United States of America v. Laurinda Holohan

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-4583
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
LAURINDA HOLOHAN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. W. Earl Britt, Senior
District Judge. (5:07-cr-00117-BR-4)
Submitted: May 31, 2011 Decided: June 22, 2011
Before NIEMEYER, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Mary J. Darrow, LAW OFFICE OF MARY JUDE DARROW, Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellant. George E. B. Holding, United States
Attorney, Jason H. Cowley, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Assistant
United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

-- 1 of 10 --

2
PER CURIAM:
Laurinda Holohan appeals her conviction and seventy-
six month sentence on one count of conspiracy to commit mail
fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (2006) and twelve counts
of mail fraud and aiding and abetting in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1341, 2 (2006). She argues that the district court erred in
denying her motion to sever her trial from that of her co-
defendants and that insufficient evidence supports her
conviction. We affirm.
This case arises out of a Ponzi scheme spanning more
than twenty states and involving millions of dollars of loss.
The indictment naming Holohan also charged six co-defendants:
Michael A. Lomas, Michael L. Young, Barry C. Maloney, Susan
Knight, Scott B. Hollenbeck, and Arthur J. Anderson.*
* In United States v. Lomas, 392 Fed.Appx. 122, 2010 WL
3034086 (4th Cir. 2010), we affirmed the judgment of sentence
(240 months) entered against Lomas based on his guilty plea and
upheld a restitution award in excess of $45 million.
The
government alleged that Lomas and Young were the principals of a
company that would ultimately become known as Mobile Billboards
of America (“MBA”). Lomas and Young hired Holohan and Knight to
work in an administrative capacity for MBA, and they hired
Hollenbeck and Anderson to serve as salesmen, recruiting
investors. Maloney, MBA’s corporate attorney, was alleged to

-- 2 of 10 --

3
have assisted in “implementing the legal documents associated
with the defendants’ scheme.” While many of the participants in
the scheme pled guilty, Holohan, Hollenbeck and Maloney
proceeded to trial.
Briefly, the government’s theory of the case was that
MBA used its salespeople to recruit investors who purchased
“frames” for the display of advertisements that would be
installed on the sides of truck trailers. The frames were then
leased to MBA. The investors were promised a certain fixed
return monthly (a lease payment) generated by selling the
billboard space on the frames for advertising use. The
investors were further promised that their investments would be
guaranteed and insured, and they were assured that the
investments were sound. Unbeknownst to the investors, MBA was
unable to generate advertising revenue sufficient to cover the
monthly lease payments, and was using investment capital to fund
those payments. In addition, Lomas was embezzling significant
sums for personal purchases.
Prior to trial, the defendants moved to sever their
trials, claiming that their antagonistic defenses and the
disparity of admissible evidence against each would be
prejudicial. The court denied the motions. At the nearly five-
week jury trial, the government adduced evidence from victims of
the alleged scheme, investigators, regulators, attorneys and

-- 3 of 10 --

4
financial service providers who did business with MBA, and from
members of the alleged conspiracy, including Lomas, who had pled
guilty and were cooperating with the government. At the
conclusion of the trial, Maloney was acquitted and Holohan and
Hollenbeck were convicted of each count of the indictment that
remained after the government moved to dismiss several of the
substantive mail fraud charges. Holohan received a seventy-six
month sentence for her role in the scheme, and this appeal
followed.
I. Motion to Sever
Holohan first argues that the court erred in denying
her motion to sever her trial from that of her co-defendants.
Holohan specifically argues that under the well-known standards
of Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534 (1993), severance was
required because, as she claims to have projected in her pre-
trial motion, she suffered substantial prejudice in the joint
trial with Hollenbeck and Maloney. We review the denial of a
motion to sever for abuse of discretion. United States v.
Mackins, 315 F.3d 399, 412 (4th Cir. 2003).
“There is a preference in the federal system for joint
trials of defendants who are indicted together,” and a district
court should grant a severance “only if there is a serious risk
that a joint trial would compromise a specific right of one of

-- 4 of 10 --

5
the defendants, or prevent the jury from making a reliable
judgment about guilt or innocence.” Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 537-38.
The presumption that defendants indicted together should be
tried together is especially strong in conspiracy cases. United
States v. Chorman, 910 F.2d 102, 114 (4th Cir. 1990). Mutually
antagonistic defenses alone are insufficient to merit severance.
United States v. Najjar, 300 F.3d 466, 474 (4th Cir. 2002).
Instead, “there must be such a stark contrast presented by the
defenses that the jury is presented with the proposition that to
believe the core of one defense it must disbelieve the core of
the other,” or the conflict will lead to the jury’s unjustified
inference of both defendants’ guilt. Id. This standard is not
satisfied here.
Holohan argues that as a result of the denial of her
motion she was denied a fair trial (and thus, she says, due
process). This contention rests on her assertion that certain
“inflammatory” victim testimony, including testimony describing
how Hollenbeck, the salesman, targeted “churchgoing retirees” as
victims of the fraudulent scheme, was irrelevant to her guilt or
innocence and thus would not have been admitted against her had
she been tried alone. This argument is without merit.
Evidence of how the scheme was operated, including the
manner of selecting potential victims, was clearly admissible
against all of the alleged members of the overall scheme to

