United States of America v. Juliana James England

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JULIANA JAMES ENGLAND
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 16-50353
D.C. No. SACR 11-126(A)-JVS
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted March 5, 2017**
Pasadena, California
Before: GRABER and OWENS, Circuit Judges, and MAHAN,*** District Judge.
Juliana James England appeals from her conviction and sentence for wire
fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. The district court sentenced Defendant to
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
*** The Honorable James C. Mahan, United States District Judge for the
District of Nevada, sitting by designation.
FILED
MAR 13 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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thirty-seven months in prison and ordered her to pay $368,152.00 in restitution.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 & 1294(1), and we affirm.
We employ a two-step inquiry for challenges to sufficiency of the evidence.
United States v. Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1163– 64 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc). First,
we “must consider the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the
prosecution.” Id. at 1164. Second, we must determine whether the evidence, so
construed, “is adequate to allow ‘any rational trier of fact to find the essential
elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Id. (alteration in original)
(brackets omitted) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)). In
other words, the defendant must point to evidence “so supportive of innocence that
no rational trier of fact could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 1169.
“A wire communication is ‘in furtherance’ of a fraudulent scheme if it is
incident to the execution of the scheme, meaning that it need not be an essential
element of the scheme, just a step in the plot. United States v. Jinian, 725 F.3d
954, 960 (9th Cir. 2013) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, sufficient evidence supports the jury’s conclusion that the bank’s
transmittal of monthly credit card statements via email was in furtherance of
Defendant’s scheme to defraud her employer. The emailed statements meet the “in
furtherance of” standard because Defendant’s ongoing scheme to defraud
depended on her receipt and prompt payment of the statements each month.

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The fact that the bank automatically generated and emailed the statements on
a monthly basis does not eliminate the statements’ critical role in the execution of
Defendant’s ongoing scheme. See Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 711-12
(1989) (holding that “routine” mailings that occurred “after the fraud [had] come to
fruition” were part of the execution of the defendant’s fraudulent scheme because
the fraud was not a “‘one-shot’ operation,” but an “ongoing fraudulent venture”).
Further, the electronic nature of the statements allowed Defendant to conceal
the fraudulent charges from her employer, as only she knew how to operate the
single desktop computer in the office. Accordingly, there was sufficient evidence
for a jury to conclude that the wired statements were in furtherance of Defendant’s
scheme to defraud. Defendant has failed to demonstrate that no rational trier of
fact could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
AFFIRMED.

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