Unpublished Disposition, 865 F.2d 265 (9th Cir. 1988)

MEMORANDUM^** 

Defendant John Prins, Jr. appeals his conviction for six counts of wire fraud on the ground that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment confrontation rights when the trial court admitted certain hearsay evidence. He also argues that his convictions for false statements to a financial institution and bank larceny should be reversed because the government produced insufficient evidence of the federally insured status of the bank. We find no merit in Prins' claims and therefore affirm the convictions.

The district court admitted eighty-six letters from credit cardholders to their bank indicating unauthorized use of their credit cards. Only six of those credit cardholders testified at trial. Prins contends that the district court's admission of eighty letters from cardholders who did not testify at trial was reversible error for two reasons: first, he was not given the opportunity to confront the authors of the eighty letters in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses; and second, the letters were evidence of other wrongs in violation of F.R.Evid. 404(b) and F.R.Evid. 403.

Prins' first claim fails because the government, under a limiting instruction by the court, offered the letters for their effect on the bank, i.e. that the bank had received the letters and after receiving them initiated an investigation, and not for the truth of the matters asserted in them, i.e. unauthorized use of credit cards. Therefore, the letters were not hearsay and their admission does not raise a constitutional issue.¹  See Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 414 (1985). Prins' second claim fails because we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in finding that the probative value of the letters outweighed their prejudicial effect. Moreover, given that six similar letters were properly admitted and that the district court gave careful limiting instructions to the jury concerning the eighty letters, the admission of the eighty letters, if erroneous, was harmless.

Prins' third claim is that the government offered insufficient evidence of the federally insured status of one of the banks. Ninth Circuit case law has established that the uncontradicted testimony of a ranking bank employee is sufficient to establish a bank's federally insured status. United States v. Campbell, 616 F.2d 1151, 1153 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 910 (1980); United States v. Phillips, 606 F.2d 884, 887 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1024 (1980). At trial, the bank's assistant controller testified that the bank's funds were federally insured. Accordingly, the government has met its burden of proof with regard to the bank's federally insured status.

AFFIRMED.