United States v. Daniel A. Kosth

257 F.3d 712, 57 Fed. R. Serv. 423, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 15988, 2001 WL 804085
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 2001
Docket00-1215
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 257 F.3d 712 (United States v. Daniel A. Kosth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Daniel A. Kosth, 257 F.3d 712, 57 Fed. R. Serv. 423, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 15988, 2001 WL 804085 (7th Cir. 2001).

Opinion

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Daniel Kosth was convicted on four counts of making false statements in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 in connection with loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA). His appeal rests principally on a claim that the evidence was insufficient to support those convictions, although he also raises a few other arguments and he claims error in the trial court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines. We find that the evidence was adequate to support the jury’s conclusions and that no other reversible error occurred, and we therefore affirm the convictions.

I

The genesis of this case can be found in Kosth’s plans to convert an abandoned 40-acre golf course and recreation area in Orion, Illinois, into the Hillcrest Resort. In the summer of 1992, he approached Charles Azzaline and Peter Gray about purchasing the land and becoming partners in Hillcrest Resort, Inc. He described his idea for the resort, but he did not tell Azzaline and Gray about his own dubious background. Kosth had recently been released from federal prison after serving time on a financial fraud conviction. One of the conditions of his supervised release was that he notify any financial institution with which he did business of his previous offense, his conviction, and his supervised release status. Kosth, aware that his new venture was not likely to succeed if he complied with the terms of his supervised release, hatched a plan. Part one of the plan called for him to avoid disclosing his past to his partners and any financial institutions that he dealt with by concealing his ownership interest in Hillcrest. Part two, which he also implemented, required him to place his one-third stock interest in the Hillcrest Resort, Inc. in his wifes name, alleging that he was doing so for tax purposes.

These arrangements did not change the fact that Kosth enjoyed all the rights and benefits that come with having a substantial ownership interest in a closely held corporation. His wife, Terri Kosth, had none of them. Terri Kosth’s Hillcrest stock was acquired almost exclusively with in-kind contributions of building supplies; supplies which a reasonable jury could have concluded came from Daniel Kosth’s construction business. It was Kosth who incorporated Hillcrest. He co-signed the deed to purchase the Hillcrest property with Azzaline and Gray. He was named vice president and was empowered to write checks and enter into contracts on Hillcrest’s behalf. He ran Hillcrests monthly board meetings and he regularly voted Terri’s ownership interest. Hillcrest implemented a stock reversion agreement under which, upon the death of any stockholder, the stock would revert to the corporation rather than to the stockholders heir. But the agreement included a special provision for the stock held by Terri; her stock was to revert to the corporation upon Daniel Kosth’s death. Finally, when it suited his purposes, Kosth publicly held himself out to be a one-third owner of Hillcrest.

In 1992, Hillcrest Resort Inc. purchased the golf course and recreation area property for $170,000. Kosth negotiated this transaction and subsequently negotiated additional financing for the renovation of the property with Orion Bank. In keeping with his plan, Kosth relied on his nominal non-ownership of Hillcrest to avoid his obligation to disclose his criminal past to Orion Bank. During 1992 and 1993, Orion loaned Hillcrest $70,000 and took a securi *715 ty interest in private property owned by Azzaline, Gray, and Terri Kosth. For Terri, this included a real estate business that she owned, named Quad Cities Property Management, as well as several pieces of real property. Using the proceeds of this initial loan, Hillerest hired Bi-State Construction to begin the renovation of the golf course. Daniel Kosth was the sole owner and President of Bi-State.

Unfortunately, in the summer of 1993 severe rains caused significant damage to the Hillerest property. Kosth initially requested an additional $400,000 loan from Orion on behalf of Hillerest. Orion denied his request. It agreed instead that it would loan Hillerest the money to pay off the $130,000 still owed on the original contract for the property and extend an additional $70,000 in credit, provided that Hill-crest paid off its outstanding debt on the original $70,000 loan. This offer appealed to Kosth, but he needed to find someone to loan him the money to pay off the outstanding debt to Orion. His eye fell on the SBA, which, because of the heavy rains in the area including Hillerest, had decided that residents there were eligible for its low interest disaster assistance loans.

Kosth completed preliminary paperwork for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, met with the local SBA representative, and then filled out the SBA disaster loan application. That application required Kosth to identify all the managers of Hillerest Resort, Inc., and defined a manager as anyone with an ownership interest in the company of greater than 20%. Kosth put down Azzaline, Gray, and Terri Kosth. The application then required Kosth to disclose whether any of the managers had ever been convicted of a crime. None of the managers he had listed ever had, so he put “no.”

Shortly after he submitted the application, an SBA loss verifier visited the Hill-crest property. Following an inspection of the damage, the loss verifier prepared an estimate for the repairs of $151,000. This estimate had as a built-in component a standard 15% profit margin. The catch was that under the terms of the SBA’s loan agreement with Hillerest, this profit could not be enjoyed by companies affiliated with Hillerest (without prior permission of the SBA) or by the immediate family members of Hillcrest’s principals. The language of the agreement to this effect was clear:

Borrower will not use any proceeds of this Loan to pay wages or any other compensation for repair work performed by Borrower or members of Borrower’s immediate family.

The loan agreement also specified that loan proceeds could be used only to pay for disaster repairs and that any money not needed to complete the repairs had to be returned.

Despite this language, Kosth thought he saw a way around it. He submitted a financing proposal to Orion Bank in which he declared that, using his company Bi-State, he could complete all the repairs at Hillerest and retain a $70,000 profit. He would then take this profit and give it to his wife. She in turn would loan it to Hillerest, as an officer loan, and Hillerest would use the loan to pay off its outstanding obligation to Orion. Once this was done, Orion would pay off the $130,000 mortgage on the Hillerest property and extend a new $70,000 loan to Hillerest.

Recognizing the potential problem created by the terms of the SBA loan agreement, Orion approved the financing proposal contingent upon receipt of a letter from the SBA “evidencing] their full knowledge and approval of the method you plan to use to make the necessary repairs to the resort and retire Hillcrest’s existing indebtedness to the bank.” Kosth consult *716 ed an attorney to determine what kind of disclosure would satisfy the terms of the loan agreement.

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Bluebook (online)
257 F.3d 712, 57 Fed. R. Serv. 423, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 15988, 2001 WL 804085, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-daniel-a-kosth-ca7-2001.