LAW.coLAW.co

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Jason Todd REYNOLDS, Appellant

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit2013-03-26No. No. 11-3101
404 U.S. App. D.C. 247710 F.3d 434

Summary

Holding. The court affirmed Reynolds's convictions on all four counts of aggravated identity theft, finding that 18 U.S.C. § 1028A does not require proof that the defendant stole the identity information or that individual victims suffered personal harm, only that the defendant used the means of identification without lawful authority.

Jason Reynolds, serving as chief financial officer of a Washington, D.C. church, obtained unauthorized access to digital signatures of four church officers and used them to create a fake corporate resolution approving increased borrowing from a bank. This scheme resulted in the theft of over $850,000 from the church. Reynolds was convicted of four counts of aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, along with other fraud-related offenses.

On appeal, Reynolds challenged his identity theft convictions on two grounds: first, that the statute required the government to prove he had actually stolen the identity information in question, and second, that it required proof the individual officers suffered personal harm beyond harm to the church itself. The court rejected both arguments as inconsistent with the plain language of the statute. Section 1028A prohibits using a means of identification "without lawful authority," language broad enough to cover situations where someone obtained identity information legitimately but then used it beyond the scope of their authority. The statute does not require evidence of theft or individual victim harm.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether aggravated identity theft under § 1028A requires proof the defendant stole identity information
  • Whether § 1028A requires proof of individual harm to the identity holders beyond organizational harm
  • Interpretation of "uses... without lawful authority" in the context of identity information obtained through legitimate access

Procedural posture

Reynolds appealed his conviction, and the court reviewed his claim that insufficient evidence supported his identity theft convictions for plain error, as he had not raised these specific arguments in his motion for judgment of acquittal at trial.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge:

Jason Reynolds was the chief financial officer of the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C. (The church is operated in part through a National City Christian Church Foundation, but for our purposes the two appear interchangeable and we will refer only to the church.) In that capacity he swindled the church out of more than $850,000, much of it through arranging an increase in the church’s line of credit at Adams National Bank.

Reynolds’s technique in increasing the line of credit led to charges of “aggravated identity theft” under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. The technique appears comparatively simple. As chief financial officer he had access to digital versions of the signatures of at least four of the church’s officers. He used these to create a purported corporate resolution bearing the officers’ signatures and approving the increased borrowing, which resolution he then gave the bank.

A jury convicted Reynolds of four counts of aggravated identity theft, one for each of the officers. It also found him guilty of bank and wire fraud, making a false statement on a loan application, four counts of tax evasion, and first-degree fraud under District of Columbia law. Section 1028A calls for a sentence of two years for each § 1028A violation. 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l). Such sentences are generally to run consecutively with sentences for other offenses, but may sometimes (as here) run concurrently with sentences for other § 1028A violations. Id. § 1028A(b). On appeal, Reynolds argues that under a proper construction of § 1028A there was insufficient evidence to sustain his identity theft convictions; he also argues that the district court made two erroneous evidentiary rulings. Only the identity theft claim calls for discussion in a published opinion.

Reynolds contends that the government was required to prove both that he stole the officers’ identity information and that the officers suffered individual harm beyond that suffered by the church. Because the government did not present evidence on those points at trial, says Reynolds, his convictions under § 1028A must be vacated. We review this claim for plain error: although Reynolds asked the district court for a judgment of acquittal on the § 1028A charges, his motion did not raise these arguments. See United States v. McCoy, 242 F.3d 399, 402 (D.C.Cir.2001).

We begin of course with the statutory language, United States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515 F.3d 1234, 1237 (D.C.Cir.2008), and if its meaning is plain and unambiguous as to the disputed issue, that is where we stop, Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 340, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997); see also Connecticut Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992). Section 1028A reads in relevant part:

Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in [18 U.S.C. § 1028A(e) ], knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.

18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l). The parties agree that Reynolds committed a felony enumerated in § 1028A(e), and Reynolds has abandoned on appeal his argument that a signature is not a “means of identification.”

This leaves Reynolds with statutory text that is clearly not on his side. While he argues that § 1028A applies only to “stolen” information, § 1028A(a)(l) explicitly covers a defendant who “uses ” a means of identification without lawful authority. By contrast, two subsections of the immediately preceding provision, which sets forth various other identity-related fraud crimes, refer specifically to identity information that has been “stolen.” See 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(2), (6).

To the extent that there is a textual hook for Reynolds’s stolen-information argument, it is the requirement that the use be “-without lawful authority.” But “use[ ] ... without lawful authority” easily encompasses situations in which a defendant gains access to identity information legitimately but then uses it illegitimately — in excess of the authority granted. All circuits to consider the question have agreed on the principle. See, e.g., United States v. Lumbard, 706 F.3d 716, 725 (6th Cir. 2013); United States v. Ozuna-Cabrera, 663 F.3d 496, 498-99 (1st Cir.2011); United States v. Abdelshafi, 592 F.3d 602, 607-08 (4th Cir.2010). Reynolds concedes that he submitted the signature-bearing corporate resolution to the bank “without obtaining the express permission of the signature holders each time he used it,” Appellant’s Br. 10, and thus without authority, let alone lawful authority. Thus the statutory text seems to give Reynolds no hold.

Accordingly Reynolds turns to § 1028A’s title — “aggravated identity theft” — and to isolated statements in the legislative history referring to the stealing of information through computer hacking and the like. The statutory text being unambiguous, however, these tools cannot aid him. See Connecticut Nat’l Bank, 503 U.S. at 253-54, 112 S.Ct. 1146; Bhd. of R.R Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 331 U.S. 519, 528, 67 S.Ct. 1387, 91 L.Ed. 1646 (1947). Moreover, even if the statute itself were less clear, mention of particular examples in the legislative history — in all probability chosen for their vividness, poignancy, and resonance with popular understandings — would provide no ground for narrowing its reach. See Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. LTV Corp., 496 U.S. 633, 649, 110 S.Ct. 2668, 110 L.Ed.2d 579 (1990). We therefore reject Reynolds’s argument that § 1028A requires evidence that the defendant stole the identity information at issue.

Reynolds’s second argument — that § 1028A applies only where the individuals whose means of identification were unlawfully used have suffered individual harm — has even less statutory support. It rests solely on occasional comments in the legislative history illustrating the types of harm that violative behavior may cause— the sort of example that proponents of a provision would naturally highlight. Again, the statute is clear, and these examples supply no basis for reading it narrowly. See id.

Because both Reynolds’s arguments lack merit, we find no error — much less plain error — in the district court’s denial of his motion for a judgment of acquittal on the § 1028A charges.

XXX

The judgment of the district court is

Affirmed.