United States of America v. John Evan Burns

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent*
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JOHN EVAN BURNS,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 10-30110
D.C. No. 3:08-cr-00132-TMB-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Alaska
Timothy M. Burgess, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted August 29, 2012
Anchorage, Alaska
Before: HAWKINS, McKEOWN, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
John Evan Burns (“Burns”) appeals his jury trial conviction for making false
statements for the purposes of influencing a bank, under 18 U.S.C. § 1014, in
connection with accounts receivable reports he submitted to Northrim Bank
FILED
SEP 10 2012
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C OU R T OF APPE ALS

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Section 1014 provides, in pertinent part: “Whoever knowingly makes any1
false statement or report . . . for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of
. . . any institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation . . . upon any application, advance, discount, purchase, purchase
agreement, repurchase agreement, commitment, loan, or insurance agreement or
application for insurance or a guarantee, or any change or extension of any of the
same, by renewal, deferment of action, or otherwise, or the acceptance, release, or
substitution of security thereof, shall be [punished as provided by law].” 18 U.S.C.
§ 1014.
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(“Northrim”) under the terms of a revolving line of credit he used to finance his
upfront expenses. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and affirm.
I. Sufficiency of Evidence
Reviewing de novo the district court’s ruling on Burns’ motion for judgment
of acquittal based on insufficient evidence, United States v. Berry, 683 F.3d 1014,
1020 (9th Cir. 2012), we conclude there was sufficient evidence for a rational jury to
find the essential elements of a § 1014 conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. See
United States v. Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1161 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (citing Jackson
v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)). A § 1014 conviction requires a false
statement, its falsity known by the defendant, made for the purpose of influencing a
bank in any way. Pay estimates and trial testimony from the general contractors with1
whom Burns worked, though not in every situation perfect substitutes for the business
records Burns could not find, indicated they did not owe Burns as much, and often not
nearly as much, as he claimed in the nine reports to Northrim underlying the twenty-

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The record is clear that Burns’ Rule 404(b) objection before the district court2
was not to the loan officer’s testimony in its entirety, but specifically to any reference
to Burns’ purported misuse of a First National business account separate from his
revolving line of credit. Nor did defense counsel object to the loan officer’s testimony
on Rule 404(b) grounds during the trial.
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four counts of conviction. That Burns overstated his receivables so regularly and
significantly was sufficient to allow the jury to infer circumstantially that he knew his
reports were inaccurate, and the jury was entitled to reject his testimony to the
contrary. That the last two reports Burns submitted may not have been made in an
effort to procure additional funds from Northrim does not help him here; the statute
requires only that the false statements were made to influence Northrim’s actions “in
any way,” and Burns himself testified that if he did not submit reports indicating
accounts receivable above a certain threshold, Northrim would have taken additional
action, including demanding immediate repayment or restructuring his line of credit.
II. Admissibility of Rule 404(b) Evidence
The district court did not plainly err in admitting under Rule 404(b) testimony
by a First National Bank of Alaska (“First National”) loan officer regarding concerns
about Burns’ accounting practices she shared with him when he previously maintained
a revolving line of credit at First National. The evidence was admissible if it could2
satisfy our four-factor Rule 404(b) inquiry, see United States v. Romero, 282 F.3d
683, 688 (9th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 858 (2002), and survive Rule 403

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Defense counsel objected to both references at trial, and in both instances, the3
district court offered to issue a curative instruction.
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balancing. Burns concedes three of the four factors, arguing only that the testimony
did not prove a material point. That Burns had been previously informed his
accounting practices were suspect was directly probative of whether he “knowingly”
submitted the false statements to Northrim, an essential element of a § 1014
conviction. Under Rule 403, it was well within the district court’s discretion to
determine that any risk of prejudice was outweighed by this probative value.
III. Prosecutorial Misconduct
Burns also argues, in effect, that the district court failed to declare a mistrial sua
sponte when the prosecution referenced his eventual failure to pay back the Northrim
loan first during its opening statement and again when cross-examining Burns.3
Under plain error review, United States v. Banks, 514 F.3d 959, 973-74 (9th Cir.
2008), this argument fails. There was no pretrial agreement that Burns’ failure to pay
off the loan, which was relevant to whether he had been overstating his accounts
receivable, was off-limits during the trial, and the district court, by its own admission,
did not clearly rule to that effect until after the second reference. Therefore, the
references to the loan default did not amount to misconduct, and at any rate, Burns
does not adequately explain how they rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.

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AFFIRMED.

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