United States v. Kahre, No. 09-10471 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendants appealed their convictions for various criminal tax offenses arising from their use of gold and silver coins to pay wages and thus avoid the reporting of payroll and income taxes. The court affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant Kahre's motion to suppress evidence seized from the properties at issue; the court held that the district court correctly determined that gold and silver coins used to pay wages were properly assessed at their fair market value and that defendants had sufficient notice that their conduct was illegal under the tax laws; the district court properly denied defendants' motion to disqualify the prosecutor because defendants failed to present clear and convincing evidence of an impermissible conflict of interest or of prejudice; the court rejected defendants' evidentiary arguments; defendants were not entitled to a new trial based on the district court's comments or conduct; and Kahre's below-guidelines sentence imposed for the extensive illegal payroll scheme with its associated tax loss, was comparable to sentences for similar crimes, and was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed three defendants’ convictions and one defendant’s sentence for criminal tax offenses arising from their use of gold and silver coins to pay wages and thus avoid the reporting of payroll and income taxes. Rejecting the defendants’ contention that dismissal of the indictments was warranted, the panel held that the defendants had sufficient notice of the illegality of relying on the face value of coins to avoid paying taxes. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendants’ motions to disqualify the prosecutor due to his status as a defendant in a Bivens lawsuit filed by defendants Robert and Lori Kahre. The panel held that the defendants failed to present clear and convincing evidence of a conflict. The panel held that the district court properly denied as moot Robert’s initial motion to suppress because none of the seized evidence was introduced at trial. The panel held alternatively that Robert’s arrest and the corresponding search were legally conducted pursuant to a state bench warrant. The panel held that the district court correctly denied Robert’s subsequent suppression motion because the warrants incorporated the accompanying affidavit, which possessed the requisite specificity limiting the agents’ discretion. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence challenging the legal import of its ruling that gold and silver coins used to pay wages were to be assessed at fair market value for tax purposes. The panel held that the district court correctly recognized that the coins were taxable as property based on their fair market value. The panel held that the district court did not commit reversible error in excluding testimony of the defendants’ contemporaneous statements concerning their tax theories. The panel explained that in each instance the exclusion was neither an abuse of discretion nor prejudicial, and held that the district court acted within its discretion when it excluded, as irrelevant and prejudicial, evidence of the federal agents’ use of force during execution of the search warrants. The panel held that the district court did not engage in any misconduct warranting a new trial. The panel held that the district court’s calculation of Robert’s tax liability at sentencing and the corresponding restitution amount was supported by the evidence presented at trial and the jury’s findings, that an enhancement for obstruction of justice and the denial of a downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility were consistent with the historical record, and that Robert’s below-guidelines sentence was reasonable and was not disproportionately severe.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.