United States v. Foley , 783 F.3d 7 ( 2015 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 13-1048
13-1118
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
MARC D. FOLEY,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Torruella and Howard, Circuit Judges.
Rebecca A. Jacobstein, with whom Office of Appellate Advocacy
was on brief, for appellant.
Ross B. Goldman, Criminal Division, Appellate Section, United
States Department of Justice, with whom Carmen M. Ortiz, United
States Attorney, Victor A. Wild and Veronica M. Lei, Assistant
United States Attorneys, Mythili Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney
General and Denis J. McInerney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,
were on brief, for appellee.
April 1, 2015
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. Marc Foley appeals his conviction
and sentence for 33 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money
laundering arising from his role in a mortgage fraud scheme. Foley
challenges the sufficiency of the evidence as to 28 of the wire
fraud counts and all of the money laundering counts, argues that
the district court abused its discretion in three of its
evidentiary rulings, and alleges that the prosecutor engaged in
misconduct in his closing statement. Foley also disputes the
procedural and substantive reasonableness of his 72-month sentence
and the district court's methodology in ordering restitution of
nearly $2.2 million. We find no error in Foley's conviction and
sentence, except that we vacate in part the district court's
restitution order.
I.
At the center of this case is a 24-unit apartment
building at 135 Neponset Avenue in Dorchester, Massachusetts (the
"Neponset Building"), purchased and converted into a condominium
form of ownership by Elizabeth (Lisa) Reed in December 2006. Reed
was the owner of Mass Lending, LLC, a mortgage brokerage firm, in
which capacity she frequently worked with Foley, a real estate
lawyer, on loan closings. Foley also prepared the condominium
conversion documents for the Neponset Building.
Reed financed the purchase of the Neponset Building with
a short-term "hard money" loan, pursuant to which she paid a
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private lender $100,000 in exchange for a ten-day loan of $2.6
million. Needing to recoup her investment at once to repay the
loan, Reed took three steps to generate immediate sales of
condominium units. First, she rewarded buyers with kickbacks for
their purchases. Second, she directed her employees at Mass
Lending to submit falsified mortgage loan applications on the
buyers' behalf, misrepresenting the buyers' incomes, employment,
and assets in order to obtain loans covering 90 to 95 percent of
the purchase price. Third, she ensured that the buyers would not
need to provide the remaining down payment at the loan closing. It
was this last measure for which she once again obtained Foley's
assistance.
Either Foley or his associate, Sean Robbins, served as
the closing attorney and settlement agent at each of the loan
closings, which took place from December 19, 2006 to January 12,
2007. In that role, Foley and Robbins were responsible for
preparing HUD-1 settlement statements ("HUD-1s") -- documents
certified by the buyer, seller, and settlement agent and indicating
to the lender, inter alia, the amount of funds collected from the
buyer at the closing.1 Each of the 33 submitted HUD-1 forms at
1
As we further elaborated in United States v. Appolon, 695
F.3d 44, 53 n.3 (1st Cir. 2012):
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974,
12 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2617, requires that a HUD-1 settlement
statement be used in every real estate settlement
"involving a federally related mortgage loan in which
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issue in this case -- seven of which were not signed by the
settlement agent -- indicated that the buyer had made a down
payment at the loan closing. In fact, however, no such payments
were ever made.
Upon receipt of the HUD-1 forms, lenders would wire funds
to Foley's Interest on Lawyers Trust Account ("IOLTA"). Foley
would then disburse those funds to Reed, writing Reed a check for
the amount denoted "Cash to Seller" on the HUD-1, less the amount
of the buyer's supposed down payment (denoted "Cash from Borrower"
on the HUD-1). To avoid potential liability to Reed over the
remaining proceeds, Foley directed Reed to sign a "disbursement
authorization" form for each of the loan closings, reducing Reed's
sale proceeds by the amount of the purported down payment.2 When
a lender required additional proof of a buyer's down payment, Foley
instructed Reed to prepare bogus checks indicating that the buyer
had actually brought funds to the closing. Foley then directed his
paralegal to draw a check from his IOLTA in the amount due from the
borrower and to later redeposit that check as "cash from buyer,"
there is a borrower and a seller." 24 C.F.R.
§ 3500.8(a). Among other things, the HUD-1 form is meant
to "conspicuously and clearly itemize all charges imposed
upon the borrower and all charges imposed upon the seller
in connection with the settlement." 12 U.S.C. § 2603.
2
For instance, if the "cash to seller" amount was $100,000,
the mortgage loan amount $75,000, and the "cash from borrower"
amount $25,000, then Foley would write Reed a check for $75,000 and
Reed would sign a disbursement authorization reducing her proceeds
by the remaining $25,000.
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creating the illusion that Foley had received money from the
borrower.
Foley was charged with 33 counts of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C.
§ 1343, and five counts of money laundering, id. § 1957, for his
role in these transactions. At trial, Foley mounted a defense of
"good faith" in the face of damning testimony from Robbins and
Reed, both of whom testified against him pursuant to plea
agreements.3 The crux of Foley's defense was that he honestly
believed that the money would be forthcoming from the buyers and
that Robbins and Reed lacked credibility. The jury, however, saw
the evidence differently and found Foley guilty on all counts. The
case then proceeded to sentencing, where the district court imposed
a below-Guidelines sentence of 72 months' incarceration and also
ordered restitution in the amount of $2,198,204. This appeal
followed.
II.
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence
1. Wire Fraud
Foley first contends that the evidence was insufficient
as to all but five of the 33 wire fraud counts. With respect to
the seven counts arising from unsigned HUD-1 forms, Foley contends
3
Reed pleaded guilty to 40 counts of wire fraud and 13
counts of money laundering, and was sentenced to 18 months'
incarceration. Robbins pleaded guilty to 24 counts of misprision
of a felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4, and was sentenced to eight months' home
confinement.
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that without a signature there was no misrepresentation and thus no
wire fraud. Because two lending companies, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker
and Fremont, nevertheless extended loans based on these unsigned
HUD-1 forms, Foley further argues that there was also insufficient
evidence as to the 21 counts involving signed HUD-1s sent to these
companies, reasoning that the presence or absence of a signature
was not material to the lenders' decisionmaking.
Although the parties do not dispute that Foley moved for
acquittal on the wire fraud counts under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29 both
at the close of the government's case and after the trial, they
nevertheless disagree as to the proper standard of review for this
claim. Under our precedent, although a general sufficiency-of-the-
evidence objection preserves all possible sufficiency arguments, a
motion raising only specific sufficiency arguments waives
unenumerated arguments. United States v. Lyons, 740 F.3d 702, 716
(1st Cir. 2014); United States v. Marston, 694 F.3d 131, 134 (1st
Cir. 2012). We have suggested that a general sufficiency objection
accompanied by specific objections preserves all possible
sufficiency objections. See Marston, 694 F.3d at 135 (finding
"good reason in case of doubt" to treat such motions as general,
because "[i]t is helpful to the trial judge to have specific
concerns explained even where a general motion is made; and to
penalize the giving of examples, which might be understood as
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abandoning all other grounds, discourages defense counsel from
doing so and also creates a trap for the unwary defense lawyer").
At the close of the government's case, Foley's counsel
moved for judgment of acquittal on all counts. Defense counsel
then proceeded to state: "But in reality, Judge, there is one very
serious issue. And that is the government has failed to establish
that the District of Massachusetts is the proper venue for this
prosecution." Foley's post-trial motion for acquittal in turn
stated that "[a] judgment of acquittal should be granted on Counts
1-33 [i.e., the wire fraud counts] as the government failed to
prove proper venue in the District of Massachusetts." Neither of
these motions are the type of "general motion accompanied by
examples" contemplated in Marston. Neither motion raised any issue
other than venue, and although the oral motion at the close of
evidence might with some imagination be interpreted as treating
venue as merely "one very serious issue" of many, the post-trial
motion is not susceptible even to such liberal reading. We
therefore treat Foley's signature-based sufficiency challenge as
unpreserved, and review for clear and gross injustice only. Id. at
134; see also United States v. Upham, 168 F.3d 532, 537 (1st Cir.
