State v. Bolson

2007 UT App 268, 167 P.3d 539, 583 Utah Adv. Rep. 14, 2007 Utah App. LEXIS 267, 2007 WL 2198833
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedAugust 2, 2007
DocketNo. 20051052-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2007 UT App 268 (State v. Bolson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Bolson, 2007 UT App 268, 167 P.3d 539, 583 Utah Adv. Rep. 14, 2007 Utah App. LEXIS 267, 2007 WL 2198833 (Utah Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION

BENCH, Presiding Judge:

T1 Defendant Renae Reid Bolson appeals from her convictions on four counts of securities fraud, second degree felonies, see Utah Code Ann. § 61-1-1 (2006), one count of selling an unregistered security, a third degree felony, see Utah Code Ann. § 61-1-7 (2006), and one count of pattern of unlawful activity, a second degree felony, see Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1608.5 (2003). Defendant's challenge to the jury instruction on willfulness fails because defense counsel was actively involved in the creation of the instruction and thereafter affirmatively represented to the trial court that Defendant had no objection. Further, Defendant's various arguments regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, initially addressed by the trial court in response to Defendant's Motion to Arrest Judgment, fail because Defendant has not demonstrated that the evidence on the record is so inconclusive or inherently improbable that a reasonable jury must have entertained reasonable doubt as to Defendant's guilt. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

T2 In 1999, Paul Stewart began an investment scheme (the Program). Potential investors were encouraged to deposit money, usually proceeds achieved by taking out first or second mortgages on properties they owned, into the Program's escrow account. In return, the Program would pay the investors' new mortgage payments and pay the investors an unusually high percentage of interest annually. After the agreed upon time frame, usually between two and four years, investors would be able to retrieve their full investment from the escrow account. Investors were provided with written guarantees from a title guaranty company stating that the funds placed in the escrow account were held in trust and would be accessible at any time. Stewart told potential investors that the funds would not be dissipated in any way and would only serve as collateral in deals about which Stewart did not disclose many details.

3 Defendant met Stewart at Main Street Financial (MSF), the brokerage firm where Defendant worked as an office manager. Stewart conducted some of the Program's business through MSF, though he was not officially affiliated with the brokerage firm. Defendant watched Stewart conduct business for the Program and eventually volunteered to help Stewart with some clerical work, such as mailing checks to the Program investors. When she saw what investors were being paid, Defendant also invested in the Program. After joining the Program as an investor, Defendant enthusiastically encouraged others to invest in the Program and, according to multiple victims of the fraud, became the contact person for information about the Program.

T4 In reality, the Program was merely an elaborate Ponzi scheme, defined as "[al fraudulent investment scheme in which money contributed by later investors generates artificially high dividends for the original investors, whose example attracts even larger investments." Black's Law Dictionary 1180 (7th ed.1999). The money collected from these later investors was never safe, as claimed by Defendant and Stewart, because it was used by the Program principals to make the payments owed to the original investors. In all, upwards of three hundred [541]*541people lost millions of dollars through the Program.

[ 5 Tom Barberi, an early investor, sold his home through the Program in November 1999. Prior to the sale, Barberi received a letter from Defendant on MSF letterhead in which Defendant vouched for Stewart as a financially sound and creditworthy investment banker. The letter also named Defendant as a contact person for the Program. Defendant, on behalf of Stewart, later invited Barberi to extend the time of his investment for an up-front cash bonus, which Barberi accepted. It was Defendant, not Stewart, who handled that transaction for Barberi. When Barberi's checks started to bounce or were late, Defendant repeatedly gave vague and evasive excuses. Barberi stopped receiving payments completely about a year after he joined the Program.

T6 Michelle Jacobsen, another 1999 investor, made multiple investments in the Program. As with other investors, Defendant told Jacobsen not to worry about the high mortgage payments because the Program would be paying them. Jacobsen received checks from the Program starting in January of 2000, which she picked up from Defendant at MSF. While the first check was on time, successive checks were received later and later. Ultimately, the checks started boune-ing. Although the bounced checks were sometimes replaced with guaranteed funds, Jacobsen became increasingly worried because she could not personally afford the mortgages she had taken out. Jacobsen often sought out Defendant for assurances and answers.

T7 By late 2000 or early 2001, the checks sent out by Defendant were chronically late and often bounced. Even as the Program began to collapse and payments to investors ceased or checks bounced, Defendant continued to encourage potential investors to invest without disclosing the problems the Program was experiencing. Defendant provided upset investors with various excuses as to why the payments were not being timely made and assured them that the payments were forthcoming and that the Program would pay any late fees. These forthcoming payments were rarely made. When the Program completely stopped making payments sometime in 2001, Defendant continued to tell angry investors that there were just a few glitches in the Program and that their investments were safe.

[8 Defendant was convicted by a jury on four counts of securities fraud. All four counts corresponded to victims who joined the Program late in 2000 or during the first months of 2001. These victims all testified that Defendant encouraged them to join and used the same descriptions of the so-called risk free, "too good to be true" investment that Defendant had used to entice earlier investors such as Barberi and Jacobsen. While encouraging these later investors to join the Program, Defendant was aware of the payment problems some of the earlier investors were having. Defendant did not disclose the payment problems to these later investors, even when she knew of the problems.

T9 After the trial, Defendant filed a Motion to Arrest Judgment with the trial court, essentially claiming that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support her convictions. Defendant now appeals the trial court's denial of her Motion to Arrest Judgment.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

110 In determining whether a trial court correctly granted or denied a motion for arrest of judgment, we apply the same standard used in deciding sufficiency of the evidence claims. See State v. Workman, 852 P.2d 981, 984 (Utah 1993). Thus, "a trial court may arrest a jury verdict when the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, is so inconclusive or so inherently improbable as to an element of the crime that reasonable minds must have entertained a reasonable doubt as to that element." Id.

ANALYSIS

I. Jury Instruction

T11 Defendant challenges the trial court's instruction to the jury on "willfully" in the context of committing securities fraud.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2007 UT App 268, 167 P.3d 539, 583 Utah Adv. Rep. 14, 2007 Utah App. LEXIS 267, 2007 WL 2198833, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-bolson-utahctapp-2007.