United States v. Domínguez-Figueroa

866 F.3d 481
Court of Appeals for the First Circuit·Decided August 9, 2017·No. No. 16-1300·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Raúl Dominguez-Figueroa of three charges stemming from a fraudulent scheme,to obtain disability benefits from the Social Security Administration (“SSA”). He now appeals' from both his convictions and his sentence. Finding no merit to his arguments, we affirm.

I.

Dominguez is a lifelong resident of Cía-les, Puerto Rico and worked there from 1993 until 2010 as a welder for Thermo King,-a manufacturer of refrigeration units for tractor-trailers. Between April 2008 and January 2009, Thermo King closed its Ciales plant and transferred all the plant’s employees, including Dominguez, to a different plant in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. On November 3, 2010, Dominguez submitted a written resignation letter, which cited transportation problems as his reason for resigning.

On February 8; 2011, Dominguez first visited Dr. Luis Escabí-Pérez (“Dr. Esca-bf’), a psychiatrist, who’ had previously worked as an SSA claims' examiner—ahd who would- ultimately become Dominguez’s co-defendant in this prosecution. According to Dr. Escabi’s trial testimony,1 Dom[484]*484inguez showed symptoms consistent with mild to moderate depression, not severe enough to prevent him from working. Claimants are entitled to SSA disability benefits only if their disability is so severe that they cannot work. See 42 U.S.C. § 423(d).

Nevertheless, Dr. Escabi further testified, he agreed to help Dominguez obtain SSA disability benefits by (1) backdating his first appointment to December 9, 2010; (2) exaggerating Dominguez’s symptoms, diagnosing him with severe depression, and prescribing unnecessarily strong medications; and (3) scheduling unnecessary monthly appointments until the SSA approved Dominguez’s application for benefits. Dr. Escabi knew, based in part on his experience as an SSA claims examiner, that these actions would' help Dominguez obtain SSA approval for disability benefits to which Dominguez was not entitled.2

On May 20, 2011, Dominguez applied for SSA disability benefits via telephone. The SSA claims representative advised Dominguez several times that the application was being submitted under penalty of perjury. Dominguez told the representative that his disabling depression had begun on December 9, 2010, and that it had caused him to stop working. In July 2011, he mailed an Adult Function Report to the SSA, using template answers provided by Dr. Escabi that exaggerated Dominguez’s true condition. On July 24, 2011, Dr. Escabi submitted a Psychiatric Medical Report to the SSA, in which he, too, exaggerated the severity of Dominguez’s condition. Based on all this information,. Dominguez was approved for SSA disability benefits on February 28, 2012, with a disability onset date of December 9, 2010. He was awarded a retroactive payment of $10,437 and prospective monthly payments of $1,187.

In September and October 2014, SSA officers conducted surveillance of Dominguez and interviewed him. Their investigation revealed that Dominguez had few or no symptoms of the severe depression he and Dr. Escabi had continued to report to the SSA: for example, he could interact and converse normally with others, drive a car, carry out simple chores, be outside alone, and withstand noise. SSA officers also visited Dominguez’s Facebook page and printed out several photos, all uploaded at times when Dominguez had told the SSA he was disabled. The photos, some of which depicted Dominguez socializing with others, reinforced the officers’ suspicion that he and Dr. Escabi had been misrepresenting the severity of his depression.

On January 13, 2015, Domínguez and Dr. Escabi were jointly indicted. The counts against Dominguez included conspiring to defraud the United States (Count One), see 18 U.S.C. § 371, stealing government property (Count Three), see id, § 641, and making material false statements in an application for disability benefits (Count Five), see 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(2). After an eight-day trial, in which Dr. Escabi testified as a government witness, the jury found Dominguez guilty on Counts One, Three, and Five, and found that the total amount of wrongfully obtained disability payments was $87,268.

The district court sentenced Dominguez to ten months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release, to be served concurrently on all three counts, and ordered him to pay $87,268 in restitution. Dominguez did not object to the sentence.

II.

As to his convictions, Dominguez argues that there was insufficient evidence to sup[485]*485port the jury’s- verdict and that it was error to admit the Facebook printouts into evidence at trial. Neither argument has merit.

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

We review de novo Dominguez’s preserved challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. See United States v. George, 841 F.3d 55, 61 (1st Cir. 2016). Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government “and taking all reasonable inferences in its favor,” we ask whether “a rational [jury] could find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the prosecution successfully proved the essential elements of the crime.” Id, (quoting United States v. Chiaradio, 684 F.3d 265, 281 (1st Cir. 2012)).

Dominguez claims that no rational jury could have concluded that he possessed the mens rea associated with each of the three crimes. Specifically, he argues that there was insufficient evidence that he had the requisite specific intent to participate in the conspiracy to defraud the SSA (Count One) or to steal government funds to which he knew he was not entitled (Count Three), and that there was insufficient evidence that he knew his false statement to the SSA was false (Count Five).

A rational jury could easily have concluded that Dominguez knowingly committed each of his crimes.' His “culpable state of mind can be readily gleaned from ‘several strands of circumstantial evidence’ presented at trial.” United States v. Troisi, 849 F.3d 490, 494 (1st Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Vega, 813 F.3d 386, 398 (1st Cir. 2016)). The jury was entitled to credit Dr. Escabfs testimony that Dominguez was a knowing participant in the scheme, see United States v. Patel, 370 F.3d 108, 112 & n.2 (1st Cir. 2004), and to “rely on plausible inferences” drawn from the combination of that testimony and the government’s other evidence, Vega, 813 F.3d at 398 (quoting United States v. Matthews, 498 F.3d 25, 31 (1st Cir. 2007)). Indeed, the government provided ample corroboration for Dr; Escabfs testimony about Dominguez’s criminal intent, including the fraudulent Adult Function Report, which Dominguez completed himself, and the photos and testimony tending to show that Dominguez was minimally impaired— or not impaired at all—while receiving SSA payments. Viewed together, these strands of evidence justified a compelling inference that Dominguez was a knowing participant in the fraudulent scheme, not an innocent bystander.

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United States v. Domínguez-Figueroa, 866 F.3d 481 (1st Cir. 2017).

866 F.3d 481 (United States v. Domínguez-Figueroa) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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