1999), cert. denied, 527 U.S. 1011 (1999). We conclude that
Foley's claim fails to meet that stringent standard, which we have
described as a particularly exacting variant of plain error
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review,4 although our conclusion would be the same even under
traditional plain error. See United States v. Jones, 748 F.3d 64,
73 (1st Cir. 2014).
The elements of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 are
"(1) a scheme or artifice to defraud using false or fraudulent
premises; (2) the defendant's knowing or willing participation in
the scheme or artifice with the intent to defraud; and (3) the use
of the interstate wires in furtherance of the scheme." United
States v. Appolon, 715 F.3d 362, 367 (1st Cir. 2013). The false or
fraudulent representation must also be material. Id.
HUD-1 forms contain a signature block beneath the
following certification by the settlement agent: "The HUD-1
Settlement Statement which I have prepared is a true and accurate
account of this transaction. I have caused or will cause the funds
to be disbursed in accordance with the statement." By Foley's
account, "the government's case was that Mr. Foley's signature was
the fraud," such that the only relevant statement was "the
4
See United States v. Acosta-Colón, 741 F.3d 179, 192-93
(1st Cir. 2013) ("[T]he already high bar for plain error becomes
even higher when dealing with an unpreserved sufficiency-of-the-
evidence claim."); United States v. Pratt, 568 F.3d 11, 18 (1st
Cir. 2009) ("[T]he particularly stringent form of plain error
review we apply to an unpreserved challenge to the sufficiency of
the evidence asks whether the conviction resulted in a 'clear and
gross injustice.'" (citation omitted)). Other circuits, however,
simply "characterize the review as one for plain error only."
United States v. Luciano, 329 F.3d 1, 5 n.6 (1st Cir. 2003) (citing
United States v. Morgan, 238 F.3d 1180, 1186 (9th Cir. 2001);
United States v. Villasenor, 236 F.3d 220, 222 (5th Cir. 2000) (per
curiam)).
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certification on the HUD-1 that Mr. Foley had collected cash from
the buyer at the closing."5
The prosecution did indeed allude in both its opening and
closing arguments to the significance of the settlement agent's
signature, stating, e.g., that "by signing the HUD-1s for these
loans, the defendant certified to the mortgage company that he did
collect the funds" and that the "HUD-1 when it said I have or will
disburse in accordance with this HUD-1 is patently false."
Nevertheless, the government advanced a broader theory than Foley
suggests. Signed or unsigned, each of the HUD-1s misrepresented
the amount of "cash from borrower," falsely indicating that the
borrower had brought some amount of cash to the closing when in
fact no funds were ever transferred. In its closing argument, the
prosecution accordingly described the HUD-1 form as
a lie to the mortgage company when it was sent
to the lender to get the funds released. It
was a lie about what was collected from the
borrowers, and it was a lie about what was
paid to the seller. [Foley] had those false
HUD-1s sent to the clients. The lenders'
money was released based on those lies.
That theory was amply supported by trial evidence showing that
after each closing, Robbins gave Foley's paralegal the unsigned
5
Although Foley's brief focuses on the presence or absence
of "Mr. Foley's signature" from the HUD-1 form, Foley does not
argue that the HUD-1s signed by Sean Robbins as settlement agent
were also insufficient because they did not contain Foley's
signature. Rather, Foley's challenge focuses solely on the seven
HUD-1s in which the signature block was left altogether blank.
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HUD-1s to be sent to the lenders, which in turn accepted the forms
and funded the loans.
We accordingly reject Foley's contention that the
government's case rested solely on the stroke of a pen. To the
extent that Foley takes issue more broadly with what he
characterizes as the government's "claim[] that the mere submission
of an unsigned HUD-1 to a lender can be a fraudulent
misrepresentation even though there is a required certification on
the form," he points to no cases imposing such a "certification"
requirement under § 1343. On the contrary, we and other circuits
have rejected comparable attempts to narrow the scope of analogous
statutes. See United States v. Ayewoh, 627 F.3d 914, 922 (1st Cir.
2010) (interpreting identical language in the bank fraud statute,
18 U.S.C. § 1344, and holding that "the misrepresentation element
of § 1344 is fulfilled by any intentional act or statement by an
individual that falsely indicates, explicitly or implicitly, that
he has authority to withdraw money from a bank," including the
entry of a credit card number into a point-of-sale device); see
also United States ex rel. Hutcheson v. Blackstone Med., Inc., 647
F.3d 377, 390 (1st Cir. 2011) ("So long as the statement in
question is knowingly false when made, it matters not whether it is
a certification, assertion, statement, or secret handshake; False
Claims liability can attach." (quoting United States ex rel. Hendow
v. Univ. of Phoenix, 461 F.3d 1166, 1172 (9th Cir. 2006)) (internal
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quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Zwego, 657 F.2d 248,
250 (10th Cir. 1981) (holding that 18 U.S.C. § 1014, criminalizing
false statements in connection with loan and credit applications,
extends to both written and oral statements); United States v.
Sackett, 598 F.2d 739, 741-42 (2d Cir. 1979) (same). We therefore
find no clear and gross injustice or plain error in Foley's
conviction.
Foley's secondary argument that the lenders' acceptance
of unsigned HUD-1s in turn demonstrates a lack of materiality as to
the signed forms rests on the same misguided premise that the
signature was the sole misrepresentation. As we have explained,
both the signed and unsigned HUD-1s falsely indicated the receipt
of "cash from borrower." That the loan companies were apparently
willing to extend loans based on unsigned HUD-1s hardly compels the
additional inference that the loans would still have been extended
even without the misrepresentations as to the receipt of down
payments. On the contrary, Foley himself acknowledges the
testimony of three lending company employees that the loans would
not have closed if the lenders had known that the "cash from
borrower" was in fact never obtained. That was more than enough
evidence for the jury to conclude that these misrepresentations
were material to the lenders' decisions.
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2. Money Laundering
Foley also attacks his five money laundering convictions
under 18 U.S.C. § 1957, arguing that the government failed to
adduce evidence that the underlying transactions involved
"criminally derived property" within the meaning of the statute.
Foley concedes that he failed to renew this sufficiency challenge
after trial and that our review is accordingly for clear and gross
injustice only.6 See Marston, 694 F.3d at 134.
Section 1957 punishes individuals who "knowingly engage[]
or attempt[] to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally
derived property of a value greater than $10,000 and is derived
from specified unlawful activity." 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a).
"Criminally derived property" is in turn defined as "any property
constituting, or derived from, proceeds obtained from a criminal
offense." Id. § 1957(f)(2). At the time of the transactions at
issue here, the statute provided no definition of "proceeds."7 In
United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507 (2008), a divided Supreme
Court grappled with alternate definitions of "proceeds" as
"receipts" versus "profits" of a crime. Citing the rule of lenity,
6
Again, however, Foley's challenge would likewise fail under
plain error. See infra at 15.
7
Congress subsequently amended the statute in May 2009 to
define "proceeds" as "any property derived from or obtained or
retained, directly or indirectly, through some form of unlawful
activity, including the gross receipts of such activity." 18
U.S.C. § 1956(c)(9); see also id. § 1957(f)(3) (incorporating
§ 1956's definition of "proceeds").
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a plurality of the Court adopted the "profits" definition. Id. at
514 (Scalia, J., joined by Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ.). The
plurality further noted that the "receipts" interpretation would
create a "merger problem" for statutes such as the illegal gambling
statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1955, at issue in Santos itself: "If
'proceeds' meant 'receipts,' nearly every violation of the illegal-
lottery statute would also be a violation of the money-laundering
statute, because paying a winning bettor is a transaction involving
receipts that the defendant intends to promote the carrying on of
the lottery." Id. at 515.
