Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Dameia Smith, an IRS tax examining clerk, was involved in a series of criminal acts beginning with the armed robbery of a restaurant employee in September 1998. After learning that the victim was cooperating with authorities, Smith accessed the IRS database to obtain her address and expressed intentions to prevent her from testifying, including stating he would kill her. In January 1999, Smith drove to the victim’s home with a firearm and attempted to persuade a friend to kill her; when the friend refused, Smith coerced him into an attempted bank robbery. The plan failed, and Smith was arrested after his friend began cooperating with law enforcement.Smith was tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on six counts, including Hobbs Act robbery, unauthorized computer access, solicitation to commit murder of a federal witness, attempted murder of a federal witness, and using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). The jury initially convicted Smith only of unauthorized computer access, but on retrial, convicted him on all charges. Smith’s § 924(c) conviction was predicated on either solicitation or attempted murder, with a general verdict form not specifying which. The District Court imposed a lengthy sentence and later denied Smith’s motion for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, finding attempted murder of a federal witness was a crime of violence under the elements clause. Subsequent remands and appeals followed Supreme Court decisions narrowing the scope of qualifying predicates for § 924(c).On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that attempted murder of a federal witness categorically qualifies as a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)'s elements clause because it necessarily requires proof of the attempted use of physical force. The court also found no reasonable probability that Smith’s § 924(c) conviction was based solely on solicitation, an invalid predicate, rendering any instructional error harmless. The Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s denial of relief. View "USA v. Smith" on Justia Law

The appellant in this case was the sole owner and operator of a clean energy startup. In order to attract investment, he provided prospective investors with forged business agreements, altered financial statements, and other documents that misrepresented the company’s assets, operational history, and business relationships. He also fabricated the signatures of various business partners and used personal information of others without authorization. Investors provided nearly $1 million based on these representations. The appellant then diverted a substantial portion of the funds for personal use, including the purchase of a residence, and obscured these transactions through rapid transfers among several accounts. He continued to mislead investors about the use of their funds and the status of the business. When questioned by federal agents, he made a series of false statements regarding his activities.A grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania indicted the appellant on multiple counts, including wire fraud, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, unlawful monetary transactions, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. After a nine-day jury trial, the jury found him guilty on all counts. The District Court sentenced him to 72 months’ imprisonment and ordered restitution of approximately $1.2 million, including attorneys’ fees incurred by victims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the case. On appeal, the appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, the jury instructions, the constitutionality of the aggravated identity theft statute, denial of a good faith instruction, and the restitution order. The Court held that a general Rule 29 motion does not preserve all sufficiency arguments for appeal and found no plain error in the conviction. It also found the jury instructions and statute to be proper and the denial of the good faith instruction not to be an abuse of discretion. However, the Court held that the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act does not authorize restitution for attorneys’ fees, vacated that portion of the restitution order, and remanded for entry of an amended judgment. All other aspects of the conviction and sentence were affirmed. View "United States v. Abrams" on Justia Law

The case concerns an individual who was stopped by police after a reported road-rage incident in which a firearm was allegedly brandished. During the traffic stop, officers observed a loaded firearm in plain view. The defendant, who had prior felony convictions and was still on state parole, was then charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of federal law.After a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the defendant was convicted of the charged offense. At sentencing, the District Court calculated the advisory guidelines range based on the defendant’s criminal history and prior convictions, including a prior drug offense and an unlawful wounding conviction. The Court determined that these prior convictions triggered a heightened sentencing range under the guidelines, but imposed a sentence below the statutory maximum. The defendant appealed, challenging both the sufficiency of the evidence regarding the interstate commerce element and the constitutionality of the statute as applied, as well as the classification of his prior unlawful wounding conviction as a “crime of violence” under the guidelines.Reviewing the appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the defendant’s challenges to his conviction were foreclosed by binding circuit precedent. On the sentencing issue, the court acknowledged that a recent Supreme Court decision, Delligatti v. United States, abrogated prior circuit precedent regarding the interpretation of “crime of violence.” Under Delligatti, the defendant’s prior unlawful wounding conviction qualifies as a crime of violence for purposes of the sentencing guidelines. The Third Circuit accordingly affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. View "USA v. Minter" on Justia Law

