USA v. Brett Immel, No. 21-2762 (7th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Argued July 7, 2022 Decided July 11, 2022 Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge No. 21-2762 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. No. 16-CR-776 BRETT IMMEL, Defendant-Appellant. ORDER Sharon Johnson Coleman, Judge. A jury convicted Brett Immel of bankruptcy fraud, 18 U.S.C. §152, and the judge sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment. He contends on appeal that the evidence was insufficient and that the judge should not have admitted evidence that his monthly income rose after his case began. Immel filed statements and schedules asserting that his monthly income was about $2,700, when its average exceeded $10,000. That is enough to sustain the conviction, but there is more. Four months before filing his petition, Immel created Fourteen Consulting LLC, which he used to hold both business and personal income. Although the LLC had assets and a regular income—at least $9,800 in each month between its No. 21-2762 Page 2 creation and the bankruptcy filing, and more than $26,000 in the month of filing—Immel listed its value as $1 on his schedules. He also listed at $1 his 15% stake in Hanover Companies, LLC, even though it had assets exceeding $500,000 and distributed more than $15,000 in rental income to Immel most months. Immel contended at trial that these errors were good-faith estimates. Understating one’s income by 75% does not seem to be an exercise in good faith, and it invited the rejoinder that Immel well knew that his income was substantially higher. The prosecution showed as much for the months before and after the bankruptcy filing. This sets up Immel’s contention that the post-filing income, which exceeded $25,000 every month (much of it from the “worth only $1” Hanover), should have been ignored. Yet the existence of a monthly income stream substantially exceeding $2,700, before and after filing, was pertinent to his intent in using the $2,700 figure. What’s more, Immel funneled all of his income through Fourteen Consulting, which was one of the assets in the bankruptcy. If he had put personal receipts in a personal checking account, they would have been outside the bankruptcy process, see Harris v. Viegelahn, 575 U.S. 510, 513–14 (2015), except to the extent that these receipts embarrassed the $1 reported valuation for each of the two LLCs. Yet by routing all income through a business that was an asset available to his creditors, Immel obliged himself to make an honest and up-to-date disclosure of the company’s value. He did not do so. He also used Hanover to pay his residential mortgage and did not report those payments as income. More can be said about the evidence against him, but that would be otiose. Immel does not contend that the judge erred in any of the instructions to the jury about what was needed to convict him or about how the jurors should evaluate the evidence about his income in post-filing months. The arguments he does make do not undermine the verdict. AFFIRMED
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.