Justice Stevens, concurring, disagreed with the
plurality's broad application of the rule of lenity and focused
instead on the merger issue. With respect to the illegal gambling
statute, Justice Stevens stated that "[t]he revenue generated by a
gambling business that is used to pay the essential expenses of
operating that business is not 'proceeds' within the meaning of the
money laundering statute," because "[a]llowing the Government to
treat the mere payment of the expense of operating an illegal
gambling business as a separate offense is in practical effect
tantamount to double jeopardy." Id. at 528, 527 (Stevens, J.,
concurring). Justice Stevens suggested, however, that the Court
"need not pick a single definition of 'proceeds' applicable to
every unlawful activity," thereby implying that the "profits"
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definition is only warranted in the context of crimes creating such
merger problems. Id. at 525.
We have suggested in dicta that Justice Stevens's
narrower opinion controls, such that the definition of "proceeds"
is only limited to profits where the broader "receipts" definition
would give rise to a merger issue. See United States v. García-
Pastrana, 584 F.3d 351, 380 (1st Cir. 2009) (noting "some question
as to the holding of Santos, since Justice Stevens, the fifth and
deciding vote, suggested in concurrence that the holding may vary
by offense and the legislative history," and questioning Santos's
applicability to a case that did not present merger problems);
United States v. Levesque, 546 F.3d 78, 82 (1st Cir. 2008)
(describing Santos as limiting "proceeds" to profits "at least when
the predicate offense is an illegal lottery operation"); see also,
e.g., United States v. Van Alstyne, 584 F.3d 803, 814 (9th Cir.
2009) ("We therefore view the holding that commanded five votes in
Santos as being that 'proceeds' means 'profits' where viewing
'proceeds' as 'receipts' would present a 'merger' problem of the
kind that troubled the plurality and concurrence in Santos.");
United States v. Kratt, 579 F.3d 558, 562 (6th Cir. 2009) (same).
Other circuits have construed Santos even more narrowly. See,
e.g., United States v. Thornburgh, 645 F.3d 1197, 1209 (10th Cir.
2011) ("'[P]roceeds' means 'profits' for the purpose of the money
laundering statute only where an illegal gambling operation is
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involved."); United States v. Demarest, 570 F.3d 1232, 1242 (11th
Cir. 2009) (same).
As an initial matter, given the ambiguity of Santos's
holding and the lack of clear guidance in our cases, we doubt that
any misapplication of Santos by the district court rises to the
level of plain error, let alone clear and gross injustice. See
Thornburgh, 645 F.3d at 1209 ("[A]ssuming that Santos dictates that
it was error in this case to not require proof of profits, that
error cannot be plain, in view of the widely differing
interpretations of Santos."); United States v. Aslan, 644 F.3d 526,
547-50 (7th Cir. 2011) (same). And in any event, Foley's arguments
fail on their merits.
The money laundering counts against Foley were based upon
the transfer of money obtained from the fraudulent loan closings.
Four of the counts arose from checks drawn on Foley's IOLTA account
and deposited into Elizabeth Reed's bank account; the fifth count
arose from a check drawn on Foley's IOLTA account and used to make
a payment on Reed's behalf to Capital Trust LLC, which had loaned
Reed the money to buy the Neponset Building. Foley avers that his
case implicates the merger issues contemplated by Justice Stevens
in Santos and that "proceeds" in this case must accordingly be
limited to the profits of the wire fraud scheme, but he fails to
elaborate why, in his estimation, "the transferred funds were not
profits." Nevertheless, even setting aside the issue of appellate
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waiver, see United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir.
1990), and accepting arguendo Foley's conclusory premise that the
transferred funds were not "profits" of the wire fraud, we find no
merger problem and thus no basis for limiting "proceeds" to profits
in the first place.
Foley likens this case to Van Alstyne, a mail fraud case
in which the Ninth Circuit held that distribution payments made to
investors in the defendant's Ponzi scheme were operational
expenses, thereby implicating the merger problem contemplated in
Santos. See 584 F.3d at 815 ("[I]ssuing distribution checks . . .
directly inspired investors to send more money to [the defendant's]
funds, which could then be used to pay returns to other investors.
The very nature of the scheme thus required some payments to
investors for it to be at all successful."). But the Ninth Circuit
also "recognize[d] that not all mail fraud schemes will involve
payments that could implicate the 'merger' problem," and stressed
that the merger analysis "must focus on the concrete details of the
particular 'scheme to defraud,' rather than on whether mail fraud
generally requires payments of the kind implicated in Santos." Id.
Applying that contextual approach to this case, we find no merger
problem. Instead, we agree with the government that this case is
akin to United States v. Kennedy, 707 F.3d 558 (5th Cir. 2013), in
which the Fifth Circuit held that the defendants' transfer of
fraudulently obtained mortgage loan funds to a co-conspirator's
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shell corporations did not implicate Santos. The court explained
that the crime of wire fraud was consummated upon the lenders'
transmission of the mortgage loan funds. Id. at 566. Unlike the
Ponzi distributions in Van Alstyne, the subsequent transfer of
funds to the shell corporations did not represent "'mere payment'
of an expense of carrying on the wire fraud crime." Id. at 567
(quoting Santos, 553 U.S. at 527 (Stevens, J., concurring)).
So, too, in this case. The crime of wire fraud was
complete upon Foley's receipt of the mortgage loan funds, and the
subsequent transfer of funds to Reed did not represent payment of
an expense of carrying on the fraud.8 We thus find no merger of
crimes, and hence no reason to apply Santos's narrower definition
of "proceeds" as profits.
8
We are not swayed by Foley's argument that "[t]he charged
scheme was to quickly obtain fraudulent mortgage loans in order to
pay Elizabeth Reed for the properties at 135 Neponset Avenue" and
that under the language of the indictment "[i]t was part of the
scheme to defraud that Foley and [Reed] caused mortgage loan
proceeds . . . to be disbursed from Foley's bank account to
[Reed]." Our focus is on the charged crimes and not on the
overarching scheme. See Kennedy, 707 F.3d at 566 ("If the entire
scheme had come to a halt upon [the defendants'] receipt of the
funds, the defendants would still have been guilty of the crime of
wire fraud--which illustrates that the subsequent disbursements to
the shell corporations have no bearing on the completion of the
crime of wire fraud." (emphasis added)). The 33 wire fraud counts
in Foley's indictment charged Foley with fraudulently causing the
transmission of mortgage loan funds to his IOLTA account. The
exact use to which Foley subsequently put these ill-gotten gains is
beside the point.
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B. Evidentiary Issues
Foley next sets his sights on three of the district
court's adverse evidentiary rulings. Foley preserved all three
challenges; our review is accordingly for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Muñoz-Franco, 487 F.3d 25, 62 (1st Cir. 2007).
1. Robbins's Testimony
Sean Robbins testified on direct examination that he had
pleaded guilty to 24 counts of misprision of a felony. When asked
to define "misprision," Robbins responded:
Misprision means that I had knowledge
of crimes committed by Mr. Foley at the Law
Office of Marc Foley; namely, mortgage fraud.
It means I didn't report those crimes to the
authorities, and it also means that I
concealed those crimes by having disbursement
authorizations signed by Lisa Reed, which were
essentially an agreement to conceal the nature
of the transaction from the lenders.
Defense counsel immediately objected and moved to strike this
testimony. The district court denied this motion.
Foley contends that the district court abused its
discretion in failing to strike this testimony as unfairly
prejudicial under Fed. R. Evid. 403.9 More specifically, Foley
argues that "[i]t was not for Sean Robbins to inform [the jury]
that Mr. Foley was guilty of mortgage fraud based on the facts as
9
Rule 403 provides: "The court may exclude relevant evidence
if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of
one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the
issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or
needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."
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he knew them," and that Robbins's testimony was "particularly
problematic" because Robbins, an attorney, "would be in a better
position than the average person to know whether mortgage fraud had
been committed."
We have made clear that "the fact of [a witness's] guilty
plea and the plea agreement properly may be elicited to dampen the
effect of an anticipated attack on the witness's credibility."
