United States v. Nadege Auguste

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 1 of 21

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-10741

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

NADEGE AUGUSTE,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 0:23-cr-60010-WPD-6

____________________

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 2 of 21

2 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

____________________

No. 24-10757

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

NADEGE AUGUSTE,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 0:23-cr-60175-WPD-1

____________________

Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In these consolidated appeals, Nadege Auguste challenges

her convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire

fraud. She argues that the government improperly relied on the

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 3 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 3

“right to control” theory of wire fraud that the Supreme Court

rejected in Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023), and that

the object of the scheme to defraud was not “money or property,”

as required by the wire fraud statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343. After

careful review, we affirm.

I. Background

Auguste’s challenged convictions arise from two

prosecutions in the district court. This section relays the relevant

facts and procedural history from both.

A. Indictments

In January 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Auguste and

others for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 1349, and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. The

indictment arose out of Auguste and others’ participation in a

scheme to sell fake nursing diplomas and transcripts to co-

conspirators so that the co-conspirators could fraudulently obtain

state nursing licenses and, eventually, nursing jobs with

unsuspecting health care employers.

The indictment alleged that the defendants, including

Auguste, conspired to “unlawfully enrich themselves by, among

other things”:

(a) soliciting and recruiting co-conspirators, via

interstate wire communications, seeking nursing

credentials to obtain employment as an LPN/VN in

the health care field; (b) creating and distributing, via

interstate wire communications, false and fraudulent

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 4 of 21

4 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

diplomas and transcripts for co-conspirators seeking

LPN/VN licensure and employment in the health

care field; (c) using the false and fraudulent

documents to obtain employment, pay, and other

benefits in the health care field; (d) concealing the use

of fraudulent documents used to obtain employment

in the health care field; and (e) using the proceeds of

the conspiracy for their personal use and benefit.

Specifically, the scheme was alleged to work as follows: Auguste

and others first “recruited co-conspirators . . . seeking nursing

credentials and employment as an LPN/VN in the health care

field.” Then, Sacred Heart International Institute Inc. (“Sacred

Heart”)—a Florida corporation licensed by the Florida Board of

Nursing to educate nurses—“create[d] false and fraudulent official

transcripts and diplomas” for the recruited co-conspirators. The

transcripts and diplomas stated that the recruits had “attended

Sacred Heart in Florida and completed the necessary courses

and/or clinicals to obtain LPN/VN diplomas, when in fact the

[recruits] had never actually completed the necessary courses

and/or clinicals.” The recruits then used the fraudulent diplomas

and transcripts “to obtain licensure as an LPN/VN in various

states.” Finally, the recruits “used the false and fraudulent

diplomas, transcripts and other documents created and distributed

by” Auguste and others “to fraudulently obtain employment and

benefits as an LPN/VN at various unwitting health care providers

throughout the county.” “Those health care providers hired and

paid salaries, wages, and other benefits to the LPN/VNs based on

their fraudulent credentials.”

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 5 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 5

The indictment’s substantive wire fraud allegations were

substantially the same. The indictment alleged that the “[p]urpose

of the [s]cheme and [a]rtifice” to defraud was for the defendants,

including Auguste, to “unlawfully enrich themselves by, among

other things,” recruiting co-conspirators who wanted to be nurses

and selling fraudulent diplomas and transcripts to those co-

conspirators so that they could obtain “LPN/VN licensure” and,

ultimately, “employment, pay, and other benefit in the health care

field.” The indictment again alleged that the co-conspirators

“conceal[ed] the use of fraudulent documents used to obtain” the

nursing jobs. And it identified one instance in which a wire was

used to send an e-mail “verifying the submission of accomplice

nursing applicants to the Florida Board of Nursing as Sacred Heart

graduates.”

