Jury Instruction Allowing Intent to Be Inferred from How Fraudulent Transactions Are Carried Out Appropriate

US v. Sanders: Sanders owned a company that contracted with the Government to provide IT equipment and services, but did so fraudulently. In one case he accepted payment for equipment never delivered. He falsely claimed to deliver equipment that was new and under warranty and that he was certified by the companies who built the equipment. When his company’s substandard work was discovered, he set up another one and continued on. He was charged with several counts related to wire fraud and convicted at trial, after which he was sentenced to 45 months in prison (one month below the bottom of the advisory Guideline range).

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Sanders’ convictions and sentence. As to his convictions, Sanders argued that the district court had erred in instructing the jury that it could infer intent to defraud from “the secretive or irregular manner in which a transaction is carried out.” While recognizing that the instruction, standing alone, “could risk run the risk of confusing the jury,” in the context of the other six instructions that addressed intent (none of which Sanders challenged) there was no error. As to sentencing, the court rejected Sanders’ argument that the district court erred by imposing an enhancement for sophisticated means. The court concluded that the Guideline provision was genuinely ambiguous, but that the commentary properly defined the scope of “sophisticated means.” Sanders’ conduct, which included several “relatively straightforward and unsophisticated” steps, fell within that scope because of “the way all the steps were linked together.”