United States v. Dworken, 855 F.2d 12, 30 (1st Cir. 1988); see also
United States v. Richardson, 421 F.3d 17, 40-41 (1st Cir. 2005).
We have accordingly upheld the admission of evidence concerning a
co-conspirator's guilty plea, even though it similarly invites an
inference of the defendant's guilt, when such evidence is
accompanied by appropriate limiting instructions. See Dworken, 855
F.2d at 29-30; see also United States v. Gaev, 24 F.3d 473, 479 (3d
Cir. 1994) ("Conspiracy by definition requires the participation of
more than one party, and the jury may take a guilty plea by a co-
conspirator as evidence of the defendant's guilt, an impermissible
inference. Yet the testimony of a co-conspirator often cannot be
properly evaluated without knowledge of the plea agreement.").
Here, as in Richardson, Dworken, and Gaev, the district
court provided an appropriate limiting instruction in its final
charge to the jury:
Both [Reed and Robbins] testified that they
have previously pled guilty to committing
crimes related to the criminal activity
charged in the indictment. The fact that
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these witnesses entered a guilty plea is not a
factor that you may consider in assessing the
guilt or innocence of Mr. Foley. Each of
these witnesses may be presumed to have acted
after an assessment of his or her own best
interests, for reasons that are personal to
the witness, but that fact has no bearing on
guilt in this case. The guilty plea may only
be considered by you in assessing the
credibility of these witnesses' testimony.
Foley avers that this instruction was inadequate because it did not
specifically "inform the jury that they were to disregard Mr.
Robbins's personal and professional belief, as an attorney, that
Marc Foley had committed mortgage fraud." But Foley never
requested such an alternative instruction, and in any event we
think that the challenged testimony fell within the instruction's
general prohibition on considering Robbins's guilty plea as
evidence of Foley's guilt. Robbins did not testify outright that
he knew or believed that Foley committed mortgage fraud; rather, he
testified to pleading guilty to misprision of a felony, which, in
his words, "meant that [he] had knowledge of crimes committed by
Mr. Foley at the Law Office of Marc Foley; namely, mortgage fraud."
As we have suggested supra, this testimony is akin to the testimony
of a co-conspirator concerning the fact of his guilty plea, which
raises similar concerns as to the jury's assessment of the
defendant's guilt. See Gaev, 24 F.3d at 479. Given the limiting
instruction, we find no abuse of discretion in the admission of
Robbins's testimony regarding his guilty plea.
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2. Cross-Examination on Maximum Penalty
After Robbins testified about his guilty plea on direct
examination, Foley twice sought to elicit information on cross-
examination concerning the maximum statutory penalty that Robbins
faced for misprision of a felony. After the district court
sustained the government's objection to this questioning, Foley
moved for a jury instruction on the relative penalties for
misprision of a felony and wire fraud, which the court denied.
Foley contends that this evidence was "absolutely vital"
to the jury's assessment of Robbins's credibility, because the jury
was unaware that by pleading guilty to misprision of a felony and
avoiding wire fraud charges, Robbins had "dramatically reduced" his
"statutory exposure . . . on each count by 85 percent." But Foley
himself concedes that the jury was aware that Robbins "was
expecting to receive leniency in exchange for his testimony." More
detail concerning the respective statutory maxima of the two crimes
was neither necessary nor even particularly relevant given that the
statutory maximum is rarely probative of the penalty a defendant
will receive. See United States v. Mulinelli-Navas, 111 F.3d 983,
987-88 (1st Cir. 1997) (finding no abuse of discretion where the
district court limited cross-examination concerning witnesses'
maximum potential sentences; "[t]he jury could infer from the
circumstances that the accomplices had avoided being charged with
offenses carrying greater sentences by testifying in the
-21-
government's case," and information concerning potential sentences
could have confused the jury by presenting it with the potential
punishment faced by the defendant herself); see also United
States v. Larson, 495 F.3d 1094, 1106 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc)
("The potential maximum statutory sentence . . . lacks significant
probative force because a defendant seldom receives the maximum
penalty permissible under the statute of conviction.").10 We
therefore find no abuse of discretion.
3. Foreclosure Evidence
Foley also takes issue with the admission of evidence
concerning foreclosures of properties on which the lending
companies lost money, which he contends "was irrelevant and highly
inflammatory because foreclosures have reduced property values
throughout the country and are blamed for the recent economic
recession."
Although Foley is correct that loss is not an element of
wire fraud, we have recognized loss as probative of "a defendant's
knowledge or intent to commit fraud." Muñoz-Franco, 487 F.3d at
62. "Thus, while an ultimate purpose of either causing some
10
Larson itself held that the district court abused its
discretion in "prevent[ing] defense counsel from exploring the
mandatory life sentence that [a witness] faced in the absence of a
motion by the Government." 495 F.3d at 1107. The Ninth Circuit
explained, however, that unlike a statutory maximum sentence, "the
witness knows with certainty that he will receive [a mandatory
minimum sentence] unless he satisfies the government with
substantial and meaningful cooperation so that it will move to
reduce his sentence." Id. at 1106.
-22-
financial loss to another or bringing about some financial gain to
oneself is not the essence of fraudulent intent, the knowledge that
one's actions are, in fact, bringing about such losses may
demonstrate one's intent to commit fraud." Id. (internal quotation
marks omitted) (citation omitted); see also, e.g., United States v.
Foshee, 606 F.2d 111, 113 (5th Cir. 1979) ("Fraudulent intent is
supported by proof that [s]omeone was actually victimized by the
fraud." (internal quotation marks omitted) (citation omitted)).
At Foley's trial, former employees of the lending
companies testified that but for the misrepresentations that buyers
had brought money to the loan closings, the lenders would not have
funded the mortgage loans. The jury could therefore infer that the
lenders' losses were a direct consequence of Foley's mendacity and
that Foley's misrepresentations were intentional. Moreover, any
prejudice resulting from this evidence was relatively nugatory, as
the testimony focused on the financial consequences to the lending
companies rather than on the more palpable consequences for
homeowners. The district court therefore did not abuse its
discretion in declining to exclude this evidence as irrelevant or
unfairly prejudicial.
C. Prosecutorial Misconduct
Foley alleges two instances of prosecutorial misconduct
during closing argument. As Foley objected to both remarks below,
-23-
our review is de novo. United States v. Ayala-García, 574 F.3d 5,
16 (1st Cir. 2009).
1. Characterization of Robbins's Testimony
Foley first claims that the prosecutor misstated the
testimony of Sean Robbins in his closing argument. Although "[t]he
law is clear that a prosecutor's reliance (or apparent reliance)
upon matters not in evidence is improper," United States v. Auch,
187 F.3d 125, 129 (1st Cir. 1999), we find no inaccuracy in the
challenged remarks and thus no misconduct.
On direct examination, Robbins testified that he had
"expressed concern" to Foley in March 2007 "over how the
transactions were handled" and that he had asked Foley "why they
were disbursing without buyer's funds." When asked how Foley had
responded, Robbins answered: "He said they used the disbursement
authorizations -- well, he said he had found out that after -- in
the second week of the Neponset closings, that buyers weren't --
hadn't been bringing checks and that he yelled at Nancy [his
paralegal] about it." Again on redirect examination, Robbins was
asked what Foley had told him in that conversation "about whether
or not he knew checks were coming." Robbins replied: "He said he
had found out that no checks had come, and -- about the second
week, and he yelled at Nancy Molinari for disbursing, despite the
fact there were no checks."
-24-
Ostensibly based on this testimony, the prosecutor stated
the following in his closing argument:
[R]emember that conversation when the
defendant and Sean Robbins in March were going
to get coffee? Remember what Sean Robbins
told you? He was still bothered by the whole
thing. He knew it was wrong, and he was
bothered by it, and that's the conversation in
which defendant Foley said, I knew by the
second week there were no checks.
Now, I submit to you that the evidence
in this case and what you know from the
evidence is from day one Mr. Foley knew there
were not going to be any checks. But at a
minimum, he has admitted to Sean Robbins that
he knew there were no checks from at least the
second week.