In September 2023, another grand jury indicted Auguste

once again for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. As

shown in the government’s superseding information, the

allegations in this case were substantially the same as the

allegations in the first case, except that the second case focused on

Auguste’s role in securing fraudulent nursing diplomas and

transcripts from a Florida LLC named Siena College of Health

instead of from Sacred Heart. Just like in the other case, the

government alleged that Auguste and others recruited co-

conspirators seeking nursing credentials and created fraudulent

Siena diplomas and transcripts for those co-conspirators. The co-

conspirators then used those fraudulent documents “to obtain

licensure as an RN or LPN/VN in various states,” and ultimately,

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 6 of 21

6 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

to “obtain employment and benefits as an RN or LPN/VN at

various unwitting health care providers throughout the country.”

Overall, the purpose of the conspiracy and the scheme to defraud

was for Auguste and her co-conspirators to “unlawfully enrich

themselves by, among other things,” recruiting aspiring nurses as

co-conspirators, providing false and fraudulent diplomas and

transcripts to those co-conspirators, “using the false and fraudulent

documents to obtain employment, pay, and other benefits in the

health care field,” “concealing the use of fraudulent documents

used to obtain employment in the health care field,” and “using the

proceeds of the fraud [for] their personal use and benefit, and the

use and benefit of others.” The government also alleged four uses

of a wire to support the four substantive wire fraud counts against

Auguste.

Auguste moved to dismiss in both cases, but her motions

were denied. As relevant here, the magistrate judge in the first case

found, and the district court agreed, that the indictment validly

alleged a scheme to defraud “unwitting health care providers . . . of

property (i.e., money in the form of salary and benefits).” Similarly,

in the second case, the district court held that the superseding

information validly alleged that “[t]he healthcare provider

employers were deceived into parting with salary and benefits

which . . . constitute tangible money or property.”

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 7 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 7

B. Trials

Both cases proceeded to bench trials based on stipulated

facts.1 The stipulated facts from the first case—the one involving

Sacred Heart—showed the following.2 Auguste, working with

others, recruited co-conspirators “seeking nursing credentials and

employment as an LPN/VN in the health care field.” She and

others arranged for the recruited co-conspirators to receive

fraudulent diplomas and transcripts from Sacred Heart, which

were used to obtain nursing licenses and “employment and

benefits as an LPN/VN at various unwitting health care providers

throughout the country.” Indeed, when the employers asked for

education verification, the co-conspirator nurses would “contact

[Auguste’s co-conspirator] and Auguste directly requesting that

[they] arrange to have Sacred Heart forward the diplomas and

transcripts to the employers.” The health care providers that hired

the co-conspirator nurses “attest[ed] that they would not have

hired the LPNs with fraudulent diplomas and transcripts from

Sacred Heart if they had known that the applicants were not

properly credentialed.” And two of Auguste’s co-conspirators

“attest[ed] that it was clearly understood and foreseeable to all the

charged conspirators that the nursing candidates sought Sacred

1 In both cases, Auguste waived her right to a jury trial and her right to have

the district court make specific findings of fact under Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 23(c).

2 Because Auguste is the only appellant here, we focus on the facts related to

her involvement in the scheme.

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 8 of 21

8 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

Heart diplomas and certificates with the intent to obtain

employment in health care.”

Auguste benefitted from the scheme by receiving a portion

of the payments made by the co-conspirators seeking fraudulent

diplomas and transcripts. She and her closest co-conspirator

“brokered and/or assisted in the purchase and issuance of 93

fraudulent Sacred Heart nursing school diplomas and transcripts

used by [the recruited co-conspirator nurses] to obtain

employment in the health care field.” The co-conspirator nurses

paid Auguste and her partner “$16,000 for each fraudulent diploma

and transcript,” of which Auguste and her co-conspirator retained

25% “for their assistance in the fraud scheme.” Overall, Auguste

and her co-conspirator “earned a total of approximately $372,000

because of their participation in th[e] scheme.”

The facts from the second case—the one involving Siena—

were materially similar. Auguste and a co-conspirator recruited

aspiring nurses and sold them fraudulent transcripts and diplomas

from Siena so that they could obtain nursing certification and

employment. Auguste and the co-conspirator helped the co-

conspirator nurses supply the fraudulent information to state

nursing boards, and they also “assisted the aspiring nurses in

satisfying the employment verification requirements by requesting

that [Siena] provide proof of their education to the employers.”

