No: 04-3216 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. Michael Hanson

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No: 04-3216
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
MICHAEL HANSON,
Appellant
No: 04-3261
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
RANDY PETRO,
Appellant
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
District Nos. 03-cr-00293-1 & 03-cr-00293-2
District Judge: Honorable David S. Cercone
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
May 5, 2005
Before: McKee, Smith & Van Antwerpen, Circuit Judges
(Filed: June 7, 2005)
OPINION
McKee, Circuit Judge.

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Defendants Randy Petro and Michael Hanson appeal the judgment of sentence
entered following their conditional guilty plea to charges of conspiring to violate 18
U.S.C. §513 (a). For the reasons that follow, we will affirm.
Inasmuch as we write primarily for the parties who are familiar with the factual
and procedural background of this case, we need not reiterate that background except
insofar as may be helpful to our brief discussion.
In this consolidated appeal, the defendants claim the government failed to prove
that the checks they conspired to utter were instruments of “an organization,” as required
under 18 U.S.C. § 513 (a). They contend that the counterfeit checks were instruments of
the “check owner or the holder of the account,” rather than S&T Bank. Appellants’ Br.
At 16.
Thus, the only issue before us is whether the “of an organization” requirement in §
513 (a) may be fulfilled by use of counterfeited securities drawn on personal accounts of
a legitimate bank.
The government argues that our review is the deferential review afforded to
challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence. Appellee’s Br. At 3. However, the
defendants are not arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support their conviction.
Rather, they are arguing issues of statutory construction. Our standard of review is
therefore de novo.

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Section 513 broadly defines “security” to include “a note, stock certificate,
treasury stock certificate, bond, treasury bond, debenture, certificate of deposit, interest
coupon, bill, [or] check . . .”. 18 U.S.C. § 513 (c)(3)(A). We believe the district court
correctly concluded that the checks at issue here belonged to both the fictitious individual
account holders and S&T Bank. United States v. Jackson, 155 F.3d 942, 946 (8th Cir.
1998). S&T Bank is an “organization” that is clearly involved in interstate commerce,
and the checks in question had that bank’s routing number along with nonexistent account
numbers. The government correctly notes that S&T’s name added an air of legitimacy to
the scheme as store employees were more likely to accept checks that carried that name
and routing number. Appellee Br. at 14-15.
The defendant’s argument to the contrary fails to acknowledge that a check may
belong to both the individual account holder and the banking entity (“organization”)
purportedly issuing the check for the purposes of section 513. Jackson, at 946.
Moreover, use of fictitious account numbers does not negate the legal reality that the
instruments here, bearing the name and routing number of S&T Bank, were instruments
of that bank. See United States v. Chappell, 6 F.3d 1095 (5th Cir. 1993).
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the district court’s denial of the
defendant’s motion to dismiss.

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