UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jawad “Joe” QUASSANI, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 14-10035.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Filed Feb. 4, 2015.
MEMORANDUM**
Jawad Quassani appeals from his jury-trial conviction and 87-month sentence for mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. We affirm.
Quassani asserts that the Government engaged in improper vouching. Because Quassani did not object at trial to the statements now challenged on appeal, our review is for plain error. United States v. Dorsey, 677 F.3d 944, 953 (9th Cir. 2012). The claim fails because there was no error of any kind. The instances of alleged vouching cited by Quassani were either not vouching, not impermissible in light of attacks on the credibility of government witnesses based on the existence of plea bargains, or too inconsequential to have been prejudicial.
Quassani suggests that the Government should have been required to prove materiality as an element of conspiracy under
Quassani asserts that reversal is required because the district court erred when it refused to replace one juror with an alternate. The record before the court did not support a claim of actual bias on the part of the juror. The juror explicitly averred that he could be impartial and the district court did not abuse its discretion in accepting that statement. There was no implied bias because the relationship at issue here did not represent one of those “extraordinary cases,” United States v. Gonzalez, 214 F.3d 1109, 1112 (9th Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted), in which “an average person in the position of the juror in controversy would be prejudiced.” Id. (quotation omitted) (emphasis omitted). Nor was there ground for a claim under McDonough Power Equip., Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 104 S.Ct. 845, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984), based on the failure of a juror “to answer honestly a material question on voir dire.” Id. at 556, 104 S.Ct. 845. Although the juror and the Assistant United States Attorney characterized their relationship differently, the difference was not remarkable and was not necessarily indicative of juror dishonesty. “Whether a juror is dishonest is a question of fact” reviewable for clear error, Fields v. Brown, 503 F.3d 755, 767 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc), and the district court’s determination on this issue was not clearly erroneous.
The district court did not err when it determined that Quassani was not entitled to a two-level downward adjustment in the offense level as “a minor participant in any criminal activity.”
Quassani also challenges the district court’s amount-of-loss determination. In this context, “[a] district court’s method of calculation is reviewed de novo while the determination of the amount is reviewed for clear error.” United States v. Ali, 620 F.3d 1062, 1073 (9th Cir. 2010). Quassani suggests that the district court, in calculating the loss, should have relied on two “credit bids” entered by the lenders on the two properties involved. It was not error to decline to take those bids into account, however. See generally United States v. Yeung, 672 F.3d 594, 604 (9th Cir. 2012), abrogated in part on other grounds by Robers v. United States, — U.S. —, 134 S.Ct. 1854, 188 L.Ed.2d 885 (2014) (explaining that “[a] lender’s credit bid may not reflect the value of the collateral in all circumstances,” such as in a circumstance where the “credit bid [is] based on [a] fraudulently inflated loan amount” (quotation omitted)).
Quassani challenges the ordered forfeiture. Federal criminal forfeiture law “mandates that a defendant forfeit a very specific amount—the proceeds of his criminal activity.” United States v. Casey, 444 F.3d 1071, 1076 (9th Cir. 2006). “For purposes of criminal forfeiture, the ‘proceeds’ of a fraudulently obtained loan equal the amount of the loan.” United States v. Newman, 659 F.3d 1235, 1244 (9th Cir. 2011). The district court has no discretion to lower this amount, id. at 1240, and the Government was not under an obligation to trace the proceeds of the crime. Quassani’s suggestion that
We decline to consider Quassani’s ineffective assistance of counsel on direct appeal. “As a general rule, we do not review challenges to the effectiveness of defense counsel on direct appeal.” United States v. Moreland, 622 F.3d 1147, 1157 (9th Cir. 2010). Although we may review an ineffective assistance claim “when the record on appeal is sufficiently developed to permit review and determination of the issue, or ... when the legal representation is so inadequate that it obviously denies a defendant his Sixth Amendment right to counsel,” United States v. Ross, 206 F.3d 896, 900 (9th Cir. 2000) (quotation marks omitted), neither of these two narrow exceptions applies here. The current record is silent, for example, as to the reasons that trial counsel may have had for taking the actions he did.
AFFIRMED.
Grisell ALVES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. EMERALD CORRECTIONAL MANAGEMENT, LLC, Defendants-Appellee.
No. 12-16903.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Filed Feb. 9, 2015.
MEMORANDUM**
1. Plaintiff Grisell Alves (“Alves”) did not submit evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that Emerald Correctional Management, LLC (“Emerald”) acted with a retaliatory motive against her when she complained of sexual harassment by terminating her employment.
The evidence Alves relies on to prove that Emerald’s stated reason for firing her was pretext does not suffice to avoid summary judgment. Emerald produced evidence to support a finding that it fired Alves for a legitimate non-retaliatory reason—sexually harassing two of her coworkers. Once Emerald put forth a legitimate, non-retaliatory explanation for Alves’s termination, the burden shifted to Alves to show that this explanation was pretext for discrimination. See Miller v. Fairchild Indus., Inc., 797 F.2d 727, 732 (9th Cir. 1986). Alves produced several arguments in support of her claim that the investigation that led to her firing was done in bad faith, and thus pretextual, e.g., she was not informed of the sexual-harassment allegations against her, Emerald unreasonably discredited her version of events, and Emerald instructed an employee to file a complaint against her. However, none of these arguments are supported by the evidence in the record.
Further, Emerald’s investigation was otherwise in accordance with the requirements for good faith under the framework articulated in Swenson v. Potter, 271 F.3d 1184, 1192 (9th Cir. 2001). Emerald inves-