The employers attested that they would not have hired the nurses

had they known that the nurses did not actually complete nursing

school. And, once again, Auguste’s co-conspirators were ready to

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 9 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 9

testify that it was “clearly understood and foreseeable” that the

recruited co-conspirator nurses were participating in the scheme

“with the intent to obtain employment in the health care [field].”

Auguste’s compensation followed the same pattern as in the

first case. She and her partner “brokered and/or assisted in the

purchase and issuance of 97 fraudulent Siena nursing school

diplomas and transcripts.” They charged each co-conspirator nurse

$20,000 for the fraudulent documents, of which they retained 25%

“as commission for their assistance in the fraud scheme.”

“Therefore, the total intended loss total[ed] $1,940,000 and Nadege

Auguste earned approximately $291,000 because of her

participation in th[e] scheme to defraud.”

The district court found Auguste guilty of conspiracy to

commit wire fraud in the first case, and guilty of conspiracy to

commit wire fraud and wire fraud in the second case. The court

denied Auguste’s motions for judgment of acquittal and a new trial.

Auguste timely appealed.

II. Standard of Review

“We review the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss

the indictment for abuse of discretion, but the sufficiency of an

indictment is a legal question that we review de novo.” United

States v. Bobo, 344 F.3d 1076, 1082–83 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation

omitted). “We review de novo the sufficiency of the evidence to

support a conviction, viewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to the verdict . . . .” United States v. Grow, 977 F.3d 1310,

1320 (11th Cir. 2020) (quotation omitted).

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 10 of 21

10 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

III. Discussion

Auguste advances two main arguments on appeal. 3 First,

she asserts that the government improperly relied on the “right to

control” theory of wire fraud the Supreme Court rejected in

Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023). Second, she contends

that even if the government did not rely on the “right to control”

theory, her convictions still fail because the object of her and her

co-conspirators’ scheme to defraud was not “money or property,”

as required by the wire fraud statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343. We first

examine Auguste’s Ciminelli argument. Then, we turn to her

“money or property” argument. Ultimately, we find that both

arguments fail.

A. The government did not rely on the “right to control” theory

of wire fraud

“Under the right-to-control theory, a defendant is guilty of

wire fraud if [she] schemes to deprive the victim of potentially

valuable economic information necessary to make discretionary

economic decisions.” Ciminelli, 598 U.S. at 308 (quotation

omitted). Auguste asserts that the government relied on the “right

to control” theory of wire fraud because the “charging documents”

in her cases “alleged that Auguste [and her co-conspirators] had

concealed ‘the use of fraudulent documents used to obtain

3 Auguste’s arguments on appeal are less than clear. As appropriate, we

construe them the best we can.

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 11 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 11

employment in the health care field.’” 4 That is, Auguste seems to

argue that because the government alleged that she and her co-

conspirators deprived the health care employers of knowledge of

the fact that the co-conspirator nurses had false credentials, the

government necessarily relied on the right to control theory of

wire fraud. We disagree. 5

The wire fraud statute prohibits using interstate wires to

engage in “scheme[s] or artifice[s] to defraud, or for obtaining

money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses,

representations, or promises.” 18 U.S.C. § 1343. “Although the

statute is phrased in the disjunctive,” the Supreme Court has

interpreted “the ‘money or property’ requirement to limit the

‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ element.” Ciminelli, 598 U.S. at 312

4 In arguing that the government proceeded under the “right to control”

theory, Auguste complains only about the language in the government’s

charging documents. She does not argue that the government pursued the

“right to control” theory at trial. Thus, this section focuses only on the

charging documents. See United States v. Corbett, 921 F.3d 1032, 1043 (11th Cir.

2019) (explaining that a defendant abandons an issue on appeal when she does

not “plainly and prominently raise it in the argument section of her initial

brief” (quotation omitted)).