Nicole Schuster, a mechanical engineer at the Naval Foundry and Propeller Center, led two Navy procurement projects for large machines known as vertical turning centers (VTCs) in 2017 and 2019. In 2017, she favored Company 1, which won the SU22 contract, while Company 2’s bid was rejected as technically unacceptable. In 2019, Schuster again favored Company 1 for the SU25 contract and, after learning Company 2 had bid, she disclosed Company 2’s confidential bid information from the earlier SU22 procurement to an employee of Company 1. This information included cost data and proprietary manufacturing details. Company 1 subsequently won the SU25 contract, with Company 2’s bid deemed too expensive.Schuster was charged in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania with violating the Procurement Integrity Act, specifically 41 U.S.C. §§ 2102(a) and 2105(a), which prohibit disclosure of contractor bid or proposal information before the award of the procurement to which the information relates. Schuster pled guilty based on a plea agreement, which included a factual basis describing the machines as “virtually identical” but did not detail whether the information she disclosed was the same in substance as that submitted for the pending SU25 procurement. The District Court accepted her guilty plea and sentenced her to one year and one day in prison.The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the case, applying plain error review to Schuster’s challenge to the sufficiency of the factual basis for her plea. The Court held that the District Court erred by accepting the guilty plea without sufficient facts to establish that the disclosed information related to the pending procurement as required by statute. The Third Circuit vacated Schuster’s conviction and sentence and remanded the case for repleading, rather than entering judgment of acquittal. View "United States v. Schuster" on Justia Law

Christopher Texidor was charged alongside several codefendants for participating in a large-scale drug trafficking organization that conspired to ship nearly 3,000 kilograms of marijuana from California to Pennsylvania using the United States Postal Service. Texidor used his business, Fastlane Auto Sales, LLC, and his residence to facilitate these activities. He recruited various individuals, including family members, to receive shipments and organized GPS tracking for parcels after noticing thefts. When the group determined a postal employee was responsible for stealing their parcels, Texidor and others organized violent acts to intimidate him, including drive-by shootings and theft of the employee’s vehicle containing drugs and a firearm. During searches, law enforcement discovered drugs, tracking devices, firearms, and cash at Texidor’s properties. Texidor was also separately indicted for wire fraud involving false Paycheck Protection Program loan applications, which he committed while on pretrial release.Following a six-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a jury convicted Texidor on most drug and firearm counts, but acquitted him of the cocaine charge and a related firearm count. Texidor later pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, with other fraud charges dismissed. The District Court considered both cases at sentencing, calculated a Guidelines range of 292–365 months, and imposed concurrent sentences: 292 months for the drug/firearm offenses and 240 months for wire fraud. The District Court struck one reference to cocaine from the Presentence Investigation Report but overruled objections to other references and applied a four-level leadership enhancement.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s rulings. It held that recent changes to the Sentencing Guidelines do not prevent consideration of acquitted conduct when determining an appropriate sentence outside of Guidelines calculations. The Court found no clear error in applying the leadership enhancement and concluded that the aggregate sentence was substantively reasonable. Further, under the concurrent sentence doctrine, the Court declined to review the substantive reasonableness of the wire fraud sentence. View "USA v. Texidor" on Justia Law

Jerome Brown was indicted after law enforcement discovered over thirteen kilograms of fentanyl, a handgun, ammunition, and a large sum of cash in his car, home, and storage unit during a drug-trafficking investigation near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After his arrest, Brown confessed to the offenses. Rather than proceed to trial, he entered into plea negotiations with the government.The parties initially presented a plea agreement to the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania recommending a sentence of 180 months, the mandatory minimum. The District Court rejected this agreement, finding it inconsistent with the Sentencing Guidelines and the statutory sentencing factors. The parties then negotiated a second agreement for a 198-month sentence, which the District Court also rejected, instead proposing its own sentence of no less than 235 months. Brown, after consulting with counsel, opted to plead guilty without a plea agreement, understanding the District Court’s sentencing position. He was ultimately sentenced to 235 months’ imprisonment with ten years of supervised release.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit considered whether the District Court’s involvement in plea negotiations, in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1), required vacatur of Brown’s guilty plea. The Court found that the District Court had improperly participated in plea discussions. However, applying plain error review, the Third Circuit held that Brown failed to demonstrate that this error affected his substantial rights because the record showed he intended to plead guilty regardless of the court’s actions. The Court also rejected Brown’s constitutional challenge to his firearm conviction, noting binding precedent that forecloses his argument. The Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment. View "USA v. Brown" on Justia Law

An employee was hired by a nonprofit organization to help organize a fundraiser and was given access to a board member’s email account for work purposes. After a dispute about the nature of her employment, the employee resigned and requested payment for her services, but the organization stopped communicating with her and did not pay. The former employee, still having technical access to the email account, began accessing it, downloaded internal documents, and sent them to a friend. The friend subsequently threatened the organization with releasing these documents unless both were paid substantial sums. The organization eventually revoked the employee’s access and reported the matter to the authorities.A grand jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania indicted both individuals on several counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which prohibits intentionally accessing a computer “without authorization.” At trial, the prosecution’s theory was that the employee’s resignation automatically ended her authorization to access the email account, making her subsequent access a crime. The district court denied defense motions for acquittal and a new trial, the latter of which challenged both the jury instructions on authorization and the prosecutor’s remarks about extortion.The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that, in the absence of any evidence the organization took affirmative steps to revoke the employee’s authorization—or any contract linking authorization to employment—the mere act of resignation did not terminate authorization under the CFAA. The court found the jury instruction on authorization erroneous and determined there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction. The Third Circuit vacated the conviction and ordered a judgment of acquittal. The court also found that any improper remarks by the prosecutor were harmless given the curative instructions. View "USA v. Eddings" on Justia Law

