United States v. Kramer, No. 13-2900 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction for charges related to his activity in the mortgage lending and related businesses. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its wide discretion in refusing to sever his case from his codefendant's case and even if it did, defendant failed to show clear prejudice; the district court was within its discretion to exclude the possibly confusing and certainly cumulative evidence from a civil suit and any possible error in refusing to admit the evidence was harmless; the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the government to use the common phrase - "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" - and defendant could not establish prejudice by use of the words; the district court did not err in its restitution calculation; and the court rejected defendant's claim of cumulative error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. No error in denying defendant's motion to sever his trial from his co-defendant's; the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to permit defendant to admit evidence from a civil suit the defrauded bank brought against him as a large part of the evidence governing their credit relationship was admitted, and the evidence the court excluded was possibly confusing and certainly cumulative; claim that prosecutor's closing argument reference to "robbing Peter to pay Paul" prejudiced defendant is rejected; the district court did not err in calculating the amount of loss for purposes of determining restitution.
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