United States v. Williams

63 F. App'x 782
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided March 26, 2003·No. No. 01-4209·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

OPINION

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted the defendant, Melissa Ann Williams, of making false statements [783]*783in her application for employment with the United States Postal Service, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Williams argues on appeal that (1) the district court erred in denying her motion for acquittal; (2) the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain her conviction; (3) the district court abused its discretion when it allowed the admission of Government’s Exhibit 15 into evidence; and, (4) the district court abused its discretion when it excluded from the evidence Defendant’s Exhibit 15. For the reasons set forth below, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

I. BACKGROUND

The false statements concerned events starting in 1997, when Williams was employed as payroll clerk at the Heartland of Bellefontaine (Heartland) nursing home. On November 25, 1997, the administrator of Heartland, Paul LeGrande, called Williams into his office to discuss some uncovered irregularities, and in the course of this conversation LeGrande formed the opinion that Williams was being untruthful. LeGrande then informed Williams that he was placing her on immediate suspension pending further investigation. Williams testified that at this point she informed LeGrande that she was quitting and would not be returning to work at Heartland. However, LeGrande testified that Williams never informed him of her intention to quit her employment with Heartland. Nevertheless, Williams was aware that she would be fired when Heartland discovered the details of her misbehavior.

During the investigation, Heartland discovered that Williams was responsible for the theft of approximately $12,000. Therefore, on December 2, 1997, LeGrande sent Williams a letter via certified mail notifying her that her employment with Heartland was terminated. An item of certified mail was signed for by defendant’s husband, Paul Williams, on December 13, 1997. LeGrande testified that it was possible that he sent other letters to Williams via certified mail during the month of December. The defendant denied ever receiving a termination letter and testified that she never saw the letter until the first day of the trial. She also stated that she was not on good terms with her husband at that time.

Williams was charged in state court with theft as a result of her actions at Heartland. On June 29, 1998, Williams entered into the Logan County Pre-trial Diversion Program (“Diversion Program”). When Williams entered the Diversion Program, her case was transferred to inactive status. While the case was inactive, the charges were still pending against Williams and had not been dismissed. If Williams completed the Diversion Program successfully the charges would then be dismissed against her with prejudice, but if she failed to complete the program successfully the charges would be reactivated. As a condition to entering the Diversion Program, Williams signed an admission of guilt in which she stated that she was responsible for the theft of approximately $15,000 from Heartland.

On September 20, 1998, while she was still in the Diversion Program, Williams applied for a position with the United States Postal Service. Williams’s Application for Employment contained the following three questions:

4. Have you ever been fired from a job for any reason?
5. Have you ever quit a job after being notified that you would be fired?
[784]*7847a. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or are you now under charges for any offense against the Law? You may omit: (1) any charges that were dismissed or resulted in acquittal; (2) any conviction that has been set aside, vacated, annulled, expunged, or sealed; (3) any offense that was finally adjudicated in a juvenile court or juvenile delinquency proceeding; and (4) any charges that resulted only in a conviction of a noncriminal offense. All felony and misdemeanor convictions and all convictions in state and federal courts are criminal convictions and must be disclosed. Disclosure of such convictions are required even if you did not spend any time in jail and/or were not required to pay a fine.

Williams answered each of these questions in the negative. However, Williams was concerned with how to answer question 7a and spoke to her Diversion Program officer. Robert Kellogg, about how she could answer this question. Kellogg informed her that she could truthfully answer in the negative to a question asking whether she had ever been convicted of a crime. However, it is unclear whether Kellogg saw the actual question being asked on the Application, and Kellogg stated that he did not recall the issue of how to answer a question asking if Williams was under charges for any offense. He also stated that he thought he would recall the issue arising because he would not have known how to answer the question and would have had to consult one of the prosecutors. As stated, Williams answered question 7a in the negative.

Williams’s Application for Employment, as well as a worksheet contained in her Application packet, asked her to list her previous employment for the last ten years. When filling out both the application and the worksheet, Williams failed to include her employment at Heartland and instead said she was still in the U.S. Army through November of 1997. In fact, Williams was discharged from the Army in 1996.

On September 21, 1998, Williams was interviewed by Virgil Runyon for a position with the United States Postal Service. During the interview Williams was required to initial next to her answers on questions 4, 5, and 7a of the Application for Employment, and Runyon initialed those answers as well to verify the answers given by Williams. Williams did not ask Runyon for any clarification on these questions, and she put her initials by her answers. Williams was not required to initial any other questions. The purpose of requesting an applicant to place initials by these answers is to emphasize the seriousness of these questions.

Williams began employment with the United States Postal Service at the end of September 1998. If the Postal Service had been aware that Williams had been fired for theft or that she was presently under charges for theft, she would not have been hired because of the Postal Service’s strong interest in protecting the sanctity of the mail.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Williams argues in this appeal that the district court improperly admitted into evidence Government’s Exhibit 15, a letter written by Paul LeGrande firing Williams from Heartland. The district court admitted the letter under the business records exception to the Hearsay Rule found in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6). The standard under which we review the admission of hearsay evidence is currently unclear. As we stated in United States v. Carmichael,

[t]he applicable standard of review regarding rulings on hearsay evidence appears to be somewhat unsettled within [785]*785the circuit. Compare Stalbosky v. Belew, 205 F.3d 890

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United States v. Williams, 63 F. App'x 782 (6th Cir. 2003).

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