United States v. Joanne Tragas

727 F.3d 610, 2013 WL 4483514, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 17628
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 23, 2013
Docket11-1637
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 727 F.3d 610 (United States v. Joanne Tragas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth 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. Joanne Tragas, 727 F.3d 610, 2013 WL 4483514, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 17628 (6th Cir. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Joanne Tragas was indicted on numerous charges relating to her participation in an international credit and debit card fraud conspiracy. She was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 300 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Defendant challenges her conviction by arguing that the prosecutor improperly read certain evidence aloud, that the district court should have given the jury a specific unanimity instruction, that her Travel Act convictions were not supported by sufficient evidence, and that her Vienna Convention rights were violated. She further argues that the district court improperly calculated her sentence by using an incorrect version of the Sentencing Guidelines in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. We reject Defendant’s challenges to her conviction but agree that the district court used an incorrect version of the Guidelines. Accordingly, we AFFIRM Defendant’s convictions, VACATE her sentence, and REMAND for resentencing.

BACKGROUND

The evidence at Defendant’s trial established that she acted as a middleman between overseas suppliers of stolen credit and debit card information and street-level users of that information. Defendant’s suppliers obtained the information that is typically encoded in the magnetic strip on the back of credit and debit cards and sold the information to her using international wire transfers. After receiving the stolen data, Defendant re-sold the information to her co-conspirators in the United States. Defendant’s customers, many of whom later became her co-defendants, used machines to encode the information they received from Defendant onto the magnetic strips of actual plastic cards. Any card with a magnetic strip could be and was used, including gift cards, hotel key cards, and actual credit cards. Once encoded, these cards contained the same information that the legitimate cards contained.

Thus armed with these “clones” of legitimate credit and debit cards, the conspirators purchased various kinds of consumer *613 goods, including high-end electronics, as well as bona fide gift cards. In this way, the conspirators could quickly convert stolen credit card information into cash or easily transferable property. Defendant’s primary customers in Detroit were twin brothers Dion and Dionte Hunter, who purchased stolen credit and debit card information from Defendant and then either used it themselves or sold it to others. Defendant and the Hunters never met in person, but they, communicated extensively via online chat services, which were variously described as instant messages or “ICQ’s.” Police discovered stored records of these chat conversations on a laptop computer belonging to the Hunters.

The government introduced the transcripts of these chat conversations into evidence, and the prosecutor, together with Secret Service Agent Robert Kuykendall, read many of the conversations aloud to the jury. Although the parties to these communications did not use names, a picture of Defendant was the profile picture associated with the ICQ account-holder that supplied the Hunters with stolen data. Furthermore, Defendant was shown to have made purchases with the gift card information exchanged during the ICQ conversations with the Hunters. Circumstantial evidence also indicated that the individual conversing with the Hunters and supplying them with stolen information was in fact Defendant. For example, Defendant purchased a house in Florida after the Hunters’ supplier talked of buying and furnishing a new beach house in Florida.

These conversations revealed the scope and nature of Defendant’s role in the conspiracy. She sold credit and debit card information to the Hunters in exchange for payment in a variety of different forms, including -cash deposits into her bank account, wire transfers, and information that allowed her to use the genuine gift cards that the Hunters and others purchased with stolen card data. Defendant used the money she received to pay her overseas suppliers, and she sometimes directed the Hunters to wire money directly in order to facilitate these payments. Defendant purchased and re-sold the stolen personal information of hundreds of credit and debit card users, and their financial institutions suffered losses of approximately $2.18 million as a result.

Defendant was arrested in June 2009 and was ultimately charged in a superseding indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit various access device fraud offenses, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(b); seven counts of aiding and abetting unlawful activity under the Travel Act, in violation of 18 U.S.C; § 1952(a); one count of bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344; and two counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. A jury convicted Defendant on all counts. A presentence report was prepared, and Defendant filed numerous objections to its findings and recommendations. However, at the sentencing hearing on April 27, 2011, Defendant specifically withdrew all her objections to the presentence report. Based on a recommended Sentencing Guidelines range of 292-365 months in prison, the district court sentenced Defendant to a total term of imprisonment of 300 months, to be followed by a five-year term of supervised release.

DISCUSSION

I. Reading Evidence Aloud

Defendant first argues that a new trial is warranted because the prosecutor, together with Agent Kuykendall, read to the jury transcripts of online chat conversations between Defendant and her co-conspirators. The exact basis for Defendant’s objection to this evidence is difficult to pin down, but for the reasons that fol *614 low, we find nothing improper in the reading aloud of a properly admitted transcript under these circumstances. Although Defendant’s counsel initially had no objection to the testimony, he subsequently objected on the ground that reading the documents was cumulative because the transcripts had already been admitted into evidence. Construing Defendant’s argument as an evidentiary challenge, we review a district court’s ruling on the admissibility of evidence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Yu Qin, 688 F.3d 257, 261 (6th Cir.2012). If her claim is more akin to an allegation of prosecutorial misconduct, we review the claim de novo. United States v. Boyd, 640 F.3d 657, 669 (6th Cir.2011). Under either standard of review, Defendant’s argument fails.

The argument is rather unusual. Defendant does not seem to dispute that the written communications were properly admitted into evidence under the hearsay exclusion in Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2). Instead, she argues that merely by reading the transcripts aloud, the prosecutor and the case agent conducted a “theatrical performance” akin to a re-enactment. Defendant argues that the prosecutor and Agent Kuykendall essentially play-acted the chat conversations, with the prosecutor “performing” the role of Defendant, and Kuykendall playing various co-conspirators.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
727 F.3d 610, 2013 WL 4483514, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 17628, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-joanne-tragas-ca6-2013.