U.S. v. LeBeau

In prosecution on bank fraud charge under 18 USC section 1344(1), defendant waived any argument that jury instructions were deficient because they failed to require jury to find that defendant’s bank fraud scheme involved materially false or fraudulent representations, where defendant’s counsel affirmed to Dist. Ct. that defendant had agreed to instruction that omitted instant materiality element. Moreover, submission of instant instruction to jury did not affect defendant’s substantial rights given evidence that defendant’s false representations to bank and others about state of his financial status were capable of influencing bank’s decision to loan defendant money. Also, defendant failed to establish any ineffective assistance of counsel claim regarding counsel’s failure to challenge restitution order, where: (1) defendant claimed that some of bank’s losses were attributable to bank’s own reckless acts of loaning money to defendant knowing that defendant was in financial distress; and (2) record showed that defendant had raised significant funds (by committing fraud on others) that essentially misled bank into believing that risk was manageable. Too, record contained sufficient evidence to support jury’s guilty verdict on bank fraud charge, where: (1) defendant generated false statements about his financial status in loan application that led to defendant obtaining loan from bank; (2) defendant fraudulently obtained $300,000 from others to pay bank for forbearance agreement; and (3) defendant made false representations about efforts to develop property to obtain another forbearance agreement with bank.