United States v. John F. Price and Clarence D. Brinson

995 F.2d 729, 72 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5482, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13398
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJune 8, 1993
Docket91-3606 and 91-3607
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 995 F.2d 729 (United States v. John F. Price and Clarence D. Brinson) 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. John F. Price and Clarence D. Brinson, 995 F.2d 729, 72 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5482, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13398 (7th Cir. 1993).

Opinions

REYNOLDS, Senior District Judge.

Clarence D. Brinson (“Brinson”) and John F. Price (“Price”) were principal shareholders and officers of Vegetarian Health Society (“VHS”). After a twelve-day trial, both were found guilty by a jury on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States with respect to income taxes in violation of Title 18 United States Code § 371, and attempting to evade personal income taxes in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201. Brinson was also found guilty of making a false corporate income tax return in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) and Price was found guilty of aiding and assisting in the making of false documents in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(2). Both appeal their judgments of conviction. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

FACTS

VHS was a wholesale mail order business which sold vegetarian food products and literature produced by other manufacturers. When established in 1979, VHS had five or six employees, including a bookkeeper. VHS also retained an outside accountant, who created VHS’s accounting system and prepared the company’s financial statements and tax returns.

When a sale was made at VHS, the salesperson would prepare a purchase order. A copy of the purchase order was then sent to the bookkeeping department, where the sale was recorded in a sales journal. The accountant would then record the figures from the sales journal in VHS’s general ledger, from which financial statements were prepared, and review bank statements to reconcile the money amounts. The accountant received bank statements for approximately five corporate bank accounts, which he used in preparing VHS’s financial statements and tax returns. In 1979, sales totaled almost $76,-000.

In 1982, VHS hired Gerry McCarty, who became sales manager. In that year, sales reached $1.8 million. Brinson and Price claim that McCarty (who died in 1987) exercised almost exclusive control over VHS’s finances, and basically ran the business. McCarty was fired in 1985. Brinson and Price allege that the tremendous sales increase in 1982 created havoc within VHS’s accounting system. They concede that sales went unreported on VHS’s tax returns in 1982-1985, and that they received money from VHS which was not reported on their personal tax returns.

VHS’s accountant was unaware of additional VHS bank accounts, and a second sales journal for March 1982. Brinson and Price did not disclose the existence of the additional accounts during the IRS investigation. Many of the sales invoices provided by VHS to the IRS were forged or issued to nonexistent companies. Account numbers on checks which were deposited into one of Brinson’s accounts were altered by changing “3” to “8.” Some checks also had false notations indicating their purpose.

[731]*731ANALYSIS

The issues presented by Brinson and Price are whether the district court' properly limited their expert’s testimony and whether the district court properly instructed the jury regarding their intent to defraud the government.

Expert Testimony

In general, a district court has broad discretion in determining whether evidence should be admitted or excluded. United States v. Saunders, 973 F.2d 1354, 1358 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1026, 122 L.Ed.2d 171 (1993). In particular, a district court has broad discretion in determining whether to exclude expert witness testimony. United States v. Larkin, 978 F.2d 964, 971 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1323, 122 L.Ed.2d 709 (1993); see also Fed.R.Evid. 702 (“If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert ... may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise”). We therefore will reverse the district court’s ruling which limited the expert’s testimony only if it abused its discretion. Id.

Brinson and Price maintain that their expert, Ira Edelson (“Edelson”), a certified public accountant and financial advisor, should have been allowed to testify that VHS’s finances were in a state of confusion; that because costs of sales2 and development were under-reported, VHS had no tax liability; and that defendants had no personal tax liability, i.e. unreported money from VHS was not “income,” but rather was non-taxable reimbursement for expenditures made on VHS’s behalf. The district court excluded a portion of Edelson’s testimony as irrelevant, too general, and likely to confuse the jury. Brinson and Price argue that the district court’s limitation on Edelson’s testimony precluded them from presenting a defense to the government’s allegations, in essence, a defense that any misreporting was not willful.

In examining the trial transcript, we find that Edelson was allowed to testify to the jury that in his opinion, (1) VHS’s accounting system had significant errors and therefore did not properly record expenditures made on VHS’s behalf; (2) the accounting system was somewhat complicated; (3) there were insufficient personnel to .handle VHS finances, and VHS accounting personnel were inept; (4) sales entries were haphazardly made; (5) VHS employees did not check proper documentation before writing checks and making disbursements; (6) VHS’s accountant did not reconcile accounts receivable with the general ledger, even though he knew there was a discrepancy between the two; (7) the “undisclosed” bank accounts, except for one, were disclosed in some form in the sales journal; and (8) the IRS analysis was meaningless because it did not consider the inadequacies of VHS’s accounting system and the nature of VHS’s transactions.

Edelson testified during defendants’ offer of proof that when he calculated the ratio of VHS’s unreported gross receipts3 to VHS’s reported cost of sales, the ratio was significantly higher when compared with industry standards. Edelson testified that it therefore follows that VHS had unreported cost of sales. Edelson also testified that there was no indication in VHS’s books that it directly paid for costs not reflected in its financial statements, which could only have been paid for by an outside agency, and the only disbursements unaccounted for were to Brinson and Price.

The government brought out the following facts during defendants’ offer of proof which relate to the credibility of Edelson’s conclusions: the statistics utilized by Edelson related to manufacturers, not a mail order business; Edelson did not account for nonbakery products such as literature; Edelson found no evidence that specific expenditures by Brinson or VHS went to particular VHS purposes; Edelson was not aware that eer-táin payments were allegedly supported by fraudulent invoices and check notations; and [732]

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Related

Maltby v. Winston
36 F.3d 548 (Seventh Circuit, 1994)
United States v. John F. Price and Clarence D. Brinson
995 F.2d 729 (Seventh Circuit, 1993)

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Bluebook (online)
995 F.2d 729, 72 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5482, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13398, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-john-f-price-and-clarence-d-brinson-ca7-1993.