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Ok, it seems like you are abandoning your position that the law in question applies only in situations where there is a loan or credit application of some sort.
Which is fine, but it seems you've shifted the goalposts -- creating an entirely new argument for why the indictment falls flat. It looks to me like you are arguing backwards here. In other words, it looks as though you've started from the conclusion that the charges are meritless and then searched for arguments for why this is so.
In any event, your new argument seems even weaker than your original argument.
Ok, and the following seems pretty clear to me:
If you were practicing law as a sole proprietor, and you opened up this kind of account, the name on the account would be "Rov_Scam, Esq. f/b/o John Q. Client" (And in fact, most banks in this situation would ask for a W9 form from John Q. Client so that interest income could be properly reported to the IRS.)
If you opened up the account as "Rov_Scam, Esq." i.e. omitting the Client's interest in the account; and you did so in order to conceal the Client's interest in the money; then at a minimum you would get in trouble with the attorney disciplinary committee.
Of course, in that situation you would certainly have an argument that 18 USC 1014 does not apply. Your defense attorney would argue that even though you engaged in deceptive conduct, you didn't make any statements to the bank that were literally untrue.
But in this case, I don't think that would work. From the indictment, here is one of the statements that was allegedly made:
The indictment alleges that there was never any actual business called Fox Photography. And I tend to believe this, i.e. I believe that the person in question was NEVER actually engaged in business under the trade name of Fox Photography.
So we have a certified statement which was (1) intended to deceive; and (2) literally false. Moreover, it seems nearly certain that the person who made the certification was well aware that he was NEVER engaged in business under the trade name of Fox Photography.
The simple answer to this question is that the person wanted the account to get opened under the name of Fox Photography. The slightly more complex answer to this question is that at the time he applied for the fake bank account, the person was acting as an agent of SPLC. And SPLC was obviously trying to influence the bank into opening the account under the fake name.
Anyway, I have a couple of questions:
Do you agree that, at least according to the indictment, the statement "I am . . . engaged in business under the trade name of Fox Photography," was literally false?
Do you agree that at the time that statement was made, the individual was acting on behalf of the SPLC?
Looks to me like you are the one who is hair-splitting here. But let me make sure I understand: If (1) an organization states on its website that it opposes a particular event; (2) it actually donates money to help organize and support that event; but (3) it doesn't explicitly say that it won't donate money to support the event, then there's no fraud?
Looks to me like you are squinting in an attempt to do the opposite.
Courts don't operate like a Harvard debate club, and I don't argue here like I'd argue in court. I try to do my homework but I don't have the time or inclination to fully research my position as I would if it were for an actual client. When I read the statute I didn't get the impression from the language used that it would apply to opening a checking account, so I stopped right there and didn't bother to analyze the case further. You helpfully pointed to a case that demonstrated that such an interpretation would work, and I owed it to you to continue with the analysis.
Anyway, to answer you questions, the statement was colloquially false, but whether it was literally false depends on how you define "conducting business". They were, in fact, accepting money from one party and giving it to another. Maybe this doesn't fit your personal definition, but I can assure you that it's not an uncommon arrangement. In fact, several companies I represent only exist to do exactly that. Basically, they exist to get sued. The insurance companies pay them, and the money is used to pay settlements. The reasons for this are complicated and I'm not going to bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that these companies have no offices, no employees, and don't do anything that would conventionally be described as business. There are thousands of similar shell corporations that exist in the country, and I've never heard of any suggestion that if one of their officers signed a form with a bank that had language about "conducting business" it would subject him to criminal prosecution for lying to a bank. We can argue about this all day long if you want to, but it's ultimately irrelevant, because the indictment alleges that they lied by concealing the ownership of the companies, not because they lied about whether or not they were conducting business.
Yes, but like I said, there's nothing in the indictment that suggests the individual in question ever made a statement to the bank that this was not the case. The document with the alleged false statement is simply confirming that the individual had the legal authority to open the account in the company's name, and the government hasn't presented any evidence to the contrary. The only person with the authority to open those accounts was the person whose name was registered as the dba.
I'm not going to get into all the elements right now, but at minimum the government would need to identify a particular person that saw the representation, relied on the representation, and that the organization made money off of that reliance. The indictment doesn't indicate that. That doesn't even begin to touch the prevailing theory that the SPLC was manufacturing racist incidents to increase donation numbers which, again, isn't alleged in the indictment, and would be difficult to prove without a witness within the SPLC willing to testify to it. Again, at the very minimum they would need to identify at least one incident that the SPLC caused to happen.
It wasn't that long ago that you were arguing how it was similarly clear that Letitia James totally committed mortgage fraud, a couple weeks before multiple grand juries failed to indict her. This case is similarly going nowhere,
On the contrary, it seems you argue exactly as a typical litigator would. He's been hired to make the best arguments he can for a certain result, and if one argument fails, he just moves on with the next.
Just a coincidence that the next argument you found happened to support the same conclusion.
Even that is literally false, since (presumably) the money transfers did not begin until after the account was opened.
But in any event, the jury would be instructed to use common sense, and it's pretty unlikely that any reasonable person, using common sense, would agree that this individual was "engaged in business under the trade name of Fox Photography" I can imagine you making that argument to the jury, though: "Ladies and gentleman: Clearly my client was engaged in business. The business of Fox Photography was to transfer money to informants while disguising the source. So nothing that my client said was literally false." Meanwhile, any attorneys sitting in the gallery would be smirking and rolling their eyes.
This is totally false. Just look at Paragraphs 14 and 28 in the indictment. It's right there. Anyway, the fact that you would so wildly and so confidently misrepresent the contents of the indictment in a way that's consistent with the results you have reached demonstrates pretty conclusively that you are in "arguments as soldiers" mode.
I have no idea what your point is here. In making the statements in question, the goal of the employee (and the goal of the principal, SPLC) was to influence the bank to open the accounts. No reasonable person could dispute this.
As far as I can tell, this is totally false. The wire fraud statute (18 USC 1343) doesn't seem to say anything about reliance, or that the scheme needs to succeed. It looks to me like you are just making stuff up. But let's do this: Do you have any kind of case authority for the claim that wire fraud contains these elements?
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you claiming that my position is that it is "clear" that SPLC "totally committed" fraud? Same question about Letitia James.
That may very well be the case, but that's a different question from whether your arguments have any merit.
Anyway, are do you want to predict right here and now that the indictment will be dismissed by the District Court?
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