U.S. v. Freed

In prosecution on mail and bank fraud counts arising out of defendant’s misrepresentations made to City of Chicago and others to fund defendant’s real estate ventures, Dist. Ct. did not commit plain error in submitting aiding and abetting jury instruction, where instruction implicitly contained requirement that defendant knowingly participated in “criminal activity,” and where jury otherwise did not rely upon aiding and abetting theory of case, since govt. did not advance theory that defendant assisted others to perform criminal acts in furtherance of his scheme, and since govt. repeatedly asserted that defendant was in charge of whole operation. Record also contained sufficient evidence to support bank fraud counts, where: (1) evidence showed that defendant knew that his affidavits of his company’s financial solvency were false given fact that his company had missed several payments on line-of-credit prior to submission of said affidavits; and (2) defendant conceded that his lies would have resulted in City declaring default that would have destroyed his scheme. Also, record supported defendant’s conviction for making false statements to banking institution, where defendant misrepresented that certain asset was available to serve as collateral for loan. Ct. also rejected defendant’s contention that his false promise to abide by agreement at time agreement was entered cannot qualify as false statement for purpose of establishing criminal liability under charge of making false statement to banking institution under 18 USC section 1014.