In his own closing argument, defense counsel responded:
Mr. Wild [the prosecutor] tells you during his
closing argument that Sean Robbins testified
that Mr. Foley told him in March that he had
known in December that no checks were
forthcoming. . . . I respectfully submit to
you . . . Mr. Robbins never testified that Mr.
Foley had told him in December that he knew no
checks were forthcoming. . . . Neither Mr.
Robbins nor Ms. Molinari ever testified that
Mr. Foley ever indicated between December 19th
and January 12th that no checks would be
brought to the law office at the conclusion of
the closings.
The prosecutor then stated in rebuttal:
You were told that Mr. Robbins didn't
testify about that conversation on the way to
get coffee in March and what Mr. Foley said to
him. If you took notes, I would suggest you
look near the end of Mr. Robbins' testimony.
I believe it's on Ms. Lei's redirect
questioning of him. Look for what was said
there.
-25-
Following the government's rebuttal, Foley objected that
the prosecutor had "misstated the evidence and added evidence to
the case" by stating that "Mr. Robbins testified that Mr. Foley
knew in December of 2006 that no funds would be forthcoming." The
district court expressed its concern at that time "about the
reference to when Mr. Robbins supposedly got an admission from Mr.
Foley as to whether he knew and when he knew that the funds were
not forthcoming." Accordingly, the court instructed the jury that
the lawyers' statements were not evidence and that the jury's
memory of the evidence controlled, using this particular dispute as
an illustration.
After the verdict, Foley moved for a new trial on the
basis of the government's alleged misrepresentation, which he
claimed was fatal to his defense that he believed in good faith
that checks were forthcoming. Finding no inaccuracies in the
government's closing and rebuttal, the district court denied the
motion. The court found the prosecutor's statement that "Foley
said, I knew by the second week that there were no checks" wholly
consistent with Robbins's underlying testimony that Foley "said he
had found out that no checks had come" by the second week.
Although the prosecutor proceeded to state that "the evidence in
this case and what you know from the evidence is from day one Mr.
Foley knew there were not going to be any checks," the court
emphasized that that remark did not purport to rest solely on
-26-
Robbins's testimony but rather on all of the evidence in the case,
including Reed's testimony that Foley had prepared the disbursement
authorization forms in December 2006 to "paper the file." The
court concluded that Foley's claim of misconduct was "especially
puzzling in light of the fact that it was defense counsel who
misstated the government's arguments to the jury, erroneously
asserting that government counsel had said that Robbins had
testified that Foley admitted that he knew in December no checks
were forthcoming."
We agree with the district court's cogent analysis.
Contrary to Foley's assertions, the government did not indicate
that "Mr. Foley told Mr. Robbins that he knew by the second week
that no checks were forthcoming," only that Foley knew by the
second week that "there were no checks," in keeping with Robbins's
testimony that Foley had "found out that no checks had come." In
proceeding to suggest that Foley knew "from day one" that no checks
were forthcoming, the prosecutor relied on different evidence, as
his next remark implied: "But at a minimum, [Foley] has admitted to
Sean Robbins that he knew there were no checks from at least the
second week." The government's argument was thus that even if the
jury did not infer from the other "evidence in this case" that
Foley knew all along that no checks were forthcoming, Robbins's
testimony indicated that Foley at least knew by the second week
-27-
that no checks had come. That is in no way a mischaracterization
of Robbins's testimony.11
2. Instruction to Hold Foley Accountable
Foley also avers that the prosecutor engaged in
misconduct by instructing the jury to hold Foley accountable. In
his closing argument, Foley's lawyer asserted both a good faith
defense premised on Reed's deceitfulness and a materiality defense
premised on the lenders' willingness to advance loans despite their
"total disregard for the truthfulness of the information in the
applications." Defense counsel posed the following rhetorical
question to the jury:
Will you permit subprime lenders . . . and the
executives who ran those firms into the ground
while making millions of dollars to continue
to portray themselves as victims of mortgage
fraud, or will you declare that [the
prosecutor] and his team have fallen for a
great misdirection campaign, joining forces
with subprime members . . . to go after
closing lawyers, glorified paper pushers like
Mr. Foley?
Among other things, defense counsel also alluded to the fraud
convictions of various lending company executives.
11
Foley attempts to bolster his argument by pointing to the
district court's statement that it was "a little concerned about
the reference to when Mr. Robbins supposedly got an admission from
Mr. Foley as to whether he knew and when he knew that the funds
were not forthcoming." But that remark was made immediately after
Foley's objection to the alleged misstatement and thus before the
court had reviewed the transcripts of Robbins's testimony and of
the prosecutor's closing argument. After conducting such a review,
the district court found no mischaracterization, as it explained in
denying Foley's motion for a new trial.
-28-
In rebuttal, the prosecutor responded:
Ultimately, what you heard in a fairly
lengthy talk with you was that everybody
should be held responsible except Mr. Foley.
All of those lenders ought to be held
responsible, but not Mr. Foley. All of those
loan processors ought to be held responsible,
but not Mr. Foley. Lisa Reed ought to be held
responsible, and she is, but not Mr. Foley.
Sean Robbins ought to be held responsible, and
he is. But not Mr. Foley.
The argument is that there was a very
large scale across the industry in the go-go
days, a lot of fraud, and people ought to be
held responsible for that. Like the
executives ought to be held responsible, and
counsel made a big point of how they were held
responsible. They were prosecuted. Then he
tells you you have to stop letting those
people be victims.
Well, which is it, Mr. Goldstein
[defense counsel]? They're responsible, and
they got prosecuted, or they're victims? You
can't argue it both ways. The fact is they
are among the people who have been prosecuted
out of the mortgage fraud in this country.
And now it's time for Mr. Foley to be held
accountable by you on the charges in the
indictment based on all he knew and what he
did.
Following rebuttal, Foley objected to the remark that it was "time
for Mr. Foley to be held accountable by you." The government
responded that this commentary was permissible as "a direct
response to what [defense] counsel had gone on at length about who
else was responsible and ought to be held responsible," and the
district court agreed.
We, too, find no impropriety in these remarks. As the
government recognized below, we have "typically cede[d] prosecutors
-29-
some latitude in responding to defense counsel," distinguishing
between "[t]he Government's response to statements made by
defendant's counsel" and "statements made by the Government without
provocation." United States v. Skerret-Ortega, 529 F.3d 33, 40
(1st Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citation
omitted). Given Foley's strategy of shifting blame to Reed and to
the lenders, the government's rebuttal was within the latitude we
recognized in Skerret-Ortega.12
III.
We now turn to the array of arguments Foley raises as to
the reasonableness of his sentence and the calculation of
restitution.
A. Sentence
1. Procedural Reasonableness
Foley first challenges the procedural reasonableness of
his sentence, contending that the district court miscalculated the
12
United States v. Landrón-Class, 696 F.3d 62, 71 (1st Cir.
2012), on which Foley relies, is not to the contrary. In Landrón-
Class, the government invited a guilt-by-association inference in
its closing argument, stating that a witness's non-testifying co-
defendants had "already been dealt with" via their guilty pleas.
Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Consequently, the
prosecution's argument "was likely to appear as an attempt to
suggest to the jury that, just as those individuals were held
responsible, now it is appellant's turn." Id. Here, by contrast,
it was Foley who initially attempted to shift blame to Reed and to
the lending industry, and the government's rebuttal merely
responded to that argument. We therefore do not interpret the
challenged commentary as drawing the type of guilt-by-association
inference that troubled us in Landrón-Class.
