Court Opinion

ID: 9488842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:57:00.866522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:08.037316
License: Public Domain

BRISCOE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because I find that the facts of this case do not satisfy the requirements of § 3B1.3 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, I respectfully dissent.
Section 3B1.3 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides in pertinent part: “If the defendant abused a position of public or private trust ... in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense, increase [the offense level] by 2 levels.” In order to sustain the district court’s decision to enhance Appellant’s sentence based upon § 3B1.3, we must therefore find: (1) that he occupied a position of public or private trust; and (2) that he abused that position of trust in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense at issue in this case. See United States v. Queen, 4 F.3d 925, 927 (10th Cir.1993), cert. denied — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1230, 127 L.Ed.2d 575 (1994). Reviewing the record on appeal, I am compelled to find in favor of the Appellant on both of these factors.
Neither § 3B1.3 nor its accompanying application notes defines what is meant by a “position of trust.” Queen, 4 F.3d at 928. We have previously indicated, however, “that the question of whether an individual occupies a position of trust should be addressed from the perspective of the victim.” Id. at 929. We have further outlined the following non-exhaustive list of factors that should be considered in determining whether a defendant occupied a “position of trust” for purposes of § 3B1.3:
*203[T]he extent to which the position provides the freedom to commit a diffieult-to-detect wrong, and whether an abuse could be simply or readily noticed; defendant’s duties as compared to those of other employees; defendant’s level of specialized knowledge; defendant’s level of authority in the position; and the level of public trust.
United States v. Williams, 966 F.2d 555, 557 (10th Cir.1992). It is undisputed here that the position of trust at issue is an alleged position of private trust, not a position of public trust. The district court found that the crime of wire fraud was made possible by Appellant’s control over the escrow account. Therefore, the fiduciary or personal trust relationship which is the basis for Appellant’s two-level enhancement is the fiduciary or trust relationship between U.S. Mortgage and Appellant acting through Escrow Closing Services.
Due in large part to the fact that Appellant pled guilty, we are privy to the general facts of Appellant’s crime, but not to many of the significant underlying details. In particular, we do not know whether Appellant, in inducing U.S. Mortgage to wire money to Escrow Closing Services’ account, informed it that he was a principal in Escrow Closing Services, or whether he misled U.S. Mortgage into believing that Escrow Closing Services was an independent entity that would act as an escrow agent for the transaction. To me, these facts are significant because they determine whether, in the eyes of U.S. Mortgage, this remained an arms-length commercial transaction notwithstanding the involvement of Escrow Closing Services, see United States v. Brunson, 54 F.3d 673, 678 (10th Cir.1995) (holding that normal commercial transactions do not fall within the scope of § 3B1.3), cert. denied — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 397, 133 L.Ed.2d 317 (1995), or whether it believed that an independent escrow agent was entering into the transaction to act on its behalf. Although the majority assumes the latter, based presumably upon its understanding of how Appellant structured a “typical transaction,” I find it inappropriate to make this assumption.
Even if U.S. Mortgage was told that Escrow Closing Services was a separate entity, Appellant’s position as a principal in Escrow Closing Services did not transform the relationship between Appellant and U.S. Mortgage into one of trust under § 3B1.3. Indeed, there is nothing in the evidence outlined in the plea agreement that would indicate the existence of the escrow account was vital to U.S. Mortgage, or that it played a major role in the victim’s decision to purchase the loans from Appellant. U.S. Mortgage’s primary concern was not that Appellant removed the funds from the account. In fact, U.S. Mortgage wanted that to occur, and expected it to occur. U.S. Mortgage’s primary concern was not the removal of the monies from the escrow account, but rather that it did not receive from Appellant the loans for which U.S. Mortgage had supposedly paid. Contrary to the government’s assertions, there is nothing about the nature of the relationship between Appellant and U.S. Mortgage that made the crime hard to detect. In fact, it was clear to U.S. Mortgage within days after transmittal of the funds to Escrow Closing Services that something was amiss. U.S. Mortgage wired the funds to Escrow Closing Services on July 12, 1991. When U.S. Mortgage had not received the loan packages from Appellant by July 17, 1991, an employee of U.S. Mortgage called Appellant to ask why the packages had not been received. Simply put, it was not hard for U.S. Mortgage to detect that it had not received what it had paid for.
