Case Information
*1 Before: WALLACE, KLEINFELD, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.
After a jury trial, Cory Michael Eglash was convicted of one count of
conspiracy to defraud the United Stаtes under 18 U.S.C. § 286, one count of
making a false statement to the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a) (2), and
*2
four counts of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341.
[1]
Eglash raises numerous
arguments on appeal, asserting that the district court committed plain error by
improperly instructing the jury and that the court abused its discretion by excluding
certain evidence. Eglash also challenges the sufficiency of thе evidence supporting
his false statement and mail fraud convictions. We see no error in the district
cоurt’s jury instructions and its evidentiary rulings were within its discretion. We
affirm the district court’s judgment on the false statement convictiоn.
[2]
The district court did not commit plain error by failing to instruct the
jury that a false statement under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 requires that the defendant act
with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful. The court’s ruling was not
“contrary to the law at the time of aрpeal.”
See Johnson v. United States
, 520 U.S.
461, 468 (1997). Eglash’s reliance on
Ajoku v. United States
,
jury that “good faith is a complete defense” to “intent to defraud.” The court properly instructed the jury “[a]n intent to defraud is an intent to dеceive or cheat,” and that the jury “may determine whether the defendant had an honest, good faith belief in the truth of the alleged specified misrepresentations in determining whether or not [he] acted with intent to dеfraud.” See United States v. Shipsey , 363 F.3d 962, 967 (9th Cir. 2004). We reject Eglash’s challenge because “a criminal defendant has ‘no right’ to any good faith instruction when the jury has been adequately instructed with regard to the intent required to be found guilty of the crime charged.” Id .
3.
The distriсt court did not commit reversible error by failing to instruct
the jury that a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 286 requires that the false statеments
be material. Eglash’s false statements were extensive and clearly material to the
fraudulent schеme and to his eligibility for benefits. There is no reasonable
probability that any error affected the outcome of the trial because there was
overwhelming evidence before the jury.
See Gonzalez-Aguilar
,
4.
Eglash claims insufficient еvidence supports his false statement
conviction because he in good faith understood the underlying dоcument to require
only recitation of his employment history up until the year he “claimed his
disability began.” “Because [Eglash] failed to move for a judgment of acquittal
during trial [on this issue], we review his sufficiency-of-the-evidenсe claim for
plain error,”
see United States v. Ross
,
disciplinary records. The records pertained to conduct that was unrelated to Eglash or the instant case. The district court properly excluded them because they *5 constituted extrinsic evidence оf “[s]pecific instances of a witness’s conduct in order to attack . . . the witness’s character for truthfulness,” see Fеd. R. Evid. 608(b), and their “probative value [wa]s substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . confusing the issues [and] wasting time,” see Fed. R. Evid. 403. Finally, Eglash challenges his conviction on all four counts of mail
fraud on the ground that the Government presented insufficiеnt evidence that any
of the underlying documents were mailed. Here, the Government presented
evidence of mailing through custom-and-practice testimony offered by two claim
representatives. We have held that such testimony supplies sufficient, albeit
circumstantial, proof of mailing under these circumstances.
See United States v.
Lo
,
AFFIRMED.
Notes
[*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
[1] The parties are familiar with the facts, so we do not recount them here.
[2] Here, we address the district court’s ruling that the Government offered sufficient evidence to prove that the subject documents were mailed. In a separate opinion issued concurrently, we assess Eglash’s claim that two counts of his mail fraud convictions were not supported by sufficient evidence.