United States v. Mize, No. 13-6560 (6th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseThe Mizes were charged with conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute oxycodone, 21 U.S.C. 846, 841(a)(1); (b)(1)(C), and conspiracy to commit money laundering, 18 U.S.C. 1956(a)(1)(A)(i), (a)(1)(B)(i); 1956(h). To explain the Mize conspiracy, the government presented evidence about the Bussell conspiracy. Individuals from Tennessee would travel to Florida doctors’ offices and pain clinics, visiting several per visit. Their ringleader paid travel expenses. The “doctor shoppers” would obtain prescription opiates and oxycodone, take the pills to Tennessee, keep half, and give the rest to the ringleader for resale. One Bussell “shopper,” James Mize, involved his brother, Kelvin; their father, Jackie, accompanied Bussell on a trip to learn how the operation worked, paying his own expenses. Jackie then assembled a group to do the same thing. When Florida clinics stopped seeing patients, and pharmacists stopped filling prescriptions, absent proof of a Florida driver’s license, Bussell leased Florida property, to establish residency for his shoppers and eliminate hotel costs. Jackie followed suit. Officers executed search warrants at Bussell’s Florida houses and Jackie’s Tennessee farmhouse, where they seized prescription bottles in Jackie’s name from a Florida pharmacy, lists of Florida pain clinics, proof of Kelvin’s payment of $1,798.80 for 80 milligrams of oxycodone, and notes. The Sixth Circuit vacated the Mize convictions, finding prejudicial variance between the indictment and the proof offered at trial. The government’s extraordinary evidence about the much-larger Bussell conspiracy enabled the jury to transfer the guilt of that conspiracy to the charged Mize conspiracy.
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