02-1762 U.S. v. Franks

Listen to this article

“Franks deposited the checks into her personal account. Even if she drew off the embezzled funds promptly, her own funds remained and could have been debited to cover the loss, had the checks not been sent out of state and paid in due course. This made interstate transportation essential to the scheme’s success. (After Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1 (1954), a contention that Franks did not know that interstate means would be used to collect would be untenable and is not made.) What is more, the offense defined by sec. 1341 is the scheme to defraud, not the individual mailing in isolation. The prosecutor in Kann charged three schemes of one check apiece, which led to the Court’s reply that each scheme had succeeded before the solitary check reached the drawee bank. The prosecutor charged Franks with one scheme covering 449 checks over 14 months. If the early checks had not been sent interstate and cleared, the later checks would not have been credited to Franks’ account, and her scheme would have been foiled. Thus here, as in Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705 (1989), the interstate transportation facilitated the repetition of acts that were vital to making the scheme profitable. The evidence supports the conviction.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Barker, J., Easterbrook, J.