United States v. Spangler, No. 14-30042 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his convictions on twenty-four counts of wire fraud, seven counts of money laundering, and one count of investment-adviser fraud. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in barring defendant's expert witness from testifying and, even if the district court did not abuse its discretion, the error was harmless; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony regarding defendant's status as a fiduciary where nothing in the record indicates that testimony and argument regarding defendant's fiduciary status impermissibly infected his prosecution, and any concerns about the jurors’ equating violations of fiduciary duty with criminal liability were put to rest by the district court’s careful instructions on the elements of the offenses and the absence of reference to breach of fiduciary duty as a consideration in determining guilt; the district court did not violate defendant's Fifth Amendment rights when it declined to strike Count 33 from the indictment; and there is no cumulative error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed convictions on twenty-four counts of wire fraud, seven counts of money laundering, and one count of investment-adviser fraud. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in barring on relevancy grounds the defendant’s expert witness from testifying, and held that any error was harmless. The panel rejected the defendant’s contention that exclusion of the expert’s testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony regarding the defendant’s status as a fiduciary, introduced to explain why the defendant’s clients did not question his documents and reports, where the investors’ lay understandings of the defendant’s fiduciary obligations demonstrated how he was able to accomplish the alleged fraud, and where any concerns about the jurors’ equating violations of fiduciary duty with criminal liability were put to rest by the district court’s careful instructions on the elements of the offenses and the absence of breach of fiduciary duty as a consideration in determining guilt. The panel rejected the defendant’s contention that the district court violated his Fifth Amendment rights when it UNITED STATES V. SPANGLER 3 declined to strike Count 33, which alleged that the defendant committed investment-adviser fraud by violating 15 U.S.C. § 80b-6 (prohibiting investment advisers from engaging in certain conduct) without mentioning 15 U.S.C. § 80b-17 (through which violations of § 80b-6 are made criminal) and without using the word “willful.” The panel concluded that cumulative error analysis is inapposite, as the defendant has not demonstrated any errors.
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