United States v. Murry, Darnell

Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit·Decided January 3, 2005·No. 03-2413·Published

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

No. 03-2413 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DARNELL MURRY, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 02 CR 1056—Suzanne B. Conlon, Judge.

ARGUED APRIL 6, 2004—DECIDED JANUARY 3, 2005

Before RIPPLE, KANNE and ROVNER, Circuit Judges. ROVNER, Circuit Judge. A jury found Darnell Murry guilty of one count of transporting fraudulently obtained merchandise across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314 and 2, and one count of obtaining goods valued at over $1000 through the unauthorized use of an access device in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a). On appeal, Murry challenges both his conviction and his sentence, claiming the district court erred in several evidentiary rulings and in instructing the jury on the use of summary charts admitted into evidence. He complains the court also erred in setting 2 No. 03-2413

the amount of restitution he is required to pay as part of his sentence. We affirm the conviction but vacate and remand the sentence so that the district court may adjust the restitution order.

I.

Murry devised a simple scheme to lift large amounts of merchandise from stores without paying for it so that he could resell it on the street. In the beginning of this ill-conceived venture, Murry simply added himself as an authorized user on the store credit card accounts of unsuspecting shoppers. He then purchased goods in person at the stores or placed telephone orders for merchandise and sent his cousin, Horatio Jones, to pick up the items with a rented truck. Co-defendant Kwonnie Stanciel also assisted Murry by finding buyers for the fraudulently obtained merchandise . Evidence at the trial showed that Murry used twentyfive credit card account numbers belonging to twenty-three different victims to complete or attempt to complete purchases totaling more than $250,000 at Home Depot, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart stores in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana. All of these stores had credit programs run by GE Capital. The purchases were made between March 28, 2002 and October 31, 2002.

Jones was eventually arrested trying to pick up a load of hardwood flooring that Murry had ordered using one of the fraudulent accounts. Jones agreed to cooperate with the government in an investigation of Murry’s fraudulent purchases . Jones subsequently recorded phone calls with Murry in which Murry asked Jones to pick up more hardwood flooring from Home Depot stores in Michigan and Indiana. On October 31, 2002, the scheme came to an end. Jones had recorded calls in which Murry asked him to pick up $12,000 worth of hardwood flooring from a Home Depot store in Indiana. Murry had ordered the flooring by phone, again

No. 03-2413 3

using one of the accounts to which he had fraudulently added his name as an authorized user. Murry and Stanciel drove a car to the Indiana Home Depot with Jones following in a truck. Unbeknownst to Murry, their small convoy was accompanied by a number of federal agents witnessing the transaction. After the merchandise pick-up, Murry directed Jones to an alley in Chicago to deliver the goods. Murry was then arrested and charged as we have described above.

All of the purchases that were at issue at trial were summarized in charts admitted as Exhibits 222 and 223.1 The charts were prepared by Kellie Meador, an employee of GE Capital, and were based on the business records of GE Capital. Exhibit 222 displayed the purchases made at Home Depot stores, and Exhibit 223 illustrated the purchases at Sam’s Club stores. Although the underlying business records of GE Capital were not introduced into evidence at trial, for every transaction listed on the summary charts a corresponding receipt or order form was introduced into evidence from the records of the stores themselves. The Home Depot summary chart consisted of eleven columns, titled “Account #”, “Name”, “Auth Name”, “Auth User Added”, “Account Open Date”, “Write Off/Adj Amt”, “Date of Transaction”, “Transaction Amount”, “Store #”, “Called By”, and “Call Date”. The Sam’s Club summary chart consisted of ten columns, identical to those included on the Home Depot chart minus the “Auth User Added” column. For five of the Home Depot accounts, the authorized user listed is Darnel Murry. Other authorized users included David Cole and Thomas Toomey, aliases linked to Murry by other evidence submitted at trial. On the Sam’s Club accounts, the authorized users added to the accounts were either Darnel Murry or Darael Murry, another alias linked

1 The charged conduct included both completed and attempted transactions. For brevity, we will simply refer to the attempted and completed transactions together as “purchases.”

4 No. 03-2413

to the defendant. The “Called By” column listed phone numbers from which GE Capital received inquiries about the account in question. The six different phone numbers used to access account information were all linked to Murry through cell phones or through his home address through other evidence at trial. After two of the primary account holders testified at trial that they did not know Murry, never added him to their credit card accounts as an authorized user, never made the purchases in question and did not authorize Murry to make any purchases for them, Murry stipulated that the rest of the account holders would testify in the same manner. This stipulation established that each and every purchase was unauthorized.

The summary charts were not the only evidence against Murry. A Home Depot loss prevention employee testified that he observed Murry purchase several expensive tools, including multiples of the same tool, from the store’s “tool corral,” an area that contains high end, frequently stolen merchandise. The employee videotaped the purchase, which Murry made with one of the fraudulently obtained credit cards. The receipt for this purchase was also admitted as evidence, showing that Murry had used one of the fraudulently obtained credit cards. The purchase totaled approximately $1400. The prosecution entered into evidence another videotape of Murry making a different purchase using that same credit card, and again the receipt was admitted into evidence. This receipt displayed Murry’s driver’s license number, which was written down by a store clerk at the time of the purchase.

One of Murry’s cohorts in this crime spree testified against him at trial. His cousin, Horatio Jones, testified that he picked up merchandise for Murry on multiple occasions from Home Depot stores in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Jones’ testimony was corroborated by the recorded phone calls we mentioned above and by order forms for the purchases, each bearing Jones’ signature, an account num-

No. 03-2413 5

ber of one of the victims, and a phone number linked to Murry from which the order was placed. For these transactions alone, the purchases totaled more than $80,000.

Additional evidence was provided by a Sam’s Club employee who testified that Murry added himself as an authorized user to one of the victim’s credit card accounts by filling out a form at the store. The employee photocopied Murry’s driver’s license as part of the transaction, and both the application form and the driver’s license photocopy were admitted as evidence. Another Sam’s Club employee, a supervisor at the membership desk, testified that she saw Murry attempt to make a purchase using a membership card that bore his picture and the name of one of the victims. When she told Murry that she needed a manager’s approval to complete the transaction, Murry left the store and left the membership card behind. The card bearing Murry’s likeness and the name of the account holder/victim was admitted at trial. Seven other photographs of Murry taken by Sam’s Club employees when he added himself to other victim accounts were admitted into evidence.

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