5 An indictment is legally sufficient if it “(1) presents the essential elements of

the charged offense, (2) notifies the accused of the charges to be defended

against, and (3) enables the accused to rely upon a judgment under the

indictment as a bar against double jeopardy for any subsequent prosecution

for the same offense.” United States v. Schmitz, 634 F.3d 1247, 1259 (11th Cir.

2011) (quotation omitted). “[T]he sufficiency of a criminal indictment is

determined from its face.” United States v. Sharpe, 438 F.3d 1257, 1263 (11th

Cir. 2006) (quotation omitted).

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 12 of 21

12 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

(citing Cleveland v. United States, 531 U.S. 12, 19 (2000)). That is, the

wire fraud statute is concerned with “property rights only.” Id.

(citing Cleveland, 531 U.S. at 19). Thus, to prove that a defendant

committed wire fraud, the government must prove—among other

things—that “money or property was ‘an object of [the

defendant’s] fraud.’” Id. (quoting Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. 391,

398 (2020)). The only “property” interests that qualify under the

statute are those “traditional property interests” that “had ‘long

been recognized as property’ when the wire fraud statute was

enacted.” Id. at 314, 316 (quoting Carpenter v. United States, 484 U.S.

19, 26 (1987)). Nontraditional property interests—such as “state or

municipal license[s],” Cleveland, 531 U.S. at 20, or as explained

below, “the right to control one’s assets,” Ciminelli, 598 U.S. at 311

(quotation omitted)—do not qualify for protection under the wire

fraud statute.

In Ciminelli, the Supreme Court considered whether the

“right to control” one’s assets, without more, was a traditional

property interest protected by the wire fraud statute. See id. at 314.

In that case, the government charged Ciminelli and others with

wire fraud for their role in manipulating the bidding process for

development contracts. Id. at 309–10. In short, the defendants

worked together to develop a scheme whereby Ciminelli “would

be (and was) selected as a preferred developer” for the

development contracts, leading to Ciminelli securing a $750

million project. Id. at 310. The government asserted that the

defendants deprived the party that awarded the contract of its

“right to control its assets” by “depriv[ing] [the awarding party] of

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 13 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 13

potentially valuable economic information that it would consider

valuable in deciding how to use its assets.” Id. at 311 (quotation

omitted). In other words, the government argued that by

depriving the awarding party of the information that Ciminelli was

awarded the contract only because the bidding process had been

manipulated, the defendants deprived the awarding party of its

“right to control” its assets—i.e., its “property.” See id.

The Supreme Court rejected this “right to control” theory.

The Court explained that “[t]he so-called ‘right to control’ is not an

interest that had ‘long been recognized as property’ when the wire

fraud statute was enacted.” Id. at 314 (citing Carpenter, 484 U.S. at

26). Indeed, the Court highlighted the lack of authority

“establish[ing] ‘potentially valuable economic information’ as a

traditionally recognized property interest.” Id. To be sure, though,

the Court made clear that the government in Ciminelli relied

exclusively on the “right to control” theory. See id. at 310 n.1

(explaining that even though an earlier indictment had alleged that

the awarded contracts were the “property at issue,” the

government relied exclusively on the “right to control” theory in

defending against the motion to dismiss the indictment, and the

trial court did the same in denying the motion to dismiss). The

Court did not opine on whether the conviction could have stood

had the government identified the awarded contract as the

“property at issue.” See id.; see also id. at 317–18 (Alito, J.,

concurring) (“I do not understand the Court’s opinion to

address . . . the Government’s ability to retry [Ciminelli] on the

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 14 of 21

14 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

theory that he conspired to obtain, and did in fact obtain, a

traditional form of property, viz., valuable contracts.”).

Auguste argues that the Supreme Court’s Ciminelli decision

dooms her convictions because, just as the defendants in Ciminelli

hid information from the party that awarded Ciminelli the

contract, here, the government alleged that Auguste and her co-

conspirators concealed from the health care employers “‘the use of

fraudulent documents used to obtain employment in the health

care field.’” Auguste’s argument fails.

