United States v. American Investors of Pittsburgh, Inc.

879 F.2d 1087
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit·Decided June 29, 1989·No. Nos. 88-3169 to 88-3171, 88-3231 and 88-3232·Published·Cited by 54 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

MANSMANN, Circuit Judge.

We today grapple with the extent of criminal liability imposed by the Currency Transactions Reporting Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 5313(a); 5322 (os amended 1982), and its attendant regulations, prior to their 1986 amendment. Specifically, we must decide whether customers of a financial institution, participating in both a sophisticated and simplistic money-laundering scheme, can violate the Act.

A corporation, American Investors of Pittsburgh, Inc., three of its principals, John J. Bruno, President, John Mendicino, Executive Vice-President, Charles Krzy-wicki, Secretary-Treasurer, and a corporate customer, Alan Zytnick, seek vacation of convictions resulting from charges that they conspired to and defrauded the United States by obstructing the lawful function [1090] of the Internal Revenue Service in collecting information about certain currency transactions involving amounts greater than $10,000. The defendants1 were charged with various offenses concerning their failure to file Currency Transaction Reports (“CTRs”), required when cash transactions exceed $10,000, and causing another financial institution, Pittsburgh National Bank, to fail to file CTRs, as part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a twelve month period, contrary to provisions of the Reporting Act,2 and the pertinent regulations3 and in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 371 and 1001.

Recently, in United States v. Mastronardo, 849 F.2d 799 (3d Cir.1988), reh’g denied, we held that the Currency Transactions Reporting Act did not give customers of financial institutions fair notice that “structuring” cash transactions to avoid the reporting requirements constituted criminal activity. Not addressed in Mas-tronardo, but requiring resolution today, is whether structuring of transactions with the intent to avoid the financial institution’s duty to file CTRs regarding the transaction in and of itself is forbidden by the Act. In a footnote in Mastronardo, we recognized that, when other courts had been confront ed with the subissue of the statutory reporting duty of financial institutions, they considered the specifics of the transactions. We found it unnecessary to analyze the particular financial practices of the Mastro-nardo defendants because their convictions, solely as customers of a financial institution, clearly violated due process. Id. at 803 n. 9. Because here, however, American Investors was also convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 2(b) of willfully causing a financial institution to fail in its statutory duty, the Mastronardo decision does not have a preclusive effect. We conclude that given the factual specifics, the particular structuring activity involved here was prohibited by the statute, the regulations and the case law interpreting them. Therefore, although Mastronardo would have appeared to compel vacation of the convictions of American Investors relating to its customer-based activity in causing Pittsburgh National Bank to violate the currency reporting laws (Counts 48 through 94), the presence of tandem 18 U.S.C. § 2(b) “willfully causing” convictions, which impute the necessary intent of actors otherwise lacking legal capacity to commit a crime to an innocent intermediary, requires a different result. We find that American Investors here supplied the necessary willfulness element of 31 U.S.C. § 5322 to the entity with the legal capacity to commit the crime, Pittsburgh National Bank, and with one limited exception, we will affirm the [1091] judgments of conviction on these counts. Since the arguments championing vacation of the remaining counts had as their premise an overturning of the Pittsburgh National Bank counts, the conspiracy convictions and the substantive convictions relating to American Investors’ own failure to file CTRs will likewise stand.

We also conclude that the evidence supports the verdicts of guilty on both the conspiracy count and the aiding and abetting the money-laundering scheme count against Alan Zytnick, the customer of American Investors.

Finally, we decide that the search of American Investors’ office and storage area and the seizure of a large amount of its corporate documents were not unconstitutional and evidence so secured was properly admitted at trial.

I.

A.

American Investors of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a broker and dealer of securities, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers, a self-regulatory, non-governmental body which oversees the over-the-counter stock market. Under the Reporting Act’s regulations, one of a broker/dealer’s legal obligations requires filing a CTR with the Internal Revenue Service when transactions in currency in excess of $10,000 occur. 31 U.S.C. § 5313(a); 31 C.F.R. § 103.22(a). A transaction in currency is defined simply as: “[a] transaction involving the physical transfer of currency from one person to another.” 31 C.F.R. § 103.11(o). The form provided for reporting currency transactions, Treasury Form 4789, requests the identity of the individual providing the funds, and, if that individual is not the owner of the funds, the owner of the funds.4 An additional requirement is that the iinstitution file the report within fifteen days following the day of the transaction. 31 C.F.R. § 103.25(a).

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United States v. American Investors of Pittsburgh, Inc., 879 F.2d 1087 (3d Cir. 1989).

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