-30-
loss caused by Foley and improperly imposed the two-level
"sophisticated means" enhancement, U.S.S.G. §2B1.1(b)(10)(c). We
address each issue in turn.13
i. Loss Calculation
U.S.S.G. §2B1.1(b)(1) increases a defendant's base
offense level for fraud according to the degree of resultant
pecuniary loss. Loss is generally equal to "the greater of actual
loss or intended loss," id. cmt. n.3(A); "actual loss" is in turn
defined as "the reasonably foreseeable pecuniary harm that resulted
from the offense," id. cmt. n.3(A)(i). "Reasonably foreseeable
pecuniary harm" refers to "pecuniary harm that the defendant knew,
or, under the circumstances, reasonably should have known, was a
potential result of the offense." Id. cmt. n(3)(A)(iv); see also
United States v. Farano, 749 F.3d 658, 665 (7th Cir. 2014)
(stressing that "[t]he key word [in this definition] is
'potential,' which means 'could happen'").
13
We have recognized that when a sentence "falls below the
bottom of the Guidelines range, a defendant may still challenge the
incorrect Guidelines calculation." United States v. Ramírez, 708
F.3d 295, 308 (1st Cir. 2013); see also United States v. Paneto,
661 F.3d 709, 715 (1st Cir. 2011). Although the government
correctly notes that the district court "substantially discounted
the import of the loss amount at sentencing," ultimately imposing
a variant 72-month sentence (well below the calculated Guidelines
range of 108 to 135 months), we think it at least possible that the
court might have imposed an even lower variant sentence had it
begun with a lower Guidelines range. We therefore decline the
government's invitation to find any Guidelines error harmless as we
did in United States v. Tavares, 705 F.3d 4, 24-28 (1st Cir. 2013),
and United States v. Marsh, 561 F.3 81, 86 (1st Cir. 2009).
-31-
Deeming Foley responsible for an actual loss of
$3,239,204, the district court applied an 18-level enhancement
under §2B1.1(b)(1)(J), corresponding to a loss between $2.5 million
and $7 million. Foley avers that "the actual loss amount is over
$1 million but under $2.5 million," such that his base offense
level should only have been increased by 16 points under
§2B1.1(b)(1)(I). His primary contention is that he "could not have
reasonably expected the loss that actually occurred" as a result of
his crimes. Foley raised this objection below; we accordingly
review de novo the district court's calculation methodology and
review for clear error its mathematical application of this
methodology. Appolon, 695 F.3d at 66.
In Appolon, another mortgage fraud case, we stated that
"actual loss is always the difference between the original loan
amount and the final foreclosure price (less any principal
repayments)." Id. at 67. Accordingly, we explained that "actual
loss usually can be calculated by subtracting the value of the
collateral--or, if the lender has foreclosed on and sold the
collateral, the amount of the sales price--from the amount of the
outstanding balance on the loan." Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted) (citation omitted); see also U.S.S.G. §2B1.2 cmt.
n.3(E)(ii)-(iii). Here, the district court employed that
methodology, subtracting from the original loan amount for each
-32-
condominium either the foreclosure sale price or, if no resale had
occurred, the 2012 assessment value.
Foley attempts to distinguish Appolon, pointing out that
the defendants in that case personally prepared fraudulent loan
applications on behalf of straw buyers and created separate HUD-1
forms for each property, one with the actual sales price and one
with the inflated price from the fraudulent loan application.
Moreover, the Appolon defendants were themselves directly
responsible for permitting the mortgage loans to default. On those
facts, we rejected the Appolon defendants' argument that the
"substantial disparity between the original loan amounts and the
properties' final values" was unforeseeable. 695 F.3d at 68-69.
We stressed that as "veterans of the real estate industry," the
defendants "knew that the mortgage loans on the properties involved
in their scheme would enter default and that most, if not all, of
the properties would be forced into foreclosure"; that they "could
reasonably have anticipated that the properties would be grossly
devalued as a result"; and that "[e]ven if the deterioration of the
Boston real estate market during the recent recession also played
some macroeconomic role in that outcome, [the defendants] could
reasonably have expected that they were contributing to the
emergence of those poor market conditions." Id. at 69.
By contrast, Foley asserts that unlike the scheme in
Appolon, "[t]he goal of this enterprise was for it to succeed." He
-33-
points out, inter alia, that the condominiums were priced according
to independent appraisals rather than artificially inflated as in
Appolon, and that some of the buyers testified that they made
mortgage payments on the properties. Moreover, Foley himself was
not involved in the submission of fraudulent loan applications and
the payment of kickbacks to buyers; his only role was to
orchestrate the fraudulent loan closings.
This may be a closer case than Appolon, but we ultimately
find Foley's distinctions unpersuasive. Like the defendants in
that case, Foley was a savvy "veteran[] of the real estate
industry." Id. He may not have known that the borrowers' loan
applications were falsified, but he knew that the borrowers had not
brought funds to the loan closings and, even more importantly,
concealed this fact in the submitted HUD-1 forms. As the evidence
at trial established, the lenders would not have extended loans but
for this misrepresentation because, as one lending company employee
testified, a borrower's down payment "lessens the risk of the
lender." The very act of misrepresentation thus implies Foley's
awareness that the lenders would not have advanced the funds to
borrowers with no skin in the proverbial game. Given Foley's
professional experience, it strains credulity for him to suggest
that he was unaware of the reason why. Foley knew or should have
known that these non-paying borrowers presented a greater risk of
-34-
default; therefore, foreclosure was an eminently foreseeable
consequence of his fraud.14
Foley next alleges a handful of more specific errors in
the district court's loss calculation, none of which he challenged
below. We accordingly review for plain error only. United States
v. Albanese, 287 F.3d 226, 228 (1st Cir. 2002).
Foley claims that the district court relied on inaccurate
sale prices for several of the condominiums, such that the actual
loss figure should have been reduced by $17,200; that one of the
14
To the extent that Foley implies that the quantum of loss
was unforeseeable due to a decline in real estate values, we
rejected a comparable argument in Appolon: "Even if the
deterioration of the Boston real estate market during the recent
recession also played some macroeconomic role in [the properties'
devaluation], [the defendants] could reasonably have expected that
they were contributing to the emergence of those poor market
conditions." 695 F.3d at 69; see also Farano, 749 F.3d at 665
(rejecting defendants' argument that lenders' loss was
unforeseeable because defendants "could not know what the
properties would bring at a foreclosure sale, given uncertainty
about future real estate prices").
We note in passing that two other circuits, interpreting the
language of U.S.S.G. §2B1.2 cmt. n.3(E), do not even apply a
foreseeability analysis to the calculation of "credits against
loss" represented by the proceeds of a foreclosure sale. See
United States v. Crowe, 735 F.3d 1229, 1237 (10th Cir. 2013) ("[I]t
is irrelevant in this case whether or not [the defendant], at the
time she negotiated the various mortgages at issue, reasonably
anticipated a precipitous decline in the real estate market that
might result in the original lender or successor lenders being
unable to recoup their losses from the sale of pledged collateral
should she default."); see also United States v. Turk, 626 F.3d
743, 749 (2d Cir. 2010) ("[T]he victims' loss was the unpaid
principal, and we hold that the decline in value in any purported
collateral need not have been foreseeable to [the defendant] in
order for her to be held accountable for that entire loss."). As
we find the properties' devaluation foreseeable in any event, we
need not decide on this approach today.
-35-
condominium units was never foreclosed upon and should not be
included in the loss calculation, further reducing actual loss by
$67,600; that a loss of $118,104 arising from Foley's participation
in a previous mortgage fraud scheme was not "relevant conduct"
properly considered at sentencing; and that the district court
failed to account for some of the borrowers' loan principal
repayments, the extent of which Foley does not specify.
As mentioned above, the district court found Foley
responsible for a total loss of $3,239,204, corresponding to
U.S.S.G. §2B1.1(b)(1)(J)'s 18-level enhancement for losses between
$2.5 million and $7 million. Even after the three reductions that
Foley requests, which total $202,904, the loss figure would remain
$3,036,300, well within the §2B1.1(b)(1)(J) range. Foley offers no
figure for the borrowers' principal repayments; his suggestion that
these repayments exceed $536,000, thereby bringing him into a lower
Guidelines range, amounts to no more than mere speculation, which
we need not credit on appeal. See Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17.
