United States v. Renita Bond

362 F. App'x 18
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 19, 2010
Docket09-10878
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 362 F. App'x 18 (United States v. Renita Bond) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Renita Bond, 362 F. App'x 18 (11th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Renita Bond appeals her convictions and sentence of 27 months of imprisonment for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud, conspiring to launder money, and wire fraud. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 371, 1341, 1343, 1956. Bond challenges the admission of videotaped deposition testimony and a statement by a codefendant, the sufficiency of the evidence to support her conviction for conspiring to launder money, and the denial of her motion for a minor role reduction. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Joseph Akins ran a telemarketing scheme in which he targeted and defrauded elderly women. Akins called the victims, announced they had won a prize from a sweepstakes company, and instructed them to mail or wire an advance fee to claim their prize. With some victims, Akins continued to extract payments by threatening either to withhold the prizes, sue the victims for breach of contract, or prosecute them for a criminal offense. To avoid detection by federal authorities, Akins instructed the victims to wire multiple payments in amounts less than $3000 made payable to Akins’s cohorts, who retrieved the cash and retained a percentage of the money. During his scam, Akins exacted from his victims between a quarter of a million and a million dollars.

Bond met Akins and became one of his couriers. Victims of Akins’s scam made 12 wire transfers payable to Bond that she shared with Akins. Bond also lived in residences rented by Akins that he used as a base of operations to telephone his victims.

Bond, Akins, and several other cohorts were charged in an indictment for their involvement in the conspiracy, and nine cohorts pleaded guilty. In a second su-perceding indictment, Bond was indicted for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1341, 1343, conspiracy to launder money, id. §§ 2, 371, 1956, and 12 counts of wire fraud, id. § 1343. Bond pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Before trial, the government moved to depose three victims who lived in Illinois, California, and Ohio. Fed.R.Crim.P. 15(a). The government explained that, due to age and physical limitations, the victims would be unable to travel to Georgia to testify at trial. Bond responded that she would be “generally ... prejudiced if the Government [was] allowed to present testimony through depositions ... at trial rather than through live witnesses,” but Bond *20 “concede[d]” that the government had “made a sufficient showing” to depose the victims.

The government later moved to extend the deadline to depose witnesses. The government identified four potential witnesses, but stated that it intended to depose only Grace Yoshioka, a resident of Hawaii, who had sent payments to all but one defendant named in the indictment. The government stated that Yoshioka, was the “lead victim” of the telemarketing scheme, was “elderly and infirm,” and was incapable of “traveling] to Atlanta for trial without grave physical hardship.”

Bond did not object to the motion to depose Yoshioka. The district court granted the motion and found that “due to the witnesses’ unavailability to travel because of physical limitations, and the materiality of their testimony, as articulated in the government’s motions, exceptional circumstances exist to take such depositions.” Bond waived her right to attend Yoshio-ka’s deposition with the understanding “that the testimony given at the deposition will likely be admitted into evidence at trial.”

Before trial, Bond objected to the admission of Yoshioka’s videotaped deposition testimony. Bond argued that admitting the deposition would violate her right to confront Yoshioka with evidence discovered after her deposition and as it might develop during the trial. The district court did not rule on Bond’s motion and instead instructed Bond “at a break [to] put on the record what” she “would have asked [Yoshioka] differently....”

At trial, the government played Yoshio-ka’s videotaped deposition testimony. Bond did not object or make a proffer about what questions she would have asked Yoshioka during the trial. When the government later admitted the videotape into evidence, the district court asked if Bond had an objection, and counsel for Bond responded, “We have previously objected but we don’t offer anything new.”

The government introduced evidence about Bond’s role in the conspiracy. Alan Freedman, a sales manager with Money-gram International, identified documents that established Bond had collected money wired by Akins’s victims in 2003, 2004, and 2007. Alexander Latour, an inspector of the United States Postal Inspection Service, testified that Akins admitted that he had rented a house for Bond and Akins took Latour to the residence.

Akins testified that he headed the conspiracy and that he used fictitious names and blocked his telephone number when he called his victims. Akins said that he advised his couriers about how to collect the money transfers and relied on information they provided to adjust periodically the collection processes to reduce the paper trail and conceal their fraud. Akins explained that he instructed his victims to send their payments in increments less than $3000 so the couriers had to produce the least amount of identification to collect the money.

Akins also discussed Bond’s role in the conspiracy. Akins testified that Bond had collected money for him and he “helped her get” an apartment in Morrow, Georgia, a house on Virginia Avenue in Atlanta, and “another apartment.” Akins confirmed that he had “pitch[ed]” from Bond’s residences and in her presence. According to Akins, “[t]hat was the purpose of setting [Bond] up .... ” Akins later acknowledged that Bond took a two-year hiatus from the conspiracy.

When the government questioned Akins about the number of collections Bond made during the conspiracy, Akins first responded that Bond had made “a lot.” The government next asked Akins to give *21 a “ballpark figure” of the number of collections, and Akins responded “it was more than the indictment was to show.” After the government asked Akins four more questions, Bond asked for a bench conference and argued that the government had elicited evidence of prior bad acts without giving Bond notice as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). Bond requested as a remedy that the court “instruct [the prosecutor] to not pursue this line of questioning” and instruct “the jury that there is no evidence, no documentary evidence, and ... no charge that Ms. Bond was provided.” The district court cautioned the prosecutor “not to elicit anything that suggests as to specific transactions, anything beyond what is set out in the indictment” and stated that the parties would “decide later what kind of instruction to give.” Bond then “mov[ed] for a mistrial based on [her] objection,” which the district court denied.

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Bluebook (online)
362 F. App'x 18, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-renita-bond-ca11-2010.