United States v. Yennier Gonzalez

560 F. App'x 554
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMarch 28, 2014
Docket13-5257
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 560 F. App'x 554 (United States v. Yennier Gonzalez) 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. Yennier Gonzalez, 560 F. App'x 554 (6th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Yennier Capote Gonzalez of five counts of health care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1347, one count of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957, and two counts of aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. The district court sentenced him to 67 months’ imprisonment. Gonzalez appeals his convictions and sentence on many grounds, most of which are meritless. The exception is his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions for aggravated identity theft, as to which the government presented little evidence at trial, and few arguments on appeal. We affirm Gonzalez’s convictions for health care fraud and money laundering, reverse his convictions for aggravated identity theft, and remand the case for resentenc-ing.

I.

Yennier Capote Gonzalez lived in Miami. He bought a tract of land at 140 Lonesome Point Lane in Jackson County, Tennessee. The tract had an unfinished house on it. Gonzalez also bought a nearby tract of land at 179 Buck Branch Lane, which included a run-down barn. Gonzalez later defaulted on the mortgages for each of the Jackson County properties. The lender foreclosed and sold the properties at auction in June 2010. Thereafter Gonzalez had no legal interest in the properties.

That same month, however, Gonzalez submitted a Tennessee corporate charter for Gainesboro Ultimate Med Service Corporation, which listed Gainesboro Med’s mailing address as 179 Buck Branch Lane. The charter also listed the same address for Gonzalez, and listed him as Gainesboro Med’s president. On July 1, Gainesboro Med applied for a national provider identification (NPI) number, which are unique identifiers issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to healthcare providers such as doctors and medical clinics. This application listed Gainesboro Med’s address at 179 Buck Branch Lane and its authorized official as Gonzalez. Weeks later, Gonzalez obtained a business license from Jackson County, Tennessee, to operate Gainesboro Med as an “online medical billing” company. Once again, Gainesboro Med’s listed address was 179 Buck Branch Lane.

On July 13, Manuel Trujillo sent a text message to cellphone number (305) 420-8152. The text contained only the name “Tidence Prince, M.D.” and an NPI number. Two days later, Trujillo sent a series of text messages to the same phone number that contained the names Orlando Martinez, Jorge Valdez, Monica Rodriguez, and Rosemary Mir.

On July 16, Gonzalez opened a business-checking account for Gainesboro Med with Regions Bank in Cookeville, Tennessee. He listed Gainesboro Med’s address as 179 Buck Branch Lane and made himself the account’s only authorized signatory. Gonzalez also listed his phone number as (305) 420-8152 — the number for the cellphone that had received the text messages on July 13 and 15.

Over the next few weeks, Gainesboro Med submitted several online claims to two different insurance companies, Well-point and Cigna. Gainesboro Med sought reimbursement for injections that were purportedly administered to the persons listed in the July 15 text messages: Orlando Martinez, Jorge Valdez, Monica Rodriguez, and Rosemary Mir. Each claim included Dr. Prince’s NPI number and listed him as the physician who administered the injections. In fact, however, most of the *557 patients were fictitious and none of the injections were performed.

On August 12, Cigna mailed to 179 Buck Branch Lane a $38,116 check payable to Gainesboro Med for medical services purportedly provided to Rosemary Mir and Monica Rodriguez. Five days later, Gainesboro Med deposited that check into its checking account at Regions Bank in Cookeville, Tennessee. The check constituted essentially all of the funds in Gaines-boro Med’s account. Two days later, Gonzalez (the account’s only signatory) wrote a check to Manuel Trujillo for $2000 and another check in the same amount to himself, which he deposited in his personal account. On August 28, Gonzalez visited a Regions Bank in Miami and obtained a $14,400 cashier’s check, payable to his landlord, drawn from the Cigna funds in the Gainesboro account. He also tried to wire Trujillo the remaining $17,000 from the Regions account, but the bank refused because the funds had been deposited too recently.

Meanwhile, Cigna reported Gainesboro Med as a suspicious provider to Special Agent Robert Turner at the Department of Health and Human Services. Turner investigated, first by visiting 179 Buck Branch Lane. There he found only a barn and a mailbox, which contained mail addressed to Gainesboro Med.

Turner also learned that the patients whom Gainesboro Med supposedly had treated resided at 140 Lonesome Point Lane. He drove there and found only a mailbox and the unfinished house, which consisted of a foundation, walls, and a cover for a roof. The mailbox contained mail from Wellpoint and Cigna.

On August 24, Turner called Carol Sa-waya, a manager at Region Bank’s Miami office, and explained that he was investigating Gainesboro Med and Gonzalez. With Sawaya’s assistance, Turner then coordinated a plan to arrest Gonzalez at the bank. The next day, a Region’s employee called Gonzalez and told him that his $17,000 wire transfer had been approved and that he needed to come into the bank. Gonzalez did so and gave Sawa-ya his driver’s license and bank card. Then Turner arrested him.

A jury thereafter convicted Gonzalez of five counts of health care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1347, one count of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957, and two counts of aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. Gonzalez filed a motion for judgment of acquittal or new trial, which the district court denied. The court sentenced Gonzalez to 67 months’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

II.

A.

Gonzalez challenges two of the district court’s evidentiary decisions.

1.

Gonzalez argues that the government violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches when it obtained the July 13 and 15 text messages from the phone company without a warrant. The phone number that received the messages was the same one that Gonzalez had listed as his contact number when he opened a Regions Bank account for Gainesboro Med. In fact, however, that phone number was assigned to an account registered to someone else. The district court denied Gonzalez’s motion to exclude on the grounds that he lacked standing to challenge the admission of text messages retrieved from a phone account that was registered to someone else.

*558

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Related

United States v. Gonzalez
644 F. App'x 456 (Sixth Circuit, 2016)

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Bluebook (online)
560 F. App'x 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-yennier-gonzalez-ca6-2014.