Justia U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant, a tile salesman, received material, nonpublic information from a corporate inside and then passed that information along to friends, who used it to obtain substantial trading gains. After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of committing securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities fraud. Defendant appealed, arguing that there was insufficient evidence in the record to support his conviction, where he was neither a corporate insider nor a trader of securities. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the evidence was sufficient to show that Defendant knowingly breached a duty of confidence; (2) the district court’s instructions did not improperly shift the burden of proof or misstate the state of mind element of the securities fraud offense; and (3) the evidence was sufficient to show that Defendant anticipated receiving a benefit as a result of his disclosure. View "United States v. McPhail" on Justia Law

Acting on “obviously nonpublic information” that a golfing buddy, McPhail, received from a corporate insider, Parigian made more than $200,000 trading in securities. A federal criminal securities fraud indictment alleged a “misappropriation theory” against Parigian, arguing that Parigian knew or should have known that, by providing the inside information to Parigian, McPhail breached a duty of trust and confidence and personally benefited by doing so. He pled guilty to the charges conditionally. The First Circuit rejected Parigian's preserved challenges to the indictment, following the circuit’s controlling precedent: allegations of a friendship between McPhail and Parigian plus an expectation that the tippees would treat McPhail to a golf outing and assorted luxury entertainment is enough to allege a benefit if a benefit is required. The court rejected an argument that the government was obligated to allege that the insider was also expecting a benefit when passing along confidential information to McPhail in the first instance. View "United States v. Parigian" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and several counts of mail and wire fraud. The district court sentenced Defendant to a thirty-month term of immurement for the fraud offenses. The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions but vacated his sentence for securities fraud after finding procedural error in the district court’s calculation of the loss amount. On remand, the court below again sentenced Defendant to a term of thirty months’ imprisonment. The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court, holding that the district court (1) did not abuse its discretion in admitting certain expert testimony at sentencing; and (2) did not commit clear error in determining the amount of the loss attributable to the offense of conviction. View "United States v. Jordan" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of fifty-eight criminal counts arising from her participation in a Medicare fraud scheme. Defendant appealed, alleging several procedural defects in the proceedings below and arguing that the Government did not present sufficient evidence to convict her of identity theft and money laundering. The district court sentenced Defendant to two years and one day of imprisonment and three years of supervised release. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the Government presented sufficient evidence to convict Defendant of identity theft and money laundering; and (2) any procedural defects were harmless. View "United States v. Vega" on Justia Law

Defendant was the mastermind of a Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 230 investors out of over $22 million. Defendant pled guilty to bank fraud and to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The district court sentenced Defendant to concurrent terms of sixty months’ imprisonment on the wire fraud conspiracy count and 242 months on the bank fraud count. Restitution was also ordered in the amount of $10,629,021. Defendant appealed, arguing that his 242-month sentence was too high. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the 242-month sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Reyes-Rivera" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant, a former Massachusetts state trooper, was convicted of knowingly participating in the use of extortionate means to attempt to collect an extension of credit. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court’s finding of discrimination with respect to the government’s attempt to strike one juror and the court’s chosen remedy was not inadequate under Batson v. Kentucky; (2) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion for acquittal based on insufficiency of evidence; and (3) the district court did not err in instructing the jury, and even assuming that the district court committed error, the error was harmless. View "United States v. Analetto" on Justia Law

Appellant was the target of a grand jury investigation into an alleged scheme to defraud investors regarding the salvaging of a sunken vessel. The government moved to compel the production of documents from Appellant’s attorneys in connection with the grand jury investigation. The district court granted the motion. The court also granted the government’s motion for a judicial determination that the crime-fraud exception applied to materials seized from Appellant’s home, thereby rejecting Appellant’s claim of attorney-client privilege. In Appellant’s opposition to the government’s motion to compel, Appellant requested that the district court conduct an in camera review of the documents that were the subject of the motion to compel. The district court did not address this request. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) there was ample evidence for the district court to conclude that Appellant was engaged in a scheme to commit a crime or fraud and that at least some of the communications between Appellant and Appellant’s attorneys were intended by Appellant to facilitate that fraudulent scheme; and (2) because Appellant failed to produce a privilege log as required under the Federal Rules, Appellant’s request for in camera review was not preserved. View "In re Grand Jury Proceedings" on Justia Law

The Soto family - Carmen and Pedro and their son, Steven - operated a real estate business in Massachusetts that they used to orchestrate several fraudulent real estate transactions. The Sotos were each convicted of multiple counts of mail fraud based on these fraudulent transactions. Steven and Pedro were also convicted of multiple counts of aggravated identity theft. The First Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences, holding (1) the district court did not err in denying Defendants’ motion to suppress evidence from a laptop and from the Soto family residence; (2) Steven was not subject to double jeopardy; (3) there was no plain error in admitting testimony of a certain witness; (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding a report from the Government Accountability Office; (5) there was sufficient evidence to sustain the convictions; (6) the Sotos waived any challenge to the good faith/condonation instruction, and the reasonable doubt instruction was not erroneous; and (7) the district court did not abuse its discretion in ordering Carmen to pay $792,559 in restitution. View "United States v. Soto" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of securities fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to conceal assets and make fraudulent transfers, concealment of assets, fraudulent transfer, uttering coins, and money laundering. The offenses arose from Defendant’s fraudulent schemes used to cheat numerous victims out of more than a million dollars and to manipulate the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to shield his ill-gotten gains from creditors. The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence, holding (1) there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict; and (2) the district court properly calculated the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range and imposed a procedurally and substantively reasonable sentence. View "United States v. Pacheco-Martinez" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendants, James Prange and John Jordan, were convicted of multiple fraud-related counts based on their participation in an FBI securities fraud sting. The district court sentenced both Defendants to concurrent terms of thirty months’ imprisonment for each count of conviction. The First Circuit affirmed Defendants’ convictions but remanded for resentencing, holding (1) the district court did not err when it permitted an undercover agent to interpret what he and Jordan meant by certain statements in their recorded face-to-face conversation; (2) Defendants failed to establish that the government entrapped them as a matter of law; (3) the district court did not abuse its discretion in submitted a superseding indictment to the jury; but (4) the district court procedurally erred when formulating Defendants’ guideline sentencing ranges. View "United States v. Prange" on Justia Law