Accordingly, Foley can show no prejudice, and hence no plain error,
arising from the district court's alleged miscalculations. Cf.
Albanese, 287 F.3d at 229 (finding no prejudice because, even
crediting defendant's assignments of error, a reduction in criminal
history score from six to four points would not change the
defendant's criminal history category and Guidelines range).
-36-
ii. Sophisticated Means Enhancement
Foley also raises a preserved challenge to the district
court's imposition of a two-level U.S.S.G. §2B1.1(b)(10)(C)
enhancement for an offense involving "sophisticated means." We
review the district court's reading of §2B1.1(b)(10)(C) de novo and
its factual findings for clear error. United States v. Evano, 553
F.3d 109, 111 (1st Cir. 2009). As defined in the Guidelines,
"sophisticated means" means especially complex
or especially intricate offense conduct
pertaining to the execution or concealment of
an offense. For example, in a telemarketing
scheme, locating the main office of the scheme
in one jurisdiction but locating soliciting
operations in another jurisdiction ordinarily
indicates sophisticated means. Conduct such
as hiding assets or transactions, or both,
through the use of fictitious entities,
corporate shells, or offshore financial
accounts also ordinarily indicates
sophisticated means.
U.S.S.G. §2B1.1 cmt. n.9(B). The enumerated examples are by no
means exhaustive, and as other circuits have recognized, "the
enhancement properly applies to conduct less sophisticated" than
the examples. United States v. Jennings, 711 F.3d 1144, 1147 (9th
Cir. 2013) (collecting cases). Moreover, a "scheme may be
sophisticated even if the individual elements taken alone are not."
Evano, 553 F.3d at 113.
In addition to submitting fraudulent HUD-1s, Foley took
the fictitious down payments out of Reed's sale proceeds and
directed Reed to sign disbursement authorization forms in those
-37-
amounts. And when some of the lenders sought additional proof of
a borrower's down payment, Foley arranged for Reed to prepare fake
checks purporting to show a down payment from the borrower, and
directed his paralegal to draw and then redeposit a check in his
IOLTA account to create the appearance that the borrower's funds
had been received. Although Foley argues that none of these
actions are "particularly sophisticated," the whole of the scheme
is greater than the sum of its parts. "All this was enough to make
[Foley's] scheme more effective and difficult to thwart, and it is
enough to justify the enhancement." Id.15
2. Substantive Reasonableness
Foley next contends that his sentence was substantively
unreasonable relative to the sentences of his co-defendants and of
attorneys involved in mortgage fraud schemes in Appolon and United
States v. Innarelli, 524 F.3d 286 (1st Cir. 2008). We review the
district court's sentencing decision for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Floyd, 740 F.3d 22, 39 (1st Cir. 2014).
Foley points out that in contrast to his 72-month
sentence, "Lisa Reed, the mastermind of the scheme and the person
who profited from it, received a sentence of 18 months," while Sean
15
We also reject Foley's argument that the sophisticated
means enhancement was unwarranted because a different district
judge later declined to apply the same enhancement to Robbins at
his sentencing. Robbins and Foley played different roles in the
scheme, and in any event, there is no reason to conclude that one
judge rather than the other was correct.
-38-
Robbins was not incarcerated at all. Foley further avers that he
was less culpable than the lawyer defendants in Appolon and
Innarelli, both of whom also received 72-month sentences. While
Foley's involvement was limited to the submission of false HUD-1s
over the course of several weeks, the defendant in Innarelli also
prepared false title documents and did so as part of a conspiracy
spanning three years. Similarly, the lawyer in Appolon falsified
loan applications and purchase-and-sale agreements as well as HUD-
1s.
Foley's proffered comparisons carry little weight.
First, three of these other defendants -- Robbins, Reed, and the
Innarelli defendant -- opted to plead guilty and are therefore
dissimilarly situated to Foley. See Floyd, 740 F.3d at 39.
Robbins and Reed also played different roles in the conspiracy:
Robbins worked largely at Foley's direction, while Reed, even if
the "mastermind of the scheme," was not a lawyer and therefore did
not sully "the integrity and public trust in the bar," a factor
which the district court stressed in sentencing Foley.
Although the lawyer defendant in Appolon did go to trial,
we do not think that his additional misrepresentations made him so
much more culpable as to render Foley's equivalent sentence an
abuse of discretion. More broadly, we reject Foley's premise that
because we upheld a different judge's sentence for a more culpable
defendant in an unrelated case, the same sentence is therefore an
-39-
abuse of discretion in this case. (Indeed, none of Foley's
proposed congeners were sentenced by the same judge as Foley.) As
we stated in United States v. Saez, 444 F.3d 15, 19 (1st Cir.
2006), when "different judges sentenc[e] two defendants quite
differently, there is no more reason to think that the first one
was right than the second." Moreover, we recognized that such
comparisons raise significant "practical objections":
A single judge sentencing two defendants for
the same offense has the information before
him and knows his own reasoning. By contrast,
to make a valid comparison between defendants
sentenced by different judges is far more
difficult, as this case illustrates. Further,
such a comparison opens the door to endless
rummaging by lawyers through sentences in
other cases, each side finding random examples
to support a higher or lower sentence, as
their clients' interests dictate.
Id. We therefore decline to hold Foley's sentence to such a strict
standard.
Aside from these faulty comparisons, we finally note that
Foley's 72-month sentence is well below the Guidelines range of 108
to 135 months calculated by the district court. "It is a rare
below-the-range sentence that will prove vulnerable to a
defendant's claim of substantive unreasonableness," and this case
does not buck the trend. United States v. King, 741 F.3d 305, 310
(1st Cir. 2014); see also Floyd, 740 F.3d at 39-40. Foley's
sentence was well within the district court's discretion.
-40-
B. Restitution
Foley finally assigns error to the district court's
restitution award of $2,198,204 under 18 U.S.C. § 3663A. We review
for abuse of discretion. United States v. Cornier-Ortiz, 361 F.3d
29, 41 (1st Cir. 2004).
The district court awarded $2,080,100 in restitution to
Taylor, Bean & Whitaker in connection with the Neponset Building
fraud and $118,104 to Argent Mortgage arising from Foley's role in
an earlier mortgage fraud.16 The district court arrived at that
figure by subtracting from each mortgage loan the amount recouped
via foreclosure sales or, for properties that had not been resold,
the 2012 property assessment values. Foley alleges several
distinct errors in the district court's calculation and in its
determination of the proper restitution recipients. The government
agrees that the restitution order should be vacated and remanded in
part. We address each issue in turn.
1. Restitution for Unit 5
In calculating the total loss suffered by Taylor, Bean &
Whitaker, the district court included a $67,600 loss associated
with Unit 5 in the Neponset Building, which had not been foreclosed
16
Although the total losses in connection with the Neponset
Building amounted to $3,121,100, the government only sought
restitution for $2,080,100 to Taylor, Bean & Whitaker; the other
loans had been sold on the secondary market, and the government
found it "not feasible to determine specific amounts for
restitution among the secondary market lenders/investors because a
number of them are no longer operating."
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upon and remained in the hands of the original buyer. The
government concedes that remand is warranted. We therefore remand
for further consideration as to the proper amount of restitution,
if any, for this unit.
2. Repayments by Borrowers
Foley and the government also agree that the district
court erred in failing to offset the original loan amounts by
principal repayments made by some of the borrowers. We accordingly
remand for the district court to recalculate the lenders' loss on
this basis.
3. Identity of Victim
Foley and the government further agree that remand is
proper to determine whether Taylor, Bean & Whitaker is the proper
recipient of restitution as to Units 2 and 32 of the Neponset
Building, which were foreclosed upon and bought by other entities.
We remand so that the district court may determine whether Taylor,
Bean & Whitaker or another entity is entitled to restitution with
respect to these units.
