Justia Construction Law Opinion Summaries

Brothers Daniel and John owned four companies that offered remodeling services to homeowners. They provided honest work on construction jobs for cash customers, but duped numerous people into refinancing their homes and paying the loan proceeds directly to their companies, then left the jobs unfinished. They targeted neighborhoods on the South and West sides of Chicago, using telemarketers who looked for “elderly, ignorant homeowners,” and had customers sign blank contracts. They referred homeowners to specific loan officers and required the homeowners to sign letters of direction, so the title companies sent checks directly to the companies. From 2002 to 2006, the brothers collected about $1.2 million from more than 40 homeowner-victims. They were convicted of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343. The district court found that the loss calculation was more than $400,000 but less than $1,000,000 and accordingly increased the offense level, then applied enhancements because the conduct involved: vulnerable victims; violation of a prior court order; sophisticated means; mass-marketing; and leadership or organization of the scheme. The district court sentenced each brother to 168 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court reasonably estimated the amount of loss and properly enhanced the offense level further for the other five aggravating factors View "United States v. Sullivan" on Justia Law

Two years after she was raped, the victim reported her suspicion that Petitioner was the rapist. Petitioner went to the police station for an interview but refused to provide a DNA sample. After Petitioner left the station, the police took swabs of the armrests of the chair in which he had sat and submitted those swabs for DNA analysis. That DNA sample matched DNA collected from the victim’s home on the day of the rape. Petitioner was charged with first-degree rape and related offenses. Petitioner filed a pre-trial motion seeking suppression of the DNA evidence. The suppression court denied the motion, concluding that Petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the DNA evidence left on the chair. The court of special appeals affirmed the denial of the suppression motion. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of certiorari but conceded that the police lawfully obtained his genetic material from the armrests of the chair. The issue before the Court of appeals was whether law enforcement’s testing of the identifying loci within that DNA material was a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the DNA testing at issue was not a search under the Fourth Amendment. View "Raynor v. State" on Justia Law

Moeser was a commercial loan officer at a Milwaukee bank and, in 2004, prepared a presentation on behalf of co-conspirator Woyan for a $790,000 construction loan. Woyan operated PARC, which planned to build townhouses. Other conspirators included the project’s manager, architect, and real estate agent. Moeser told his superiors that the project’s land would serve as collateral and that PARC would provide the land up front. The bank approved the loan. Before closing, Moeser learned that Woyan did not own the land and did not have the funds to purchase it. Rather than informing his superiors, Moeser loaned Woyan $30,500 to purchase the land; Woyan paid Moeser back, plus $15,000 in interest, using funds from the loan’s initial disbursement of $111,299. Although Moeser learned that the project was not progressing and that disbursements were being used for other purposes, he continued to deceive his superiors. The project was never completed and PARC defaulted on its loan. Three contractors and a lumber supplier were never fully paid. The bank foreclosed. Moeser was charged with bank fraud, corrupt acceptance of money, fraud of a financial institution by an employee, and making false statements during an investigation. Moeser and his co-defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1344. The district court gave Moeser a below-guidelines sentence of two years’ probation, which Moeser did not appeal, but found him jointly and severally liable for full restitution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that he should be liable for a lesser share. View "United States v. Moeser" on Justia Law

The Fillers planned to demolish an unused Chattanooga factory. They knew the site contained asbestos, a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Environmental Protection Agency regulations require removal of all asbestos before any demolition. Asbestos materials must be wetted, lowered to the ground, not dropped, labeled, and disposed of at an authorized site. Fillers hired AA, a certified asbestos surveying company, which estimated that it would cost $214,650 to remove the material safely. Fillers hired Mathis to demolish the factory in exchange for salvageable materials. Mathis was required to use a certified asbestos contractor. Mathis applied for an EPA demolition permit, showing an estimated amount of asbestos far less than in the AA survey. The agency’s asbestos coordinator contacted Fillers to verify the amount of asbestos. Fillers did not send the survey, but provided a revised estimate, far less than the survey’s estimate. After the permit issued, the asbestos contractor removed “[m]aybe, like, 1/100th” of the asbestos listed in the AA survey. Temporary laborers were hired, not equipped with protective gear or trained to remove asbestos. Fillers supervised. The work dispersed dust throughout the neighborhood. An employee of a daycare facility testified that the children were unable to play outside. Eventually, the EPA sent out an emergency response coordinator and declared the site an imminent threat. Mathis and Fillers were convicted of conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 371, and violations of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7413(c). Fillers was also convicted of making a false statement, 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(2), and obstruction of justice, 18 U.S.C.1519. The district court sentenced Mathis to 18 months’ imprisonment and Fillers to 44 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.View "United States v. Mathis" on Justia Law

Jeremy Myers challenged the district court's dismissal of his malicious prosecution claim, alleging violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Specifically, he argued that Detective Brian Koopman obtained an arrest warrant by fabricating facts to create the illusion of probable cause. As a result, Myers spent three days in custody. Upon careful consideration of the facts of this case, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in dismissing Myers’ Fourteenth Amendment claim because an adequate state remedy existed, but the district court improperly dismissed Myers’ Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim as untimely after recasting it as a claim for false imprisonment. View "Myers v. Koopman" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of multiple felonies, including first degree murder. Defendant appealed, arguing primarily that the trial court erred in allowing him to represent himself, thus depriving him of his constitutional right to assistance of counsel. Specifically, Defendant contended that the trial court failed to make him aware of the disadvantages of self-representation or to make sufficient inquiries to assess whether Defendant's decision to proceed pro se was knowingly and intelligently made. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's convictions, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Petitioner to represent himself.View "State v. Davis" on Justia Law

