Federal Evidence Review

In drug conspiracy trial, admitting records of the defendant's wife's bank accounts under FRE 401 as the sudden accretion of wealth in the account which suggested it could be linked to the charged offense after a cooperating co-conspirator testified that he provided $10,000 to the defendant as his share of a robbery of the co-conspirator's cocaine supplier and a like amount was deposited in the bank account around the time of the offense, in United States v. Cecil, __ F.3d __ (6th Cir. August 10, 2010) (No. 08-5080)

It would seem that a record of sudden unexplained wealth gained by a defendant after he or she has committed an offense would not raise questions about its admission. In a recent case, the Eighth Circuit took the opportunity to examine when evidence of sudden wealth would be admissible and when it might be excluded.

In the case, defendant Cecil - a police officer - was charged with conspiracy to distribute and to possess cocaine, as well as with other crimes related to the conspiratorial scheme. Allegedly the defendant agreed with a relative who was a drug dealer to help him rob the drug dealer's supplier, by setting up a false sting-type of operation. During the trial the cooperating co-defendant testified that after he and the defendant robbed a drug supplier, he gave $10,000 to the defendant as his share. The prosecution offered the records to corroborate the co-conspirator's testimony. The defendant was convicted and he appealed contending that the trial court erred by admitting the bank account records of defendant's wife's. The defendant contended that the account record was not relevant and should have been excluded.

As explained by the circuit, the defendant's theory reached back almost a hundred years but missed the point none the less. The defendant contended authority from no less than the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Williams v. United States, 168 U.S. 382, 396 (1897) would exclude the evidence of sudden unexplained wealth. According to the defendant the Supreme Court held that "deposits in the bank accounts of a defendant and his wife were irrelevant because 'there was no necessary connection between the deposits and the specific charges against the defendant.'” Cecil, _ F.3d at _. The circuit rejected this contention and readily distinguished the 1897 Supreme Court case:

"[T]he facts of Williams are clearly distinguishable from the facts of the present case. In Williams, the defendant was charged with extorting $185. As proof, the government introduced evidence that, for several months, he had been depositing hundreds of dollars in both his and his wife's bank accounts. In addition to information about the defendant's relatively modest salary, the deposit history was the only evidence offered, and the government made no attempt to link the deposits to the allegedly extorted sum. By contrast, the evidence adduced in the present case does not require so vast an inferential leap; here, the sums deposited in Cecil and his wife's bank accounts were linked to the particular offense through (a) [cooperating co-conspirator] Corey's testimony that he gave Cecil $10,000 and (b) the chronological proximity of the deposits to the alleged robbery. Given these factual disparities, Williams is inapposite."

Cecil, __ F.3d at __ .

Properly understood, the circuit explained a rather different rule would applied in the Sixth Circuit:

"[F]ollowing Williams, '[w]e have consistently held that sudden unexplained wealth occurring after the commission of an offense is admissible evidence.' Consequently, we reject Cecil's argument that the bank records were irrelevant and therefore inadmissible."

Cecil, __ F.3d at __ (citing United States v. Ingrao, 844 F.2d 314, 316 (6th Cir. 1988); United States v. O'Neal, 496 F.2d 368, 370-71 (6th Cir. 1974) (“This court has repeatedly held that it is permissible for the prosecution to show unusual wealth in the hands of a previously impecunious defendant immediately subsequent to the happening of a theft of money.”); see also United States v. Amerine, 411 F.2d 1130, 1132 (6th Cir. 1969) (“There was, in our opinion, evidence in this case from which the jury could have inferred a ‘natural connection’ between the missing $36,000 and the funds appellant spent immediately after December 14, 1965.”))

Adopting a general rule that unexplained wealth occurring after a crime is relevant was a matter in which the Eighth Circuit had considered and resolved only three years before. See, e.g., United States v. Rodriguez, 484 F.3d 1006, 1012-13 (7th Cir. 2007) ("Unexplained evidence of wealth subsequent to the commission of a crime is relevant and generally admissible in the district court's discretion, even in the absence of direct proof of a defendant's prior impecuniousness. Furthermore, even assuming for the sake of argument evidence of impecuniousness or poverty is a foundational prerequisite to admitting evidence of unexplained wealth, the government satisfied this requirement by presenting testimony from one of its witnesses that it was a 'hassle' for Rodriguez to distribute drugs while at work, thus Rodriguez quit his job in order to distribute drugs from his house or other locations.").