4. Calculation of Offset Value
Foley also assigns error to the district court's method
of offsetting the original loan amount by the amount recouped at
the foreclosure sale, or for units that had not been resold, the
2012 tax assessment value. Foley contends that "the loss to the
lenders was set when the foreclosure was complete," such that the
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loan amount should have been offset by the property's fair market
value at the time that the lender took possession.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(1), "when sentencing a
defendant convicted of [fraud and other specified offenses], the
court shall order . . . that the defendant make restitution to the
victim of the offense." For offenses such as fraud that "result[]
in . . . loss . . . of property of a victim of the offense," the
restitution order shall require the return of the lost property,
or, if return of the property is "impossible, impracticable, or
inadequate," payment of an amount equal to the value of the
property less "the value . . . of any part of the property that is
returned." Id. § 3663A(b)(1).
At the time that Foley filed this appeal, the circuits
were divided on the proper calculation of the offsetting "value
. . . of any part of the property that is returned" in mortgage
fraud cases. Compare United States v. Robers, 698 F.3d 937, 942
(7th Cir. 2012) (offsetting the amount of money received at
foreclosure sale), with United States v. Yeung, 672 F.3d 594, 604
(9th Cir. 2012) (offsetting the value of the property on the date
the lender acquired title). The Supreme Court has since resolved
the question, holding that the restitution award must be offset "by
the amount of money the victim received in selling the collateral,
not the value of the collateral when the victim received it."
Robers v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1854, 1856 (2014). The
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Robers Court reached this conclusion by interpreting the statutory
phrase "any part of the property" as "refer[ring] only to the
specific property lost by a victim, which, in the case of a
fraudulently obtained loan, is the money lent." Id. Consequently,
the Court explained that "no 'part of the property' is 'returned'
to the victim until the collateral is sold and the victim receives
money from the sale." Id.
Robers did not squarely resolve the proper calculation of
loss when the collateral remained unsold at the time of sentencing,
suggesting in dicta that "[o]ther provisions of the [restitution]
statute allow the court to avoid an undercompensation or a
windfall." Id. at 1858. Among other things, the Court noted that
those provisions "would seem to give a court adequate authority to
count, as part of the restitution paid, the value of collateral
previously received but not sold." Id. Two concurring Justices
further suggested that "[i]f a victim chooses to hold collateral
rather than reduce it to cash within a reasonable time, then the
victim must bear the risk of any subsequent decline in the value of
the collateral, because the defendant is not the proximate cause of
that decline." Id. at 1860 (Sotomayor, J., concurring, joined by
Ginsburg, J.). Seizing on these qualifications, Foley suggests in
a post-Robers Fed. R. App. P. 28(j) letter that a rehearing should
be ordered as to the applicability of Robers in this case.
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To be sure, Robers did not address the district court's
method of offsetting the loan amount by the 2012 tax assessment
value for properties that had not yet been sold. But this
approach, if anything, inured to Foley's benefit, granting an
offset even though under Robers the lenders' "property" (i.e.,
money lent) had yet to be returned. Nor does this case raise the
specter of unreasonable delay contemplated by the concurring
Justices. Like the defendant in Robers, Foley made no argument
that the lenders delayed selling the properties because of a
"choice to hold the homes as investments." Id. As the concurring
Justices recognized, "[r]eal property is not a liquid asset, which
means that converting it to cash often takes time. . . . Because
such delays are foreseeable, it is fair for [the defendant] to bear
their cost: the diminution in the homes' value." Id. That
principle is equally germane here.17
17
Foley also suggests in his Rule 28(j) letter that rehearing
is necessary to address the applicability of Robers's proximate
cause analysis "to a defendant, who was not a straw buyer like
Robers but an attorney who came onto the scene after the loan
applications had been approved." We disagree. We have already
rejected Foley's argument that the foreclosures were unforeseeable
to him, see section III.A.1.i. supra, and to the extent Foley
implies that he did not proximately cause the drop in property
values, Robers rejected that very argument. See 134 S. Ct. at 1859
(explaining that "[f]luctuations in property values are
common . . . [and] foreseeable" and that "losses in part incurred
through a decline in the value of collateral sold are directly
related to an offender's having obtained collateralized property
through fraud").
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In short, Robers vindicates rather than impugns the
district court's methodology. We therefore find no basis for the
rehearing Foley requests.
5. 343 Centre Street
Foley finally argues that the district court erred in
granting $118,104 in restitution to Argent Mortgage for the loss
arising from Foley's fraudulent purchase in November 2005 of
property at 343 Centre Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts -- a
figure also included in the district court's Guidelines loss
calculation.18 As detailed in Foley's presentence report, after
purchasing this building with Reed in the name of a friend, Foley
then purchased a condominium unit in the building. Foley financed
the condominium purchase with a mortgage loan from Argent, and
signed a HUD-1 form falsely indicating that he had brought money to
the loan closing. After Foley defaulted on the loan and the
condominium unit was foreclosed upon, Argent lost $118,104.
Section 3663A(a)(2) defines a "victim" entitled to
restitution as
a person directly and proximately harmed as a
result of the commission of an offense for
which restitution may be ordered including, in
the case of an offense that involves as an
element a scheme, conspiracy, or pattern of
criminal activity, any person directly harmed
18
As discussed in section III.A.1.i supra, the inclusion of
this figure in the Guidelines calculation was ultimately immaterial
to Foley's base offense level under U.S.S.G. §2B1.1(b)(1).
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by the defendant's criminal conduct in the
course of the scheme, conspiracy, or pattern.
Because wire fraud involves a "scheme or artifice to defraud," 18
U.S.C. § 1343, we have allowed restitution "without regard to
whether the conduct that harmed the victim was conduct underlying
the offense of conviction." United States v. Matos, 611 F.3d 31,
43 (1st Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citation
omitted). Instead, a restitution order "encompass[es] all direct
harm from the criminal conduct of the defendant which was within
any scheme, conspiracy, or pattern of activity that was an element
of any offense of conviction." United States v. Hensley, 91 F.3d
274, 277 (1st Cir. 1996). Hence, "in determining whether
particular criminal conduct comprised part of a unitary scheme to
defraud, the sentencing court should consider the totality of the
circumstances, including the nature of the scheme, the identity of
its participants and victims, and any commonality in timing, goals,
and modus operandi." Id. at 278. In Foley's estimation, the 343
Centre Street transaction did not fall within the wire fraud scheme
for which he was convicted. We agree.
In determining the extent of the underlying scheme, we
begin with the terms of the indictment. See id. at 277; see also,
e.g., United States v. Turino, 978 F.2d 315, 319 (7th Cir. 1992).
The indictment alleged that Foley engaged in a scheme to defraud
mortgage lenders "[f]rom in or about December of 2006 to in or
about January of 2007 . . . in connection with the financing of
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residential real estate purchases of condominiums at 135 Neponset
Avenue in Dorchester, Massachusetts." As part of the alleged
scheme, "Foley agreed with [Reed] to act as the settlement agent,
to prepare loan closing documents, and to conduct the closings of
mortgage loans in the names of the straw buyers."
Even focusing on the "broad 'boilerplate' language . . .
rather than the specific conduct alleged" in the indictment,
Hensley, 91 F.3d at 277, we think the district court stretched the
underlying scheme too far in extending it to the 343 Centre Street
transaction. Although the participants were identical (Foley,
Reed, and Robbins) and although the 343 Centre Street transaction
also involved a falsified HUD-1 form representing that the buyer
had brought funds to closing, Foley played a different role, acting
as the fraudulent purchaser rather than as the settlement agent.
More importantly, the 343 Centre Street transaction occurred over
a year before the scheme for which Foley was convicted, which
(according to the indictment) ran "from in or about December of
2006 to in or about January of 2007." That is in stark contrast to
Hensley, which involved a unitary scheme spanning a mere two weeks.
Id. at 278. Furthermore, the indictment expressly delimited the
scheme to "the financing of residential real estate purchases of
condominiums at 135 Neponset Avenue." We accordingly vacate the
district court's award of $118,104 in restitution to Argent
Mortgage.
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IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Foley's conviction
and incarcerative sentence. We affirm in part and vacate in part
the district court's restitution order, and remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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