U.S. v. Seidling

Record contained sufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction on wire fraud charges stemming from scheme in which defendant mailed numerous documents/complaints containing false statements to small claims courts in Wisconsin and hiding existence of said complaints from named defendants in said complaints so that defendant could obtain default judgments and ultimately monetary recoveries based on said default judgments. While defendant argued that he could not be found guilty of wire fraud because any false statements were made to Wisconsin courts, as opposed to defendants named in complaints, there is no requirement that false statement be made directly to victim of scheme. Moreover, wire fraud was established, where defendant used false statements about his alleged service of complaints on named defendants as means to defraud named defendants.