United States v. Hawkins, No. 13-3335 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseBased on their involvement in promoting or selling stock for Petro America, an unregistered company that had no value, eight coconspirators were charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud 18 U.S.C. 371. Hawkins was also charged with aiding and abetting securities fraud, 15 U.S.C. 77q and 18 U.S.C. 2, aggravated currency structuring, 31 U.S.C. 5324(a)(3) and (d)(2), money laundering, 18 U.S.C. 1957, and two counts of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343. Brown was also charged with securities fraud and wire fraud; Heurung was charged with two additional counts of wire fraud; and Miller was charged with money laundering and wire fraud. The others pled guilty to various charges. Hawkins, Brown, Heurung, Miller and Roper proceeded to trial. Hawkins argued that Petro America was a legitimate company and that the government was prosecuting so that it could confiscate the company's substantial assets. The others acknowledged that Petro America was a sham but claimed they had believed in good faith that the company was real and that they could promote or sell its stock. The Eighth Circuit affirmed their convictions on all counts, rejecting challenges concerning jury selection and evidentiary rulings.
Court Description: Beam, Author, with Bye and Smith, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. No error in denying motion to sever defendant Brown in this massive stock fraud case as her defense was not irreconcilable with defendant Hawkins's defenses and there was no evidence that the jury was not able to compartmentalize the evidence or that Hawkins' pro se defense prejudiced her; no error in denying defendant Roper's motion to subpoena witnesses; claims of juror misconduct and bias rejected; Batson challenge rejected; while admission of a government exhibit summarizing certain records and testimony was an error, the error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence against defendant Huerung and the safeguards the district court implemented to minimize any prejudicial effects of the exhibit; evidence was sufficient to support defendants Miller's and Roper's conspiracy, wire and securities fraud and money laundering convictions; no error in applying a manager/supervisor role enhancement in calculating defendant Heurung's sentence; no error in calculating the amount of loss attributable to defendant Heurung.
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