   Circuit’s pattern jury instructions and that is a correct statement of the
   law.”). Since honest-services fraud may be based on either bribery or
   kickbacks, and since we have been tasked with assessing honest services
   through the lens of federal statutes “proscribing” and “defining” those
   crimes, this instruction was not given in error. Skilling I, 561 U.S. at 412–13.
          Furthermore, even if the instruction had been flawed in some way, the
   error would have been harmless because the district court did in fact require
   the jury to find Vasquez guilty of bribery before convicting him of honest-

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   services fraud. As the Supreme Court has made clear, the only difference
   between a bribe and a gratuity is that the latter does not require a quid pro quo.
   Sun-Diamond, 526 U.S. at 404–05. The district court here instructed
   multiple times that the jury needed to find a quid pro quo, or an “exchange of
   a thing or things of value for an official action.” The “essential idea of give-
   and-take” was clearly conveyed. Whitfield, 590 F.3d at 351 (citation omitted).
   This ensured that Vasquez’s conviction for honest-services fraud was based
   on a valid theory of bribery. Because the jury “necessarily found facts
   establishing guilt on a valid theory,” Vasquez cannot demonstrate that any
   error that the district court allegedly made in mentioning the word
   “gratuity” was more than harmless. See Skilling II, 638 F.3d at 481–82.
                                            C.
          Vasquez next complains that the district court’s instruction allowed
   the jury to convict him under § 1346 based on an improper “as opportunities
   arise” theory of bribery. He asserts that bribery requires the payor to intend
   to influence a specific official act, rather than merely to build up a “reservoir
   of good will” for when and if an opportunity might potentially arise in the
   future. This argument is in many ways related to his complaint about the
   district court’s use of the word “gratuity,” as a gratuity could be “a reward
   for some future act that the public official will take.” Sun-Diamond, 526 U.S.
   at 405. As discussed above, though, the jury clearly concluded that Vasquez
   had accepted a bribe rather than a gratuity, because it necessarily found a quid
   pro quo. Vasquez’s allegations here center instead on the relationship
   between the quid and the quo.
          The federal bribery statute defines an “official act” as “any decision
   or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy,
   which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before
   any public official, in such official’s official capacity, or in such official’s place

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   of trust or profit.” 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(3). Here, the parties do not
   meaningfully dispute whether Vasquez’s actions in advocating for D&W’s
   receipt of the contract before the City Council were “official.” Nor can they,
   because an official act involves “a formal exercise of governmental power
   that is similar in nature to a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an
   agency, or a hearing before a committee.” McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S.
   550, 574 (2016) (emphasis added). The parties do, however, disagree on
   whether Vasquez needed to know, at the time that D&W hired Funky
   Munky, that it did so with the expectation that Vasquez would do what he
   did and testify before the Council in support of D&W’s receipt of the
   contract. Vasquez contends that the district court’s instructions erroneously
   permitted the jury to convict him of honest-services fraud for accepting
   D&W’s payments in exchange for an agreement to take some unknown
   action beneficial to D&W at some unknown time in the future.
          In McDonnell v. United States, the Supreme Court considered the
   relationship between quid and quo when it assessed the validity of the former
   governor of Virginia’s conviction for honest-services fraud. Id. at 555. There,
   a pharmaceutical executive had given almost $200,000 in gifts to the
   governor and his wife in the hopes that the governor would assist him in
   getting funding for specified medical studies. Id. The governor arranged
   meetings for the executive, hosted events for the pharmaceutical company,
   and contacted other government officials about the studies. Id. at 555–56.
   The central issue in the case was whether such actions constituted “official
   acts” within the meaning of honest-services fraud, defined “with reference
   to the federal bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201.” Id. at 562. The Court further
   considered whether honest-services fraud requires that, at the time that the
   gifts were accepted, the governor knew that they were given with the
   expectation that he would perform a specific official act in return. Id. at 572–
   73.