-- 5 of 10 --

6
defraud. Holohan fully enjoyed the assistance of counsel and
had every opportunity to object to assertedly “irrelevant”
evidence and to cross-examine each of the witnesses called by
the government or her co-defendants. She was able to ask
victims of the scheme, for example, whether they had any
interaction with her or knew her. In particular, counsel for
Holohan was also able to cross-examine Lomas (who testified in
favor of the government) and Maloney (who testified on his own
behalf) and attempt to show that they were the culpable parties,
not her. Notably, Holohan does not assign as error on appeal
any distinct ruling on the admissibility of evidence;
furthermore, while she complains generally about the absence of
“limiting instructions,” she has not suggested that she actually
sought any limiting instructions from the district court or that
the court specifically denied any such requests. In sum, we
discern no support in the record for the assertion that Holohan
was denied a fair trial by virtue of the district court’s denial
of her motion to sever.
Separately, Holohan claims that the jury’s guilty
verdict cannot be deemed “reliable” because of the “enormous and
inflammatory amount of evidence presented at this complex trial
against Hollenbeck.” Maloney’s acquittal belies this claim, as
the jury was obviously able to distinguish the relative
culpability of the defendants. In addition, it is well-settled

-- 6 of 10 --

7
that the mere fact that Holohan’s acquittal might have been more
likely if she were tried alone is simply not sufficient to
warrant a severance. See United States v. Strickland, 248 F.3d
368, 384 (4th Cir. 2001).
Accordingly, we reject the claim that the district
court abused its discretion in denying the motion to sever.
II. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Holohan next argues that the evidence adduced at trial
was insufficient to sustain her conviction. This court reviews
challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a jury
verdict de novo. United States v. Kelly, 510 F.3d 433, 440
(4th Cir. 2007). “A defendant challenging the sufficiency of
the evidence faces a heavy burden.” United States v. Foster,
507 F.3d 233, 245 (4th Cir. 2007). This court reviews a
sufficiency of the evidence challenge by determining whether,
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
government, any rational trier of fact could find the essential
elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. United
States v. Collins, 412 F.3d 515, 519 (4th Cir. 2005). We review
both direct and circumstantial evidence, and accord the
government all reasonable inferences from the facts shown to
those sought to be established. United States v. Harvey, 532
F.3d 326, 333 (4th Cir. 2008). In reviewing for sufficiency of

-- 7 of 10 --

8
the evidence, we do not review the credibility of the witnesses,
and we assume that the jury resolved all contradictions in the
testimony in favor of the government. Kelly, 510 F.3d at 440.
This court will uphold the jury’s verdict if substantial
evidence supports it, and will reverse only in those rare cases
of clear failure by the prosecution. Foster, 507 F.3d at 244-
45.
The elements of mail fraud are: (1) the existence of
a scheme to defraud, and (2) the use of mails to perpetrate the
scheme. United States v. Vinyard, 266 F.3d 320, 326
(4th Cir. 2001). To establish the first element, the government
had to prove that Holohan “acted with the specific intent to
defraud, which may be inferred from the totality of the
circumstances and need not be proven by direct evidence.”
United States v. Godwin, 272 F.3d 659, 666 (4th Cir. 2001)
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted). (In addition,
the government proceeded on an aiding and abetting theory.) “To
find [Holohan] guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, the
jury had to find ‘an agreement [to commit mail fraud], willing
participation by [Holohan], and an overt act in furtherance of
the agreement.’” United States v. Edwards, 188 F.3d 230, 234
(4th Cir. 1999) (citing United States v. Dozie, 27 F.3d 95, 97
(4th Cir. 1994)).

-- 8 of 10 --

9
Holohan argues that the government did not adduce
sufficient evidence that she had the specific intent to defraud,
and accordingly, did not satisfy the elements of either the
substantive offenses or the conspiracy charge. At bottom, her
claim is that she lacked education and sophistication, and her
role at NPC and MBA was purely administrative. She argues that
she had no knowledge of Hollenbeck’s activities and was simply
following orders from Lomas and Young.
Holohan’s argument lacks merit. The evidence adduced
at trial indicated that although Holohan worked in a largely
administrative capacity, she willfully participated in the
overall scheme to defraud with significant knowledge of its
essential character: (1) she knew that the business was in
serious financial trouble because there was virtually no
advertising revenue; (2) she was clearly aware that Lomas was
using investor money for his personal expenditures, and she
herself received the benefit of a free company Jaguar automobile
and, over the course of less than five years, a series of non-
salary bonuses exceeding two hundred thousand dollars; (3) she
knew that investor money was being improperly used to make lease
payments; (4) she knew that MBA was using deceitful and
misleading advertisements that implied they were raising
advertising revenue and that revenue would be used to make the
lease payments, when those representations simply were not true;

-- 9 of 10 --

10
(5) she knew that while MBA advertising materials claimed that
investor funds would be kept in trust, inaccessible to MBA or
its related entities, this was not the case. In light of the
direct and circumstantial evidence presented at trial, we
conclude that the jury acted reasonably in finding beyond a
reasonable doubt that she was guilty and we do not disturb its
verdict.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED

-- 10 of 10 --