United States v. Jones, 965 F.3d 190

Brandon Jones was indicted (Feb. 2019) for wire fraud, conspiracy, and using “false or fictitious” government financial documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 514(a)(2); a jury convicted him and he was sentenced principally to 50 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release.
Jones created and represented an NGO styled as the “Office of the Commissioner for Burns,” claiming it was an IGO affiliated with the United Nations; the UN did not recognize him and barred him from its premises.
Over several years Jones submitted bogus government transportation requests (GTRs) and purchase orders to vendors (including American Airlines, Enterprise, and others), causing at least $100,417.89 in airline charges according to American Airlines’ investigation.
Authentic GTRs and GSA purchase orders have specific formats (issued by GSA, no third‑party logos, multi‑page commercial forms with codes); Jones’s documents differed in format, contained logos and missing fields, and GSA and vendors testified they were not authentic.
The district court instructed the jury that a "false or fictitious document" is a bogus financial document made to look like a real financial document; the jury convicted Jones on all counts.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether § 514’s phrase "false or fictitious" covers counterfeit (fake versions of genuine) government financial documents or only entirely contrived/nonexistent instrument types	§514’s disjunctive wording and statutory context show "false" and "fictitious" are distinct; "false" covers counterfeit versions of existing instruments	Jones contends "fictitious" was meant to reach nonexistent instruments and §514 should not reach counterfeit versions of genuinely existing documents (relying on Howick)	The court held the disjunctive terms are distinct and §514 covers both fictitious instruments and false (counterfeit) versions of existing instruments; evidence was sufficient to convict

Lomax v. Ortiz‑Marquez, 140 S. Ct. 1721 (U.S. 2020) (textualist starting point for statutory interpretation)
United States v. Williams, 790 F.3d 1240 (11th Cir. 2015) (interpreting the disjunctive "false or fictitious" to include counterfeit existing instruments)
United States v. Howick, 263 F.3d 1056 (9th Cir. 2001) (construed §514 to cover only nonexistent instruments; relied on legislative history)
United States v. Dauray, 215 F.3d 257 (2d Cir. 2000) (instruction to begin with plain statutory text)
United States v. Harris, 838 F.3d 98 (2d Cir. 2016) (canons support giving separate meanings to disjunctive terms)
Marx v. Gen. Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. 371 (U.S. 2013) (explaining and applying the canon against surplusage)
United States v. Taylor, 816 F.3d 12 (2d Cir. 2016) (standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence)