United States v. Walsh ( 1996 )


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    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
    ____________________

    No. 95-1139

    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

    Appellee,

    v.

    WILLIAM H. WALSH,

    Defendant, Appellant.

    ____________________

    APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

    FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

    [Hon. Mark L. Wolf, U.S. District Judge] ___________________

    ____________________

    Before

    Boudin, Circuit Judge, _____________

    Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge, ____________________

    and Keeton,* District Judge. ______________

    ____________________

    James L. Sultan with whom Rankin & Sultan was on briefs for ________________ ________________
    appellant.
    Peter A. Mullin, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom ________________
    Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, and Pamela Merchant, New ________________ _______________
    England Bank Fraud Task Force, Criminal Division, Department of
    Justice, were on brief for the United States.


    ____________________

    January 23, 1996
    ____________________



    ____________________

    *Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.













    BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. William Walsh was charged with ______________

    various offenses growing out of a bank fraud scheme and

    convicted on a majority of the counts. His present appeal is

    primarily directed at procedural issues. We affirm.

    I.

    Walsh was indicted in 1992, together with four co-

    defendants, and charged with conspiracy, twenty-nine counts

    of bank fraud, and twenty-nine counts of false statements.

    18 U.S.C. 2, 371, 1344, 1014. The substance of the

    indictment was that Walsh carried out a scheme to defraud

    Dime Savings Bank of New York ("Dime-NY"). He did so,

    according to the charge, by directing his employees to obtain

    29 specific loans through the use of deceptions so that

    customers could purchase condominiums from Walsh and his

    associates.

    Walsh's trial occurred in February and March 1994.

    Taken in the light most favorable to the verdict, United ______

    States v. Tuesta-Toro, 29 F.3d 771, 773 (1st Cir. 1994), ______ ___________

    cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 947 (1995), the evidence permitted _____ ______

    the jury to find the following. Walsh was a Cambridge,

    Massachusetts, city councillor, lawyer, and real estate

    developer. With a group of investors, he purchased apartment

    buildings or complexes, converted the property into

    condominiums, and sold the condominiums to customers, using

    the unit sales to pay off the acquisition financing.



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    Walsh ordinarily served as a trustee of the realty trust

    that acquired the building, acted as legal counsel to the

    trust, and usually served as the trust's representative in

    the sale of the individual condominium units. During 1986,

    sales of units in one of the projects started to fall behind

    schedule and the trust began to have difficulty repaying its

    acquisition loan. Walsh then discovered that Dime-NY had

    recently created a wholly owned subsidiary, called Dime Real

    Estate Services of Massachusetts, Inc. ("Dime-MA"), to

    originate mortgage loans in Massachusetts. Dime-MA made

    mortgage loans available rapidly--with no verification of

    income, assets or down payments--but the loans required a

    twenty percent down payment and secondary financing was

    prohibited.

    On this failing project, and then on two others, Walsh

    directed his employees to arrange loans from Dime-MA for unit

    purchasers and to falsify documents submitted to Dime-MA to

    conceal the existence of secondary financing (and in some

    cases third mortgages as well). In the three projects,

    approximately half the customers defaulted and Dime-MA

    incurred substantial losses. An investigation ensued,

    followed by the indictment already described. Three of the

    four co-defendants pleaded guilty; charges against the fourth

    co-defendant were abandoned.





    -3- -3-













    Jury deliberations began on March 22, 1994. Following

    the dismissal of a juror during deliberations, the jury (now

    reduced to 11 members) continued deliberations, and on March

    28, 1994, it returned 41 guilty and 18 not guilty verdicts.

    Walsh was thereafter sentenced and now appeals. Most of the

    claims of error concern the dismissal of the juror and its

    aftermath, so we begin with that subject, starting with a

    description of the pertinent events.

    II.

    On March 23, 1994, a note was received from the jury

    indicating that one of the jurors wished to meet with the

    judge, adding: "He has several questions and we cannot

    relate to him in any way, shape, or form." The judge

    declined to meet with an individual juror, but the following

    day a court security officer reported that the foreperson was

    concerned that one of the jurors had become "mentally

    unstable." After consulting with counsel, the trial judge

    interviewed the foreperson, and learned of constant

    interruptions by "juror X", irrelevant statements by juror X

    about events in his past life, and juror X's efforts to show

    other jurors written materials consisting of a campaign

    brochure and a newspaper clipping from his prior efforts to

    win elective office.

    After consulting further with counsel, the trial judge

    interviewed juror X; as in the judge's interview with the



    -4- -4-













    foreperson, counsel and Walsh himself were present. The

    judge cautioned juror X not to indicate his views on the

    merits of the case. The interview, which began by focusing

    on the material that the juror brought into the jury room,

    involved disjointed and rambling comments by juror X. Juror

    X also mentioned a self-described "nervous problem" and his

    general discharge from the military. Some of the questioning

    was based on questions that had been suggested by the

    government and defense counsel.

    Finally, out of the presence of juror X, the court asked

    both sides for their position as to whether juror X should be

    excused, and defense counsel after consultation with Walsh

    indicated that he "would not object if the Court decided to

    keep him or eliminate him. . . . [Either way] we would move

    for a mistrial." The government said that it thought the

    juror was disabled and should be excused. The trial judge

    then excused the juror, agreeing that he was "not a person

    capable of engaging in rational discussions based upon the

    evidence."

    Thereafter, the remaining jurors were sent home for the

    rest of the day. The following morning Walsh filed a motion

    for mistrial, arguing that the ability of the remaining

    jurors to be impartial and open-minded had been undermined by

    their exposure to juror X. No one at this point knew or

    claimed to know how juror X had proposed to vote. The court



    -5- -5-













    agreed to question the remaining jurors and solicited and

    received proposed questions from counsel.

    Then the district judge, in the presence of counsel and

    the defendant, questioned each of the 11 jurors individually

    as to whether juror X had discussed the merits prior to the

    jury's deliberations, had brought material into the jury

    room, and had discussed his own personal experiences--and

    whether the juror being questioned could, to the extent that

    these events had occurred, put them aside and decide the case

    impartially based on the evidence presented. Eight of the

    jurors had been exposed to a campaign brochure and an old

    newspaper article about one of juror X's campaigns; all of

    the jurors had heard juror X discuss his personal

    experiences; and three jurors had heard comments from juror X

    about the merits of the case prior to the start of

    deliberations.

    Each juror affirmed his or her ability to put aside the

    campaign material, the personal experiences of juror X, and

    any comments made by him before deliberations began. Defense

    counsel challenged three jurors who had heard comments by

    juror X before deliberations began, the substance of the

    comments not being revealed. With respect to each of the

    three jurors, the trial judge made findings that the juror

    was credible in saying that the pre-deliberation comments of





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    juror X would have no effect. The trial judge then denied a

    mistrial.

    At the request of defense counsel, the trial judge told

    the jury that it could begin its deliberations from the

    beginning if it wished; the court also told the jury not to

    discount a position taken "just because [juror X] took it."

    The jurors then deliberated for the rest of the day.

    Returning after a weekend break, they continued deliberations

    and asked for reinstruction on substantive issues. Late in

    the same day, they returned the 41 guilty and 18 not guilty

    verdicts.

    1. Walsh's first claim of error is that the trial

    court erred in dismissing juror X. Walsh argues that there

    was no psychological testing or psychiatric examination of

    juror X, and the evidence did not show that he was either

    mentally incompetent or otherwise incapable of engaging in

    rational decision-making. In substance, Walsh says that

    juror X was simply an unpopular, perhaps irritating

    participant who probably sided with the defendant and whose

    removal led to a prompt agreement to convict.

    Walsh did not make a timely objection on this ground.

    At the time of the dismissal, his counsel did not object to

    excusing juror X, or argue for psychiatric testing, or

    suggest that juror X could be dismissed only if a higher

    degree of irrationality were shown. Instead, Walsh made



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    clear his intention to move for a mistrial; and when the

    mistrial motion was filed, the ground--inconsistent with the

    contention now made--was that juror X was someone whose

    "psychiatric problems" had been "clearly demonstrated" and

    whose "negative influence" on other jurors was apparent.

    Although, for these reasons, the objection now made is

    reviewable only for plain error, the dismissal of juror X was

    not error at all. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 23(b)

    permits the judge to excuse a juror "for just cause" during

    deliberations and to allow the remaining 11 jurors to reach a

    verdict. The trial judge has substantial discretion in

    exercising this responsibility and may remove the juror when

    "convinced that the juror's abilities to perform his duties

    [have] become impaired." United States v. Huntress, 956 F.2d _____________ ________

    1309, 1312 (5th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 2330 _____ ______

    (1993). Similarly, in United States v. Molinares Charris, _____________ _________________

    822 F.2d 1213, 1223 (1st Cir. 1987), we permitted a judge to

    excuse a juror who had taken a tranquilizer pill and appeared

    somewhat unstable.

    The trial judge carefully and repeatedly consulted with

    counsel in determining the course of the inquiry and the

    questions to be put to juror X. See United States v. ___ _____________

    Chorney, 63 F.3d 78, 81 (1st Cir. 1995). The transcript of _______

    juror X's voir dire, which need not be repeated in detail, _________

    gave the trial judge ample basis for concluding that the



    -8- -8-













    juror was not able to perform his duties. Whether or not

    juror X was incompetent as a juror under 28 U.S.C.

    1865(b)(4), "just cause" existed under Rule 23(b) for his

    removal in this case. See United States v. Reese, 33 F.3d ___ _____________ _____

    166, 172-73 (2d Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 756 _____ ______

    (1995) (just cause not limited to incompetence).

    There is no evidence that the trial judge knew that

    juror X favored acquittal, if indeed juror X did. Nor did

    defense counsel make any such suggestion when he acquiesced

    in the dismissal of juror X. If anything, Walsh's mistrial

    motion suggested that juror X might be hostile to Walsh

    because Walsh was a lawyer and politician. Dismissal of a

    known holdout juror raises an entirely different question.

    Compare United States v. Hernandez, 862 F.2d 17 (2d Cir. _______ _____________ _________

    1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1032 (1989). _____ ______

    2. Walsh's second objection is that even if juror X

    was properly removed, the court erred in permitting the 11

    remaining jurors to return a verdict. Walsh's broadest

    grounds for this objection are legal: he claims that the

    Constitution does not permit a jury with only 11 jurors to

    decide a federal criminal case over the objection of a

    defendant. He also asserts that Rule 23(b)--which does

    permit this course--could not be lawfully enacted through the







    -9- -9-













    Rules Enabling Act procedures. 18 U.S.C. 3771, 3772

    (1982).1

    Neither of these objections was made at the time that

    the district court was determining whether to permit the 11

    remaining jurors to deliberate and, accordingly, both

    objections are subject to review only for plain error. It is

    true that both issues were raised in the trial court after _____

    the verdict by a post-verdict motion for dismissal or a new

    trial. But the usual rule is that an objection must be made

    known at the time that the court is making its decision to

    act, e.g., United States v. Gonzalez-Torres, 980 F.2d 788, ____ _____________ _______________

    791 (1st Cir. 1992), and here the proper time to raise the

    objections was when the court was deciding whether to

    continue with 11 jurors. In this case, in any event, the

    standard of review does not matter as to the constitutional

    claim because in Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 103 ________ _______

    (1970), the Supreme Court said that the 12-member jury was

    not required by the Constitution and that Congress and the

    states could select a different number. We think that

    Williams effectively answers the claim that 11 jurors are too ________

    few. A number of circuits have held that a jury of 11 can

    ____________________

    1The separate provisions enabling the Supreme Court to
    prescribe rules of criminal procedure were later repealed and
    consolidated with the Rules Enabling Act provisions governing
    the enactment of rules of civil procedure. Judicial
    Improvements and Access to Justice Act, Pub. L. No. 100-702,
    401-04, 102 Stat. 4642, 4648-52 (1988); 28 U.S.C. 2072-
    74.

    -10- -10-













    constitutionally decide a federal criminal case, without

    consent of the parties, where a juror has been removed for

    cause. E.g., United States v. Ahmad, 974 F.2d 1163, 1164 ____ _____________ _____

    (9th Cir. 1992).

    Williams directly rejects the argument that the ________

    historical number of jurors is binding--how many would be too

    few is not an issue in this case--and we think that this

    conclusion is not altered by Walsh's attempt to rephrase the

    challenge as a concern for a "unanimous" jury. The Supreme

    Court has not said whether a less-than-unanimous verdict is

    acceptable. Compare Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972). _______ _______ ______

    But whether it is or not, we think that rendition of a

    verdict agreed to by all jurors, after one juror with unknown

    views has been dismissed for cause, is a unanimous verdict.

    The gist of Walsh's claim under the Rules Enabling Act

    is that Congress might be able to alter the requisite number

    from 12 to 11 but that Rule 23(b) was adopted--under the

    procedures specified by the Rules Enabling Act--by judicial

    action coupled with Congress' failure to veto the change.

    Inaction, says Walsh, is not enough for a fundamental change.

    The Second Circuit has concluded, however, that this change

    can be accomplished through the enabling procedures. United ______

    States v. Stratton, 779 F.2d 820, 831 (2d Cir. 1985), cert. ______ ________ _____

    denied, 476 U.S. 1162 (1986). ______





    -11- -11-













    Rules that are "strictly procedural" can be adopted

    through the Rules Enabling Act without an affirmative vote by

    Congress, Burlington Northern Railroad Company v. Woods, 480 _____________________________________ _____

    U.S. 1, 5 (1987), and this extends to rules that fall "within

    the uncertain area between substance and procedure, [but] are

    rationally capable of classification as either." Id. ___

    (quoting Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 472 (1965)). In view _____ ______

    of the defendant's failure to make a timely objection, we

    need not decide this claim outright but are satisfied that

    the use of the 11-member jury did not constitute "clear

    error" based on the Rules Enabling Act claim.2

    3. Walsh did make in timely fashion an objection that

    this jury was not capable after juror X's discharge of

    rendering a fair and impartial verdict. When this issue was

    raised by Walsh immediately after the discharge, the district

    court properly undertook "an adequate inquiry to determine

    [what had happened and] . . . whether it was prejudicial."

    United States v. Ortiz-Arrigoitia, 996 F.2d 436, 442 (1st ______________ ________________

    Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1368 (1994). A trial _____ ______

    judge enjoys discretion to determine the scope of the inquiry

    in deciding whether the jury has been tainted. United States _____________

    ____________________

    2Since the issues were first raised in a motion for a
    new trial and rejected on the merits, one could argue that
    the customary abuse of discretion standard is irrelevant
    because the issues are strictly legal. But we do not see why
    rejection of an untimely legal claim should be reviewed for
    anything more than plain error. See Gonzalez-Torres, 980 ___ _______________
    F.2d at 791.

    -12- -12-













    v. Boylan, 898 F.2d 230, 258 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 498 ______ _____ ______

    U.S. 849 (1990).

    As already noted, the district court judge separately

    examined each of the jurors, asking his own questions as well

    as various questions suggested by counsel. In each instance,

    the judge received a forthright declaration that the juror

    was not going to be affected by the personal comments made by

    juror X, by materials he had brought into the jury room, or--

    in the case of three jurors--by the comments that juror X

    made about the merits before deliberations began. The

    judgment of the trial judge, who can appraise the jurors face

    to face, deserves great weight.

    Although Walsh now complains that the district judge

    limited his own questioning unduly--in an effort to avoid

    learning how the jurors were leaning--Walsh did not press for

    more detailed inquiry at the time. The trial judge treads a

    delicate line in this kind of inquiry. Assuming arguendo ________

    that Walsh is right in saying that Fed. R. Evid. 606(b) does

    not apply prior to the verdict, there are still obvious good

    reasons for a trial judge to avoid learning how an individual

    juror is leaning. United States v. Rengifo, 789 F.2d 975, ______________ _______

    985 (1st Cir. 1986).

    Although Walsh now argues that there is a substantial

    chance that the jurors were prejudiced by juror X, nothing in

    the record makes this at all likely. In addition to the



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    jurors' own denials, we note that the brochure had nothing

    directly to do with the trial; there is no reason to believe

    that a newspaper article brought in by a juror regarding his

    prior political campaign contained anything material; and

    judging by the voir dire of juror X, his personal experiences _________

    were also not germane to the trial.

    Walsh now argues that juror X was hostile to lawyers and

    politicians (Walsh was both) and that this view may have been

    passed on to the other jurors. In fact, juror X's brochure

    was more qualified, expressing (in a description of X's

    "positions") objections to "the [unspecified] unethical

    ethics practiced by certain members of the bar" and "machine

    controlled politics and . . . [unspecified] dirty tricks."

    The jurors said that they paid little attention to the

    pamphlet. Further, it is Walsh who now takes the position

    that juror X favored Walsh, which hardly suggests that juror _______

    X was denigrating Walsh.

    Finally, Walsh now complains that by discharging juror X

    the court led the jury to think that juror X's views should

    be disregarded. In fact, the judge expressly cautioned the

    jury not to discount views simply because they were earlier

    expressed by juror X. Walsh also says that the jury should

    have been directed to start its deliberations anew. The

    judge told the jury that it was entitled to start anew. We

    think that this was all that was either useful or necessary.



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    At the time, Walsh raised no objection to the instructions

    given. 4. Walsh's last claim of error based on the juror

    X episode relates to a post-trial event. According to an

    affidavit from Walsh's secretary, she received a call a week

    or so after the verdict from someone identifying himself as

    juror X who said he had been on the defendant's side, that

    the defendant had been "railroaded," and that she (the

    secretary) "would not believe what went on in the jury room."

    About a month later, Walsh submitted this affidavit in

    support of a request that the jury and juror X be subject to

    further voir dire or authorized inquiry by counsel. _________

    The district court declined to hold such a post-verdict

    inquiry or to authorize discussions with the jurors or to

    grant a new trial based on the affidavit. Walsh now argues

    that because the parties were barred from unsupervised

    contact with the jurors after the verdict, United States v. _____________

    Kepreos, 759 F.2d 961, 967 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. _______ _____ ______

    901 (1985), the trial court had an obligation to conduct an

    investigation itself. The abuse of discretion standard

    governs this claim, see Boylan, 898 F.2d at 258, and we think ___ ______

    that there was no such abuse in this case.

    The restrictions on post-verdict contact and the

    limitations on juror testimony about deliberations, Fed. R.

    Evid. 606(b), exist to protect important interests in the

    finality of the verdict and the privacy of the deliberations.



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    See Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 120 (1987). The ___ ______ _____________

    affidavit contains only general rhetoric from juror X and no

    specific allegations of misconduct. Given what the district

    court already knew about juror X, the telephone call--

    assuming (as we do) that it came from juror X--did not

    require any further inquiry.

    III.

    Walsh's brief raises two further issues, both unrelated

    to juror X. The first claim relates to the government's

    admitted failure to turn over certain documents in a timely

    fashion. The documents related to Frances Schwartz, a senior

    attorney working for Walsh who was assigned to the three

    development projects involved in this case. Schwartz was

    indicted with Walsh and was one of the co-defendants who pled

    guilty to the conspiracy count and testified against Walsh at

    trial.

    On direct examination, Schwartz gave damaging testimony

    against Walsh. In addition to identifying a number of

    documents and describing the operations of Walsh's office,

    Schwartz testified to discussions and correspondence with

    Walsh that--as recounted and interpreted by Schwartz--

    confirmed Walsh's knowing participation in and direction of

    the fraud. Schwartz' testimony was thus quite damaging,

    although another co-defendant who pled guilty also testified

    that Walsh knowingly directed the concealment of the



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    secondary financing. Early in her cross-examination,

    Schwartz mentioned that she had "daytimers" or calendars that

    she had used to refresh her recollection. Later, on re-

    cross, she mentioned that she had allowed the government to

    review the daytimers and make copies of them. The defense

    immediately objected that it had never received the

    daytimers. The government said that these daytimers should

    have been disclosed earlier but had been overlooked when

    other materials from Schwartz had been made available to

    Walsh's counsel. Copies of the daytimers were provided to

    the defendant later that day.

    Following a timely motion by Walsh to dismiss the case

    because of this delay, the trial court denied the motion,

    finding that Walsh's strategy would not have been

    substantially different if the daytimers had been disclosed

    earlier. The court instructed the jury that the government

    had failed in its discovery obligation, and it allowed Walsh

    to recall Schwartz to continue her examination, using the

    daytimers to try to establish inconsistencies between

    Schwartz' prior testimony and the daytimers. Walsh now

    complains that this was inadequate.

    This court previously considered the issue of delayed

    disclosure of impeachment material required to be disclosed

    under the Jencks Act. United States v. Arboleda, 929 F.2d _____________ ________

    858, 862-65 (1st Cir. 1991). We said that the critical



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    question was whether the delay had "prevented [the

    material's] effective use by the defense," id. at 862, and ___

    that some showing of prejudice was required beyond mere

    assertions that the defendant would have conducted cross-

    examination differently. Id. at 864. Cf. United States v. ___ ___ ______________

    Lanoue, No. 95-1140, slip op. at 34 (1st Cir. 1995). Delayed ______

    disclosure of Brady material is subject to the same rule. _____

    See United States v. Osorio, 929 F.2d 753, 758 (1st Cir. ___ _____________ ______

    1991).