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          The Court held that, to be found guilty of bribery, a public official
   must have agreed to act on a particular “question, matter, cause, suit,
   proceeding or controversy.” Id. at 572. It did not, however, require that the
   agreement “specify the means that [the official] will use to perform his end
   of the bargain.” Id. (emphasis added). All that is needed is that the official
   knew that he was accepting the thing of value in exchange for some action on
   a “specific and focused” question or matter. Id. at 574; see also United States
   v. Silver, 948 F.3d 538, 553 (2d Cir. 2020) (“[B]ribery [does not] require [] a
   promise to perform a particular official act.”). As we have explained, while
   “the generalized hope or expectation of ultimate benefit on the part of the
   donor does not constitute a bribe . . . the government need not show that the
   defendant intended for his payments to be tied to specific official acts.”
   Whitfield, 590 F.3d at 350 (quoting United States v. Jennings, 160 F.3d 1006,
   1013–14 (4th Cir. 1998)).
          Here, the question or matter that Vasquez was agreeing to act on when
   he accepted payment from D&W was the company’s business relationship
   with the city. That relationship was the genesis of Vasquez’s own association
   with D&W, which hired Funky Munky after Vasquez was elected. He need
   not have agreed at that time to testify before the City Council in support of
   D&W’s modification contract in 2015, but simply to support D&W’s
   continued economic relationship with the city whenever an opportunity to
   do so should arise in the future. That agreement was for more than a general
   “reservoir of goodwill,” but was instead for future support of D&W’s
   financial relationship with the city. The district court’s instructions
   appropriately required the jury to find this before returning a guilty verdict
   on the counts for honest-services fraud.
          Our holding today comports with Whitfield, in which we upheld the
   conviction of a judge for bribery when the judge, at the time he accepted the
   payment, did not know in which cases the payor would appear before him and

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   require a favorable ruling. Id. at 353.2 It was enough that the jury found a
   “specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official
   act” to be performed sometime in the future. Id. (quoting Sun-Diamond, 526
   U.S. at 404–05); see also United States v. Hamilton, 46 F.4th at 339–40
   (distinguishing Whitfield, in which “there was no debate about whether the
   payor got something in return; the only debate was about whether, when the
   payment was made, the payor and local official had in mind what the quo
   would be”). It would have been impossible for the judge to know at the time
   of payment which future cases would be relevant to the agreement, just as it
   was unlikely that Vasquez knew when and how the opportunity would arise
   to support D&W’s business relationship with the city. The district court’s
   instructions clearly required the jury to find a quid pro quo, in which Vasquez
   accepted D&W’s payments in exchange for his support, whenever in the
   future the need for it might arise. Nothing more was needed.
                                                III.
           Vasquez halfheartedly raises two other issues. First, he claims that his
   conviction for federal programs-bribery is “tainted by the prejudicial
   spillover” from the honest-services fraud count. Because there was no error
   in the district court’s instructions on the honest services count, there can be
   no “prejudicial spillover.”
           Vasquez also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence of a quid pro
   quo to sustain his convictions. He failed to renew his motion for judgment of
   acquittal at the close of all evidence, so this court reviews his contention

           _____________________
           2
             Whitfield pre-dates the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonnell. Although we
   have not specifically addressed whether the “retainer theory” survives McDonnell, other
   circuits have addressed it and have concluded that it does. See, e.g., United States v. Silver,
   948 F.3d 538, 552-55 (2d Cir. 2020); United States v. Roberson, 998 F.3d 1237, 1251 (11th
   Cir. 2021). In any case, the instructions given here meet the requirements of McDonnell.

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   under the plain error standard. United States v. Cabello, 33 F.4th 281, 285 (5th
   Cir. 2022). We will only reverse on plain error if there has been a
   “miscarriage of justice” and “the record is devoid of evidence pointing to guilt
   or if the evidence is so tenuous that a conviction is shocking.” Id. at 330–31
   (citation omitted). Vasquez must therefore “demonstrate not just that the
   government’s evidence of [bribery] was insufficient, but that it was obviously
   insufficient.” Id. at 331.
          He is unable to do so. The government presented evidence that D&W
   hired Funky Munky after Vasquez was elected Police Chief, and that it paid
   the band more than three times what it usually received. Later, when the
   opportunity arose, Vasquez supported D&W’s continued business
   relationship with the city, even going so far as to convince the City Council
   to abandon its traditional process of requesting proposals. The jury
   reasonably found a relationship between the payments and Vasquez’s
   actions.3
          As the government notes, Vasquez’s sufficiency argument is mainly a
   reiteration of his earlier contention that an agreement to support the payor
   “as opportunities arise” may not be a “quo.” As discussed above, that is an
   inaccurate statement of the law. The government presented evidence of a
   quid pro quo agreement between D&W and Vasquez: almost $180,000,
   disguised as fees for band performances, in exchange for support on future
   city contracts. And, as the district court instructed, that is a valid theory of
   bribery.
          We find no error in Vasquez’s conviction. AFFIRMED.

          _____________________
          3
            Another strong piece of evidence of quid pro quo: the $50,000 lump sum paid to
   Vasquez by D&W right after he learned he was being investigated. The government
   characterized this payment as “hush money.”

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