United States v. Scott W. Rothstein

Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit·Decided June 12, 2013·No. 11-10676·Published

Opinion

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-10676

D.C. Docket No. 0:09-cr-60331-JIC-1

In Re: ROTHSTEIN, ROSENFELDT, ADLER, P.A., a.k.a. RRA, Debtors.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee,

versus

SCOTT W. ROTHSTEIN, Defendant - Appellee.

TODD D. SNYDER, Intervenor-Interested Party-Appellee,

HERBERT STETTIN, Chapter 11 Trustee,

Interested Party - Appellant, REGIONS BANK,

Petitioner,

SOLAR AIR, INC., Interpleader.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

(June 12, 2013)

Before TJOFLAT and MARTIN, Circuit Judges, and BUCKLEW, * District Judge. TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

A number of criminal statutes within the Federal Code mandate that a defendant, when convicted, forfeit to the United States as part of his sentence the lucre he acquired as a result of his criminal activity. In this case, the defendant, a lawyer, deposited the lucre in his law firm’s bank accounts, where it was commingled with the firm’s receipts from legitimate clients. The question this appeal presents is whether the money in the bank accounts at the time the defendant was charged is subject to forfeiture. We hold that it is not.

*

Honorable Susan C. Bucklew, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation.

I.

A.

On November 10, 2009, four creditors of a Miami, Florida, law firm of seventy attorneys, Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler P.A. (“RRA”), petitioned the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida to reorganize the law firm under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.1 Two weeks later, the Bankruptcy Court appointed Herbert Stettin trustee of the bankruptcy estate (the “Trustee”). On December 1, 2009, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida filed a five-count information charging Scott Rothstein, “a shareholder, Chairman and CEO of RRA,”2 with conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c),3 by employing RRA to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, principally mail and wire fraud and money laundering, and with conspiring to commit those substantive offenses.4 These charges were based on a common allegation that Rothstein operated a “Ponzi” scheme 5 by

1 11 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. (2006).

2 Information, Record, vol. 1, no. 1, at 4, ¶ 7.A.

3 RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (Pub.

L. No. 91–452, 84 Stat. 922, enacted October 15, 1970), and is codified as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968.

4 Count 1 alleged a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), which provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section.” Count 1 alleged that Rothstein conspired to violate subsection (c) which states

that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). According to Count 1, RRA was the “enterprise,” and the “pattern of racketeering activity” included mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in the execution of the Ponzi scheme described in the text following this footnote.

Count 2 alleged a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), a conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C.

§§ 1956 and 1957. Section 1956, “Laundering of monetary instruments,” states, in pertinent part:

(a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity--

(A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity; or

....

(B) knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part--

(i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity; or (ii) to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law,

shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. For purposes of this paragraph, a financial transaction shall be considered to be one involving the proceeds of specified unlawful activity if it is part of a set of parallel or dependent transactions, any one of which involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, and all of which are part of a single plan or arrangement.

The term “specified unlawful activity” includes mail fraud and wire fraud. 18 U.S.C. § 1956(c)(7). According to Count 2, Rothstein, in executing his Ponzi scheme, laundered the money he received from his investors by depositing it in RRA’s bank accounts.

Section 1957, “Engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity,” makes it unlawful to “engage[] or attempt to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 [that] is derived from specified unlawful activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a). According to Count 2, Rothstein structured his deposits into RRA’s bank accounts in an effort to avoid violating § 1957.

Count 3 alleged that Rothstein conspired to violate 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343 under 18 U.S.C. § 1349, which makes such conspiracy an offense against the United States. According to Count 3, the object of Rothstein’s conspiracy was the execution of his Ponzi scheme via the U.S. mail and interstate wire systems.

Counts 4 and 5 alleged two violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. Each count alleged that Rothstein transmitted to a bank by wire funds he had fraudulently obtained in executing his Ponzi scheme.

fraudulently inducing investors through the use of false statements, documents, and computer records to (1) loan money to purported borrowers based upon fraudulent promissory notes and fictitious bridge loans, and (2) invest funds based upon anticipated pay-outs from purported confidential settlement agreements which had been reached between and among certain individuals and business entities.

These settlement agreements were falsely presented as having been reached between putative plaintiffs in civil cases and putative defendants based upon the forbearance of civil claims in sexual harassment and/or whistle-blower cases.

Information, Record, vol. 1, no. 1, at 4, ¶ 7.A. In addition to seeking Rothstein’s conviction for these offenses, the information sought the forfeiture of his interests in the numerous properties, including RRA’s bank accounts at Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust (“Gibraltar Bank”) and Toronto Dominion Bank, N.A. (“TD Bank”), listed in the information (and the Appendix of this opinion), on the theory that such interests constituted proceeds of Rothstein’s Ponzi scheme or property acquired with such proceeds. 6

5 The “modus operandi of a Ponzi scheme is to use newly invested money to pay off old investors and convince them that they are earning profits rather than losing their shirts.” United States v. Orton, 73 F.3d 331, 332 (11th Cir. 1996) (internal quotations omitted).

6 On January 10, 2010, the list of properties in the information was augmented with a bill of particulars. For ease of discussion, we treat the bill of particulars as part of the information.

The information alleges that the Government was entitled to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C.

§§ 981(a)(1)(C), 982(a)(1), and 1963. Record, vol. 1, no. 1, at 18, ¶ 5.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

United States v. Scott W. Rothstein, (11th Cir. 2013).

United States v. Scott W. Rothstein (United States v. Scott W. Rothstein) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related