Bribery — sufficiency of the evidence

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Bribery — sufficiency of the evidence

Where a zoning inspector received only $1,200 in bribes, the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction of federal program bribery.

“Perhaps recognizing the problem it has in relying on the value of the issuance of the certificates alone to meet its burden, the Government selectively cites language from § 666(a)(1)(B) and contends that it did not need to prove that the issuance of the certificates was worth more than $5,000, ‘but only that the issuance of the certificates involved anything valued at $5,000 or more.’ Thus, the Government argues, because the issuance of the certificates “involved something” worth more than $5,000—the mortgages on the homes and the construction costs—it met the statutory threshold. We reject this overly expansive interpretation of § 666(a)(1)(B). Such a broad reading of ‘involving’ would render the $5,000 threshold meaningless, and we have clearly said that § 666(a) requires that ‘the subject matter of the bribe’—not something to which the subject matter of the bribe is tangentially related—‘must be valued at $5,000 or more.’ See Robinson, 663 F.3d at 271. Because the Government failed to put forth any evidence linking the mortgages and the construction costs to the value of the issuance of the certificates, it failed to prove that the subject matter of the bribes in question here met the statutory threshold.”

Reversed.

12-1918 U.S. v. Owens

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Manning, J., Bauer, J.