Because the burden was on the government to demonstrate Appellant occupied a position of trust by a preponderance of the evidence, see United States v. Okane, 52 F.3d 828, 835 (10th Cir.1995), and because the factual record is utterly lacking with respect to important details concerning the relationship between Appellant, Escrow Closing Services, and U.S. Mortgage, I am unable to find that Appellant occupied a “position of trust” with respect to U.S. Mortgage. While the district court is entitled to great deference in its factual findings, it is not entitled to that deference in the absence of a record to support those findings.
*204Even assuming, for purposes of argument, that the facts are sufficient to demonstrate that Appellant occupied a “position of trust” with respect to U.S. Mortgage, § 3B1.3 further requires that defendant abused the position of trust in a manner that significantly aided the commission or concealment of “the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3; Queen, 4 F.3d at 927. Thus, unlike many other sections of the guidelines, § 3B1.3 is focused solely on the charged offense, and not on other related but uncharged conduct.
Here, notwithstanding the fact that he was able to plan and execute to completion his scheme to defraud U.S. Mortgage, Appellant was charged with a single crime: wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. Specifically, the predicate wire fraud occurred when “Koehn transmitted and caused to be transmitted by means of wire communication in interstate commerce ... a wire transfer of funds ... from U.S. Mortgage Servicing Corporation in St. Petersburg, Florida, to the account of Real Estate Escrow and Closing Service, Inc., at First National Bank of Southeast Denver.”
Under § 1343, wire fraud occurs when a defendant, “having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud ... transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate ... commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme....” Thus, the elements of the crime of wire fraud are: (1) a scheme to defraud; and (2) use of interstate wire communications to facilitate the scheme. United States v. Galbraith, 20 F.3d 1054, 1056 (10th Cir.1994), cert. denied — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 233, 130 L.Ed.2d 157 (1994). Like the crime of mail fraud, “[t]he government need not prove that the fraud constituted an abuse of a position of trust.” Queen, 4 F.3d at 928.
Reviewing the facts in light of the essential elements of the crime, it is apparent that the charged wire fraud was complete when the funds were transferred to the Escrow Closing Services account. The subsequent success of Appellant’s scheme, including the misappropriation of funds by Appellant from the account, was unnecessary to the proof of the crime. See, e.g., United States v. Loney, 959 F.2d 1332, 1337-38 (5th Cir.1992) (showing that victim suffered financial loss is not necessary to support wire fraud conviction); United States v. Ames Sintering Co., 927 F.2d 232, 235 (6th Cir.1990) (actual success is not an element of wire fraud); United States v. Oren, 893 F.2d 1057, 1061 (9th Cir.1990) (same). In theory, though perhaps not in practice, Appellant could have been arrested and charged before he took the money from the Escrow Closing Services account.
The long and the short of this is that the alleged abuse on which the majority focuses, ie., Appellant’s misappropriation of U.S. Mortgage’s funds, occurred after the charged offense was complete. Thus, the alleged abuse simply did not, and could not, have “significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense,” as required by § 3B1.3.
In closing, I must again point out that, at the time he carried out the charged offense, Appellant was not in a position of trust with respect to U.S. Mortgage. Although the majority concludes that “Appellant was able to facilitate the fraud by lulling U.S. Mortgage into believing the $882,000 was safe because the transfer was to an escrow account,” this conclusion is neither supported by the evidence in the record, nor is it a logical assumption. At the point in time that Appellant telephoned U.S. Mortgage to sell the loans and directed that the monies be wired to Escrow Closing Services, it is obvious he was acting solely in his capacity as representative of Executive Mortgage, not as representative of Escrow Closing Services; ie., in the eyes of U.S. Mortgage, Appellant could only have been acting in the capacity of salesman, not as both salesman and escrow agent. In fact, because an escrow agent owes a fiduciary duty to all parties to an escrow agreement, see Schoepe v. Zions First Nat. Bank, 750 F.Supp. 1084, 1088 (D.Utah 1990), aff'd without opinion, 952 F.2d 1401 (10th Cir.1992), and is intended as a security measure, it would have been illogical for U.S. Mortgage to expect Appellant to act as both seller and escrow agent.
For these reasons, I conclude that it was clearly erroneous for the district court to *205enhance Appellant’s sentence under § 3B1.3, and I would vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing.