United States v. Tina Leigh Brown

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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Nos. 06-1928

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United States of America, *

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Appellee, *

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v. *

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Tina Leigh Brown, *

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Appellant. *

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Appeals from the United States

Nos. 06-2091 District Court for the Eastern

___________ District of Arkansas.

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

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v. *

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Shanna Carol Moore, *

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Appellant. *

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Submitted: January 8, 2007

Filed: February 26, 2007

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Before WOLLMAN, BEAM, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

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BEAM, Circuit Judge.

Tina Brown and Shanna Moore appeal their convictions for wire fraud and

conspiracy. In this appeal, the sole issue is whether the district court1 erred by

refusing to give a good-faith jury instruction. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Brown and Moore ran a mortgage broker business called Guaranty Lending in

Bryant, Arkansas. Mortgage brokers help (some) prospective home buyers obtain

funding for home purchases. The mortgage broker obtains the loan application, assists

with the loan contract, obtains the buyer's credit history and employment

documentation, and ascertains whether the buyer has adequate funds for the down

payment. The mortgage broker transmits all of these documents in an application

package to the prospective lending institution.

The government charged Brown, Moore and others for their alleged

participation in a scheme to defraud lenders by submitting false information in order

to get the institutions to lend more money than homes were worth. To accomplish

this, Guaranty Lending submitted application packages to lenders that contained false

and forged documents.

At trial, co-defendants (associates who funneled business to Guaranty Lending),

who had entered pleas of guilty to similar charges, testified that Brown and Moore

involved themselves in the scheme by helping these associates forge and create

support documents for the loan packages and directing them to falsify qualifying

information on the applications. A Guaranty Lending employee also testified that

Brown and Moore had asked her to forge documents and create false documents for

1

The Honorable James M. Moody, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Arkansas.

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the application packages. Brown and Moore's defense at trial was that they did not

know that any of this wrongful conduct was occurring. They stated that employees

or associates who testified to the contrary were lying. Brown and Moore also asserted

that the lending companies were under an independent obligation to verify the

truthfulness of the loan applications, shielding Brown and Moore from liability for

any damage that occurred to the lenders as a result of false information.

At the close of the evidence, Brown and Moore requested a good-faith jury

instruction. The government objected, arguing that the proposed instruction misstated

the law, and that Brown and Moore had not relied upon a good-faith defense at trial.

The district court agreed with this latter point and declined to give the instruction.

The district court also decided that the proposed instruction was unnecessary in light

of the remainder of the instructions, which instructed the jury that in order to return

a guilty verdict, it had to find that Brown and Moore knowingly adopted the fabricated

material or prepared it themselves.

Brown and Moore were convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well

as several counts of wire fraud. They were each sentenced to eighteen-months'

imprisonment, and a joint and several restitution order for just under $500,000. On

appeal, Brown and Moore challenge the district court's denial of their proffered good-

faith instruction.

II. DISCUSSION

We generally review the district court's jury instructions, and its decisions about

whether or not to give proffered instructions, for an abuse of discretion. United States

v. Gladney, No. 06-1785, 2007 WL 284328, at *4 (8th Cir. Feb. 2, 2007); United

States v. Ervasti, 201 F.3d 1029, 1041 (8th Cir. 2000) (reviewing a district court's

refusal to give a good-faith instruction for an abuse of discretion).

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Brown and Moore requested the following instruction:

One of the issues in this case is whether defendants acted in good faith.

Good faith is a complete defense to the charges of conspiracy and wire

fraud if it is inconsistent with a willful criminal intent to defraud, which

is an essential element of the charge.

Evidence that defendant acted in good faith may be considered by you,

together with all the other evidence, in determining whether or not the

defendants acted with a willful criminal intent to defraud.

The district court declined to give this instruction. However, the district court

did instruct the jury that defendants had to act intentionally to join and participate in

the conspiracy, that they must have voluntarily devised a scheme with the intent to

defraud the lenders, and that to be convicted of wire fraud, the defendants had to act

"knowingly and with the intent to deceive." In other words, the jury was instructed

on more than one occasion that defendants had to have acted "knowingly, voluntarily,

and intentionally" in order to be found guilty of both the conspiracy and the wire fraud

counts.

Jury instructions are acceptable if, taken as a whole, they adequately apprise the

jury of the essential elements of the offenses charged and the burden of proof required

of the government. United States v. Rice, 449 F.3d 887, 895 (8th Cir.), cert. denied,

127 S. Ct. 601 (2006). We find that the district court's instructions adequately advised

the jury of the elements of the offenses, the government's burden, and even the

defendants' theory of defense, albeit without the actual words "good faith." United

States v. Sanders, 834 F.2d 717 (8th Cir. 1987), is nearly indistinguishable. In it,

Sanders proffered, but was denied, a good-faith jury instruction in his trial for criminal

conversion and making a false statement to a federal agency. Sanders argued that

because he was accused of specific intent crimes, it was error for the district court to

refuse to "direct the jury's attention with sufficient specificity" to the good-faith

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defense, even though the court had correctly instructed the jury on willfulness, intent

and the remaining elements of the crimes. Id. at 719. We disagreed, holding that the

trial court did not err in denying the proffered instruction because the court had

sufficiently instructed the jury that it must have found specific intent to defraud in

order to convict. Id. Similarly, the district court's instructions in this case amply

described the specific intent necessary for Brown and Moore to be convicted of

conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.

Brown and Moore cite United States v. Casperson, 773 F.2d 216 (8th Cir.

1985), in support of their arguments. In it, we found that the trial court's specific

intent instruction was not sufficient to cover the substance of the defendants' good-

faith defense, and that the trial court erred in refusing to give the proffered good-faith

instruction. Id. at 223. Casperson is distinguishable because we find that in this case,

the instructions given adequately covered the same ground that any good-faith

instruction would have covered.

"The essence of a good-faith defense is that one who acts with honest intentions

cannot be convicted of a crime requiring fraudulent intent." United States v. Sherer,

653 F.2d 334, 338 (8th Cir. 1981). Based on the instructions given in this case and

the resulting jury verdict, the jury necessarily found that Brown and Moore did not act

with honest intentions in their transactions with the lenders. The instructions given

adequately insured that the jury appropriately considered this issue. Accordingly, we

find that the district court did not err in refusing to give the proffered good-faith

instruction.

III. CONCLUSION

We affirm the district court.

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