    On this appeal, Walsh argues that if his trial counsel

    had received the daytimers earlier, he would have focused at

    the outset on the alleged inconsistencies between Schwartz'

    testimony and the daytimers instead of attempting to cast

    doubt on the reliability of her memory. In fact, the initial

    cross-examination did not focus on Schwartz' memory but

    rather on her veracity, which the defense counsel sought to

    undermine by emphasizing her prior drug use and her desire

    for a lenient sentence. And when Schwartz was subject to

    further cross after the daytimers had been produced, Walsh's

    counsel paid minimal attention to the supposed

    inconsistencies.

    Walsh says that when Schwartz was recalled for further

    cross after the daytimers had been produced, it was too late

    to cross-examine effectively on inconsistencies because she

    had been "well prepared by the government to explain away any



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    inconsistencies." As it happens, there is no evidence of any

    such discussion after the daytimers first became an issue.

    As to preparation prior to the original direct examination,

    the government was entitled to prepare the witness, and the

    risk of facing an initially prepared witness would have

    existed whether or not the daytimers had been produced.

    Walsh's final claim of error, a claim raised in the

    district court and rejected there, is that the evidence

    failed to show that the victim was a federally insured

    financial institution. At the time of the fraudulent

    filings, 18 U.S.C. 1344 aimed at schemes to defraud "a

    federally chartered or insured financial institution" or to

    obtain property owned by, or under the custody or control of

    such an institution through falsehoods. See United States v. ___ _____________

    Brandon, 17 F.3d 409, 424 n.11 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 115 _______ _____ ______

    S. Ct. 81 (1994). Walsh's argument turns on the fact that

    Dime-NY was a federally insured bank, but Dime-MA--the

    immediate maker of the loans--was not. The government quotes

    to us in response a statement from Brandon, 17 F.3d at 426, _______

    that

    the government does not have to show the alleged
    scheme was directed solely toward a particular ______
    institution; it is sufficient to show that
    defendant knowingly executed a fraudulent scheme
    that exposed a federally insured bank to a risk of
    loss.

    That language, however, was directed to the scienter

    requirement, and not to the nexus claim made here. As it


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    happens, the Brandon court also rejected a nexus argument _______

    somewhat similar to Walsh's argument here but on different

    facts. The intermediaries with whom defendants in Brandon _______

    dealt were mortgage brokers who forwarded the fraudulent

    applications to the federally insured bank which individually

    approved the loans and forwarded the money back to the

    mortgage brokers. See id. at 423, 426-27 & n.16. ___ ___

    While the nexus in Brandon was different--one can argue _______

    about whether it was closer or more remote--Brandon does _______

    confirm that a defendant can violate section 1344 by

    submitting the dishonest loan application to an entity which

    is not itself a federally insured institution. Here, Dime-MA

    was practically an alter ego of Dime-NY: it was a wholly

    owned subsidiary of Dime-NY; all of the subsidiary's

    directors and principal officers were officers of the parent;

    and Dime-MA was subject to examination by the same federal

    bank examiners as Dime-NY and reported its result on a

    consolidated basis.

    Further, focusing on the loan process, the connection

    between the defendant and the federally insured victim is

    even tighter. Dime-NY provided all of the funds for Dime-MA

    both for its operating expenses and to fund mortgage

    closings. Dime-NY determined what loan products should be

    offered and, on the closing of a loan by Dime-MA, the

    mortgage was immediately assigned to Dime-NY, which then



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    serviced the loan. For most practical purposes, and

    certainly for the purposes underlying section 1344, the

    mortgage fraud perpetrated against Dime-MA was effectively a

    fraud against Dime-NY.

    We agree that there must be some outer limits to section

    1344. For example, ruinous fraud directed against a major

    bank customer, but unrelated to a customer's deposits in or

    loans from the bank, might ultimately harm the bank itself,

    if only through loss of a valued customer. But here, as in

    Brandon, "this case presents a situation of direct harm to [a _______

    federally insured bank] resulting from a scheme specifically

    designed to fraudulently avoid the requirements of that

    federally insured bank in order to obtain funds originating

    directly from [that bank]." 17 F.3d at 427 n.16. As in

    Brandon, we confine our affirmance to the present facts and _______

    decline to contrive general rules to govern myriad

    variations.

    Affirmed. ________

















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