Greco worked at MetroHealth, a county-owned health-care provider in Cleveland, from 1997 until 2009, supervising independent contractors who worked on MetroHealth construction projects, selecting contractors for small-scale no-bid maintenance projects, and authorizing payment for their work. Greco used his authority to facilitate a bribery scheme set up by his boss and Patel, the vice-president of a construction company. The participants became nervous and Greco took action to hide his involvement in the scheme, but Patel contacted the government and confessed; in exchange for a reduced sentence, Patel provided detailed information about the scheme. Greco was convicted of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery involving programs receiving federal funds (18 U.S.C. 666(a)(1)(B) and 371), violation of and conspiracy to violate the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. 1951), making false tax returns (26 U.S.C. 7206(1)), and conspiracy to commit mail fraud (18 U.S.C. 1349) and was sentenced to 112 months’ imprisonment and required to pay $994,734.84 in restitution to MetroHealth. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the court improperly applied a 12-level enhancement based on an erroneous loss calculation; improperly applied a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice; and imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. View "United States v. Greco" on Justia Law

Volpentesta owned and operated a construction business and used the company to defraud customers, investors, subcontractors, and the government. Charged with six counts of mail and wire fraud and 17 counts of federal tax violations, Volpentesta was represented by Federal Defender Gaziano. Due to the volume of discovery (about 11,000 pages of Bates-stamped discovery and 40 banker’s boxes of documents seized by the IRS), Gaziano ensured that Volpentesta could review the discovery electronically from the jail. When Volpentesta complained that the computer was too slow, Gaziano obtained an order for periodic transport to review the documents. Volpentesta eventually filed nine motions to substitute counsel, most related to the difficulty in reviewing discovery. The court ultimately allowed him to proceed pro se. Volpentesta was convicted, sentenced to a total of 133 months in prison, and ordered to pay more than one million dollars in restitution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel; that his waiver of his right to counsel was not knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently given; and that the district court erroneously denied his motions to continue the trial once he had decided to represent himself. View "United States v. Volpentesta" on Justia Law

Clark, the owner and president of an East St. Louis Illinois company, was charged with making false statements in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(3). Clark’s company had entered into a hauling services subcontract with Gateway, general contractor on a federally funded highway project in St. Louis, Missouri. Employers must pay laborers working on certain federally-funded projects the “prevailing wage,” calculated by the Secretary of Labor based on wages earned by corresponding classes of workers employed on projects of similar character in a given area, and maintain payroll records demonstrating prevailing wage compliance, 40 U.S.C. 3142(b) The indictment charged that Clark submitted false payroll records and a false affidavit to Gateway, representing that his employees were paid $35 per hour, when they actually received $13-$14 per hour. The district court dismissed for improper venue, finding that when a false document is filed under a statute that makes the filing a condition precedent to federal jurisdiction, venue is proper only in the district where the document was filed for final agency action. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Although the effects of the alleged wrongdoing may be felt more strongly in Missouri than in Illinois, the Southern District of Illinois is a proper venue. View "United States v. Clark" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Stanley Taylor appealed his convictions on: eighteen counts of Unlawful Sexual Conduct Against a Child by a Sex Offender; one count of Attempted Unlawful Sexual Conduct Against a Child by a Sex Offender; and two counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child. The indictment was based on allegations that Defendant engaged in unlawful sexual conduct with his two minor step-granddaughters. To avoid prejudice to Defendant, the sex offender element of his crimes was redacted from the indictment and a separate bench trial was held on that element after the jury returned its verdict. The State dismissed five counts at the close of the evidence. The jury was ultimately left to consider the following charges: four counts of Rape in the First Degree; four counts of Rape in the Second Degree; seven counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Child; one count of Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child; and one count of Endangering the Welfare of a Child. Defendant was found guilty of all of the offenses presented to the jury. Thereafter, in a bench trial, the Superior Court found that Defendant was a registered sex offender at the time of the offenses, resulting in guilty verdicts on all of the sex offender charges. Defendant was sentenced to eight life sentences, plus an additional 225 years of incarceration. Defendant has raised four arguments in his direct appeal to the Supreme Court: (1) that the prosecutor made an improper closing argument that jeopardized the fairness and integrity of his trial; (2) that the trial judge abused his discretion and violated Defendant's right to a fair trial when, despite Defendant's request, he refused to strike allegedly irrelevant and highly prejudicial testimonial evidence by a nurse; (3) the trial judge abused his discretion when he allowed the jury to view one of the complainant's out-of-court statements; and (4) the cumulative impact of all of the errors amounts to plain error. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that each of Defendant's first three assignments of error were without merit. Accordingly, there was no cumulative impact amounting to plain error. View "Taylor v. Delaware" on Justia Law