In both cases below, the government alleged that Auguste

and her co-conspirators used the fraudulent diplomas and

transcripts to obtain specific property—“employment, pay, and

other benefits in the health care field.” And in its responses to

Auguste’s motions to dismiss, the government made clear that the

“money or property” at issue was not any “right to control,” but

rather the health care employers’ “money and property in the form

of wages and benefits they paid the fake nurses whom they

employed under false pretenses.” Because the government

identified the co-conspirators’ wages and benefits as the “property

at issue,” contrast Ciminelli, 598 U.S. at 310 n.1, Auguste’s argument

that this case is like Ciminelli is unfounded. 6

6 Auguste’s reliance on United States v. Colletti, 84 M.J. 594 (N-M Ct. Crim. App.

2024) is likewise misplaced—not only because that case does not bind us, but

also because it is materially distinguishable. In Colletti, the U.S. Navy-Marine

Corps Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the government’s theory that the

“property” at issue was “the exclusive use over [the victims’] intangible

property—the sexually explicit depictions of their bodies in digital

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 15 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 15

Auguste resists this conclusion by pointing out that the

charging documents “alleged that [she and her co-conspirators] had

concealed ‘the use of fraudulent documents used to obtain

employment in the health care field.’” Boiled down, Auguste’s

theory is that any time the government alleges that a defendant hid

information from a defrauded party, the government alleges a

“right to control” theory. That argument is untenable.

The wire fraud statute requires participation in a scheme to

defraud. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343. And we have explained that “[a]

scheme to defraud requires proof of a material misrepresentation,

or the omission or concealment of a material fact calculated to

deceive another out of money or property.” United States v. Estepa,

998 F.3d 898, 908 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted). In other

words, to be convicted of wire fraud, a defendant must hide some

information from the fraud’s victim. To say, as Auguste does, that

an allegation that a defendant hid information from a fraud victim

converts the government’s case into an impermissible “right to

control” case would render all wire fraud prosecutions invalid. The

Supreme Court in Ciminelli did not mandate such a result.

Because the government adequately alleged the deprivation

of something other than the “right to control”—i.e., the specific

property of wages and benefits paid out by the health care

employers—Ciminelli does not apply. Ciminelli, 598 U.S. at 310 &

photographs.” Id. at 598. The “exclusive use” theory of property in Colletti is

nothing like the wages and benefits that the government identifies as

“property” here.

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 16 of 21

16 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

n.1 (invalidating Ciminelli’s conviction because “the Government’s

indictment and trial strategy rested solely on” the “right to control”

theory (emphasis added)). Having rejected Auguste’s “right to

control” argument, we now consider whether the government

adequately alleged and proved that the object of the scheme to

defraud was “money or property,” as required under the wire fraud

statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343.

B. The government adequately alleged and proved that the

object of the scheme to defraud was “money or property”

In addition to her “right to control” argument, Auguste

advances two more reasons for setting aside her convictions. First,

she argues that the wages and benefits paid by the health care

employers to the co-conspirator nurses are not “money or

property” as that phrase is used in the wire fraud statute. Second,

she argues that the wages and benefits paid by the health care

employers were “‘incidental’ to, and not the objects of, Auguste’s

scheme.” On this score, Auguste contends that the elements of

wire fraud were not met because “[t]he salaries and employee

benefits which were eventually received by the aspirants who

obtained nursing licenses did not redound to Auguste’s pecuniary

benefit.” We reject each of these arguments.

First, here, the wages and benefits paid by the health care

employers to the co-conspirator nurses were “money or property,”

as that phrase is used in the wire fraud statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343.

Case law shows that, contrary to Auguste’s assertions, there is no

per se rule that wages or benefits obtained from employment can

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 17 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 17

never be “money or property” for purposes of the federal fraud

statutes. In Schmitz, we affirmed a mail fraud 7 conviction premised

on the defendant’s “scheme to defraud [the victim] of $177,251.82

in salary and other benefits.” 634 F.3d at 1260 (emphasis added). And

other circuits have explicitly held that wages and benefits can be

“money or property” for purposes of the federal fraud statutes. See,

e.g., United States v. Sorich, 523 F.3d 702, 713 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[W]e

hold that jobs are property for purposes of mail fraud.”); United

States v. Granberry, 908 F.2d 278, 280 (8th Cir. 1990) (holding that

bus driver’s wages were “money or property” for purposes of mail

fraud, explaining that “[m]oney is money, and ‘money’ is specifically

mentioned in the statutory words”); United States v. Doherty, 867

F.2d 47, 56 (1st Cir. 1989) (Breyer, J.) (holding that the “benefits of

[an] appointment or promotion” within police departments,

including “the salary or increased salary by reason of [such]

appointment . . . or promotion,” were “money or property” for

purposes of mail fraud). 8

7 That the scheme in Schmitz involved mail fraud instead of wire fraud is

immaterial. For “[a]side from the means by which a fraud is effectuated, the

elements of mail fraud and wire fraud are identical.” United States v. Watkins,

42 F.4th 1278, 1284 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation and citations omitted).

8 To be sure, courts have held that a defendant does not defraud an employer

of “money or property” where, generally speaking, the employer receives the

benefit of the bargain of its employment relationship with the defendant. See,

e.g., United States v. Guertin, 67 F.4th 445, 451 (D.C. Cir. 2023) (rejecting the

theory that “whenever an employee lies about a specific, concrete condition

of employment—here, Guertin’s suitability for security clearance—the

employer is defrauded of ‘money or property’ by paying the employee’s

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 18 of 21

18 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

Second, Auguste’s contention that the wages and benefits

received by the co-conspirator nurses “were ‘incidental’ to, and not

the objects of, Auguste’s scheme” also fails.

The Supreme Court has held that where the deprivation of

money or property is an incidental byproduct of a defendant’s

scheme to defraud, and not an object of that scheme, the wire fraud

statute does not come into play. See Kelly, 590 U.S. at 398. In Kelly,

the public official defendants ordered the closure of toll lanes on

the George Washington Bridge to “punish the mayor of Fort Lee

for refusing to support the New Jersey Governor’s reelection bid.”

Id. at 393–97. The federal government charged the defendants with

wire fraud, arguing that the time and labor associated with the

salary”). Courts have also distinguished between obtaining a salary through

fraud, on one hand, and maintaining a salary through fraud, on the other, with

the former being covered by the fraud statutes and the latter not. See, e.g.,

United States v. Yates, 16 F.4th 256, 266 (9th Cir. 2021) (“[T]here is a difference

between a scheme whose object is to obtain a new or higher salary”—which

is prohibited by the federal fraud statutes—“and a scheme whose object is to

deceive an employer while continuing to draw an existing salary”—which is

not.).

That said, we need not address these nuances here because Auguste

argues neither that the health care employers received the benefit of the

bargain when they hired the co-conspirator nurses, nor that the co-conspirator

nurses somehow sought to maintain, rather than obtain, the wages and

benefits paid to them. Instead, Auguste argues at best that employment wages

and benefits cannot be “money or property” at all. But as explained above,

that is not the law. See Schmitz, 634 F.3d at 1260 (affirming mail fraud

conviction where “salary and other benefits” were the “money or property”

at issue).

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 19 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 19

implementation of the defendants’ lane closure constituted the

“money or property” that was the object of the defendants’

scheme. See id. at 399–400. The Supreme Court rejected the

government’s theory, holding that the object of the defendants’

fraud was to impede access to the George Washington Bridge, not

to obtain money or property in the form of time and labor. Id. at

403. “The cost of the employee hours spent on implementing th[e]

plan was its incidental byproduct.” Id.

