USA v. Tarek Abou-Khatwa, No. 21-3036 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
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Appellant sought the dismissal of most of the counts of his indictment and a new trial on the remaining counts. In his view, the indictment failed to allege a convergence between the deceived entity, CareFirst, and those deprived of property— which, in Appellant’s view, were his clients. In other words, he claimed that the indictment did not allege that he defrauded CareFirst of any of its own property. He argued instead that the indictment and trial improperly relied on evidence that he defrauded his small business clients by overcharging them for health insurance premiums. He also brought a number of evidentiary challenges.
The DC Circuit affirmed Appellant’s conviction and sentence. The court wrote that there is no convergence problem in this case. The indictment alleged that Appellant defrauded CareFirst, causing it to lose money. That is the same fraud that the government proved at trial. The differential between the falsely lowered premiums that Appellant tricked CareFirst into charging and those he billed his clients represented, at least in part, property fraudulently taken from CareFirst. That price difference also helped to show Appellant profit motive for the fraud, and demonstrated that he was neither acting as a Robin Hood nor at the behest of his clients to help reduce their premiums. None of Appellant’s other challenges on appeal succeed.
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