Court Error – Sentencing

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Leon Dingle, Jr., et al.

Case No.: 15-3871 & 16-1002

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Court Error – Sentencing

The State of Illinois, through its Department of Public Health, furnishes funds to a variety of organizations that provide health services. Included among those grantees were the Broadcast Ministers Alliance of Chicago (“Broadcast Ministers”), Access Wellness and Racial Equity (“AWARE”), and Medical Health Association (“MHA”). Collectively these three organizations received  more than $11 million from the Department between 2004 and 2010. Unbeknownst to the Department, however, some $4.5 million of those dollars flowed through the grantees to a company called Advance Health, Social & Educational Associates (“Advance”), which was owned and controlled by Leon and Karin Dingle. That might have been fine, but for the fact that most of those monies did not go to the stated purposes of the grants. Instead, the Dingles spent the diverted funds on personal luxuries, such as yachts and vacation homes. The government eventually caught up with them and indicted them on charges of mail fraud and money laundering. A jury convicted them, and they have now appealed from both their convictions and their sentences. We find no reversible error for either defendant, and so we affirm the judgments of the district court.

Both defendants have appealed. Leon presents three arguments for our consideration: (1) the jury instructions violated his Fifth Amendment rights, because they allegedly made acquittal only optional upon a finding of reasonable doubt; (2) the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 when it permitted the admission of evidence of Leon’s marital infidelity; and (3) the sentence imposed on Leon was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Karin raises two points: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support her convictions; and (2) her sentence was unreasonable because the loss amount overstated the seriousness of her conduct. We address Leon’s appeal first, and then turn to Karin’s.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.