Auguste analogizes to Kelly to argue that the health care

employers’ paid wages and benefits were merely incidental to, and

not the objects of, Auguste and her co-conspirators’ scheme to

defraud. We disagree.

Here, the charging documents explicitly alleged that a

“[p]urpose of the [s]cheme[s] and [a]rtifice[s]” to defraud was to

“us[e] the false and fraudulent documents [obtained from the

educational institutions and state licensing agencies] to obtain

employment, pay, and other benefits in the health care field.” And

the parties’ trial stipulations established that Auguste’s co-

conspirators were prepared to testify that “it was clearly

understood and foreseeable to all the charged conspirators that the

nursing candidates sought [the fraudulent] diplomas and

certificates with the intent to obtain employment in the health care field.”

(emphasis added). Indeed, in both cases, Auguste herself assisted

with “forward[ing] [fraudulent] diplomas and transcripts to the

[defrauded] employers.” Based on these stipulated facts, a

reasonable factfinder could find that an object of the overall

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 20 of 21

20 Opinion of the Court 24-10741

scheme was to obtain through fraud the wages and benefits paid

out by the health care employers.

In arguing otherwise, Auguste emphasizes that she

benefitted only by receiving the co-conspirator nurses’ up-front

payments for the fraudulent diplomas and transcripts, and that the

“salaries and employee benefits which were eventually received by

the aspirants who obtained nursing licenses did not redound to

[her] pecuniary benefit.” Essentially, Auguste argues that because

she did not directly receive the fraud victims’ money or property,

the wire fraud statute does not criminalize her otherwise material

participation in the larger scheme to defraud.

We reject this argument. Receiving a financial benefit from

a scheme to defraud is not an element of wire fraud. See United

States v. Williams, 527 F.3d 1235, 1245 (11th Cir. 2008) (“Wire fraud

does not require the government to prove . . . that the defendant

benefitted from her scheme.”). And even if it were, Auguste’s

argument would still fail. We have explained that all that is

required for a wire fraud conviction is that the “defendant

knowingly and willfully join[] the criminal scheme, and a co-

schemer use[] the [wires] for the purpose of executing the scheme.”

United States v. Ward, 486 F.3d 1212, 1222 (11th Cir. 2007). The

defendant need not “personally commit each element” of the

offense. Id. The same goes for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

See United States v. Chalker, 966 F.3d 1177, 1189 (11th Cir. 2020) (“[A]

member of a conspiracy is criminally liable for the reasonable

foreseeable crimes that other conspirators commit during the

USCA11 Case: 24-10741 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 04/30/2025 Page: 21 of 21

24-10741 Opinion of the Court 21

course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy.” (quotation

omitted)). Thus, even if personally benefitting from the fraud were

an element of the wire fraud offense, that would not doom

Auguste’s convictions here because the government did not have

to prove that Auguste personally committed each element. See

Ward, 486 F.3d at 1222. Her knowing and willful participation in

the overall scheme along with a co-schemer’s use of the wires was

enough for criminal liability. See id. And notably, Auguste makes

no argument that she did not knowingly and willfully engage in a

scheme to defraud or that the wires were not used to further the

scheme.

We therefore find that the object of the schemes to defraud

alleged and proven in both cases was “money or property,” as

required by wire fraud statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1343. 9

IV. Conclusion

For these reasons, we affirm Auguste’s convictions.

AFFIRMED.

9 Auguste cites United States v. Berroa, 856 F.3d 141 (1st Cir. 2017) twice in her

brief—once in a footnote in her statement regarding oral argument, and

another time in her statement of the case. But Auguste makes no argument

that her prosecution here violated Berroa’s holding that the fraud must be “the

mechanism naturally inducing [the fraud victims] to part with money.” 856

F.3d at 149–50 (alteration adopted and quotation omitted). She has therefore

abandoned any Berroa-based argument. See Corbett, 921 F.3d at 1043

(explaining that a defendant abandons an issue on appeal when she does not

“plainly and prominently raise it in the argument section of her initial brief”

(quotation omitted)).