Sufficiency of Evidence

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Robert DeKelaita

Case No.: 17-1644

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

Focus: Sufficiency of Evidence

Attorney Robert DeKelaita thought he had found the perfect recipe for success: identify a niche and become the expert. But he overlooked the part about complying with the law: his niche included helping clients submit fraudulent asylum applications. When it caught up with him, the government charged him with engaging in a single, decade‐long conspiracy through which he facilitated the submission of nine fraudulent asylum applications. DeKelaita contends that it failed to prove such an overarching conspiracy, and that at best the evidence at trial showed only several in‐ dependent conspiracies, none of which was properly subject to prosecution. Our review of the evidence convinces us otherwise. DeKelaita was charged with and convicted on only one conspiracy count. The jury had sufficient evidence to convict DeKelaita for either the charged conspiracy or a subsection of it. That is all the law requires, and so we affirm the judgment of the district court.

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.