United States v. Moses

337 F. App'x 443
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 6, 2009
Docket07-1919
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 337 F. App'x 443 (United States v. Moses) 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. Moses, 337 F. App'x 443 (6th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge.

Defendant llene Moses stands convicted of fifty-two counts related to a long-term fraudulent enterprise. On appeal, she argues that the district court erred 1) by allowing the introduction of an exhibit by the government that consisted of charts which helped the jury link substantive exhibits to the various counts of the indictment; 2) by declining to dismiss the indictment; 3) by permitting a witness to testify about acts not related to the charges of the indictment; and 4) by imposing an unreasonable sentence. Finding no error, we affirm both the conviction and sentence.

I.

This case has a long history. In fact, over ten years elapsed between the initial indictment and trial, which finally began in January 2007. A ninety-count second superseding indictment charged defendant and four associates with various crimes related to fraudulent activity. 1 It is this indictment that defendant sought to have dismissed. After her conviction, the district court sentenced defendant, who is currently 72 years old, to 210 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release. It also ordered restitution in the amount of $15,978,060.00.

Although the underlying facts are extensive, a detailed knowledge of them is not required to resolve the issues on appeal. For that reason, we rely on the summary provided by the pre-sentence report for context:

Beginning in the early 1970’s, llene Moses owned and ran a woman’s clothing business in Grosse Pointe, Michigan called SMS, Inc. This business manufactured and sold women’s clothing within the United States. From 1979 to 1991, Moses, Lawrence Anderson, Kenneth C. *445 Kazerski, Albert John Oldridge and Wayne Carrick were involved in a scheme to defraud and obtain loan money by means of false pretenses, representations, promises, and fictional financial statements from Michigan Bank (now LaSalle Bank), Swiss Cantonbank (International), and Security Bank of Michigan (now Huntington National Bank). The loss amounts were $14,103,971.00, $13,500,000.00 and $330,000.00, respectively, for a total loss of $27,933,971.00. Moses obtained these loans for the supposed purpose of carrying on the clothing business; she claimed that she had a lucrative deal for international clothing sales in Europe and Asia.
In order to make their scheme work, the defendants used false financial statements, together with other false statements and documents, to deceive the banks into making loans to llene Moses and her companies, SMS, Inc., Jolland, and Ircon. There were various fictitious assets, of which the largest was the accounts receivables owed by Romtex, that ranged from $2.5 million to $90 million. Other fictitious assets included 300,000 yards of wool/cashmere cloth worth $2.65 million, a $2.5 million quota deposit held by American Service and Trading Corporation (ASTC), a $425,000.00 escrow deposit held by ASTC, a $3.9 million cash deposit held by Chathill, and a $100,000.00 per month income from Romtex for a license agreement for services from Moses.
The defendants also used shell companies; that is, companies with little or no assets to make their international business appear real. The shell companies included three in Switzerland (Ircon AG, Romtex AG, and The Leslie Jones Group), several in Hong Kong (Jolland Company, ASTC, Billion Up Enterprises, Nature Trading Company, and Chathill, Ltd.), and one in the Cayman Islands (Cathay American, Ltd.) The defendants made it appear that (1) the shell companies had millions of dollars in assets; (2) some of the shell companies were doing millions of dollars of business with SMS and Jolland in the international textile industry; and (3) the shell companies were independent of llene Moses, and, therefore, were able to satisfy accountants that the supposed business was real, when in fact, Moses or her codefendants controlled the shell companies.
The main part of the fraud worked in the following manner: Romtex was controlled by Moses. However, Anderson and the others presented Romtex as being under the control of a secret international clothing cartel, a cartel so secret that no information about it could be revealed to the banks or to the accountants for Moses and her companies. Moses, Anderson, and Kazerski made it appear that Jolland ordered millions of dollars of clothing from Romtex, which was to be manufactured and sold by Romtex or other secret companies with which it dealt.
The auditors from Moses’ companies would not have been willing to accept the legitimacy of the Jolland/Romtex business relationship, had they been aware that both Jolland and Romtex were controlled by the same person. To make Romtex appear to be independent, Anderson, directed by Moses, led the activities of Romtex through a Swiss chairman, Hermann Heller. Anderson convinced Heller and other advisors of llene Moses, that he was the representative of a secret cartel that controlled Romtex. ASTC, Billion Up, and Chat-hill, Ltd., were created to further the impression that Jolland was doing business with real companies. Moses’ finan *446 cial advisors were unaware that these shell companies were under the control of Moses, Anderson, and Kazerski. ASTC, for instance, was a shell company operated by a secretarial service Carrick had retained in Hong Kong, known as Hayes Secretaries, Ltd. At the direction of Moses, Kenneth Kazerski and Lawrence Anderson had Hayes Secretaries transmit documents which gave the appearance that the textile and clothing business conducted by Romtex AG on behalf of ASTC was real.
In 1986, Michigan National Bank started pressuring Moses for repayment of her loans. So, in June, 1987, Moses obtained a $5 million loan from Swiss Cantonbank, of which $3 million was given to Michigan National Bank as partial payment of her loans. In April 1988, in order to continue to placate Michigan National Bank, Moses borrowed $300,000.00 from a Catholic missionary order called the Missionaries of Africa. Moses told the missionary the money was needed for a short term loan, when in fact she gave the money to Michigan National Bank as payment from her international business income. Then, in August 1988, Moses was able to secure a $400,000.00 loan from Michigan National Bank by reporting that she needed money to keep her business afloat, to be able to pay the original loans.
In September 1988, Moses told Michigan National Bank and Swiss Cantonbank’s successor, Semifora AG, that she would be receiving a $28.3 million loan through a Liechtenstein trust called TRD Foundation, which was controlled by the secret cartel. She used her attorneys to negotiate a loan with TRD Foundation, while controlling both sides of this negotiation. These false negotiations helped persuade Michigan National Bank and Semifora AG to hold off on legal actions against her. It should be noted that TRD Foundation turned out to be an Internal Revenue Service undercover investigation.
In addition, between 1989 and 2002, Moses, Carrick, Oldridge and others defrauded various American and British businessmen for $9,623,802.20. To obtain the direct loans from these businessmen, Moses indicated she was negotiating with the Chinese-based faction of the secret cartel ...

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Bluebook (online)
337 F. App'x 443, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-moses-ca6-2009.