An employee of a telecommunications company, who also served as a union representative, was charged with defrauding a pharmacy benefits management company by orchestrating the submission of fraudulent claims for compounded medications. The government alleged that he induced another individual to obtain medically unnecessary compounded drugs and arranged for a doctor to sign prescriptions without a medical examination or determination of necessity. The prescriptions were then used to submit claims to the company’s health plan, and the employee received a percentage of the reimbursement. The government further alleged that the employee paid the individual to participate in the scheme and later instructed him to lie to investigators.The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the superseding indictment. The court found that the indictment failed to allege any actionable misrepresentation or omission under 18 U.S.C. § 1347, did not specify how the fraudulent claims were submitted or by whom, and did not identify any false statements or omissions in the claims. The court also expressed concern about the use of the term “medically unnecessary,” finding it vague and undefined.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the sufficiency of the indictment de novo. The Third Circuit held that the indictment adequately alleged an implicit misrepresentation: that the prescriptions, incorporated into the claims, falsely implied medical necessity and a legitimate doctor-patient relationship. The court found that such implicit misrepresentations are actionable under the health care fraud statute. The court also determined that the indictment’s language was sufficiently clear to apprise the defendant of the charges. Accordingly, the Third Circuit reversed the District Court’s dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "USA v. Mattia" on Justia Law

Nita and Kirtish Patel operated two companies that provided mobile diagnostic medical services. To obtain Medicare reimbursement for neurological testing, they falsely represented that a licensed neurologist would supervise the tests. In reality, Kirtish, who lacked a medical license, wrote the reports, and Nita forged a physician’s signature. Their fraudulent scheme generated over $4 million, including substantial Medicare payments.In 2014, a former employee filed a sealed qui tam action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging healthcare fraud and asserting claims under the False Claims Act. The Patels were subsequently arrested and each pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud. Their plea agreements did not address or preclude future civil or administrative actions. After their guilty pleas, the Government intervened in the qui tam action and obtained summary judgment against the Patels, relying on collateral estoppel from their criminal admissions. The District Court trebled the Medicare loss and imposed civil penalties, resulting in a judgment exceeding $7 million. Nita appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed her liability under the False Claims Act.Both Patels later moved to vacate their criminal sentences under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel because their attorneys did not advise them that their guilty pleas could have collateral estoppel effects in the civil qui tam action. The District Court denied their motions, finding that counsel’s performance was not objectively unreasonable and that the Patels were aware their plea agreements did not preclude civil actions.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the Sixth Amendment does not require criminal defense counsel to advise clients of collateral consequences such as civil liability under the False Claims Act. The court affirmed the District Court’s judgment, concluding that Padilla v. Kentucky’s holding is limited to deportation consequences and does not extend to civil liability. View "Patel v. USA" on Justia Law

Two men were apprehended by the United States Coast Guard in international waters south of Puerto Rico after being observed jettisoning bales of cocaine from a vessel that lacked any indication of nationality. The Coast Guard recovered approximately 306 kilograms of cocaine and eventually transported the men, including the appellant, to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The government asserted that the men were never brought to Puerto Rico, though the appellant disputed this. A grand jury in the District of the Virgin Islands indicted the appellant on multiple drug trafficking charges under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA), as well as related offenses.The appellant moved to dismiss the indictment for improper venue, arguing that the MDLEA’s “any district” venue provision was unconstitutional and that venue was proper in Puerto Rico, where he claimed he was first brought. He also sought a pretrial evidentiary hearing on venue and the issuance of subpoenas for Coast Guard witnesses. The United States District Court of the Virgin Islands denied these motions, holding that the MDLEA’s venue provision was constitutional and that the Virgin Islands was a proper venue. The court also found that mere passage through Puerto Rico’s territorial waters did not constitute being “first brought” there under 18 U.S.C. § 3238, and denied the request for an evidentiary hearing, finding no colorable factual dispute that would affect the outcome.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the District Court’s decisions. The Third Circuit held that the MDLEA’s “any district” venue provision is constitutional, both facially and as applied, for offenses committed on the high seas. The court also found that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying a pretrial evidentiary hearing on venue. Accordingly, the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s orders. View "USA v. Cuevas-Almonte" on Justia Law