U.S. v. Daniel

In prosecution on wire and mail fraud charges stemming from scheme in which defendant submitted fraudulent loan applications and convinced distressed homeowners to sign over title to their properties in exchange for unrealistic promise to return said titles mortgage-free at some point in future, Dist. Ct. did not err in rejecting defendant’s proposed instruction that required jury to unanimously find existence of specific fraudulent representation made by defendant. Elements of wire fraud offense requires jury to only unanimously find existence of scheme to defraud, and not specific fraudulent representation made by defendant, because defendant’s fraudulent representations constituted only “underlying brute facts” or means that defendant used to participate in scheme.