IRAC for United States, Appellee, -V- Mark P. Kaiser, Defendant-Appellant. (Case Study Sample)

United States, Appellee, -V- Mark P. Kaiser, Defendant-Appellant.
Name
Institution
Date
United States, Appellee, -V- Mark P. Kaiser, Defendant-Appellant.
The Issue of the Case
The issue of the case is an appeal by Mark P. Kaiser from the conviction and sentence judgment that was entered after a trial in New York District Court on May 18th, 2007. The government had claimed that Kaiser who is a high-level executive at USF(U.S Food Service) had fraudulently misrepresented some information about USF financial condition and that of Royal Ahold N.V.
The government had charged Kaiser with five counts. On count one, the government alleged that Kaiser had taken part in a conspiracy that was meant to commit securities fraud by falsifying records and books and making false filings with SEC(Securities and Exchange Commission) which violates 18 U.S.C. code 371. On count two, the government alleged that Kaiser violated 15 U.S.C. code 78j (b) and 78ff, 17 C.F.R. code 240 by committing securities fraud. On count three the government charged Kaiser of making a false filing to SEC on behalf of Ahold which violates 15 U.S.C. code 78m(a), 18 U.S.C. code 2, and 78ff, 17 C.F.R. code 240.13a-1.
The district court verdict had convicted Kaiser of all the counts of the indictment. However, on count one the jury identified that the main objective behind the conspiracy was to file false filing and falsify records and books but not to commit securities fraud. The judge, therefore, sentenced Kaiser for an 84 months imprisonment and imposed a fine of $50,000.
In his appeal, Kaiser argued that the instructions of the district court's jury had two errors, sentencing had two errors and the evidentiary rulings had three erroneous. Kaiser contended that the jury instructions had errors resulting from conscious avoidance theory and that the element of the willingness of the securities fraud. In addition, Kaiser contended that the district court had made an error in admitting evidence relating to fraud dealings before the securities fraud he was being charged for started in April 2nd, 2000 and in making a hearsay statement that the General counsel of USF intend to report to the SEC about Kaiser. Finally, Kaiser claimed that the district court had calculated his sentence improperly.
Relevant Law
The issue at hand is that of interpretation of the law as to whether willfulness requires one to be aware of the unlawfulness only or whether it also requires a person to be knowledgeable of regulation. 15 U.S.C. code 78ff (a) states that only willful violations of a provision are criminalized. Further, Under section 32, the United States v. Cassese, 428 F.3d 92, 98 (2d Cir. 2005) states that in regard to a misstatement in public filings, the defendant must have acted with the knowledge to make false statements. Further, 15 U.S.C. code 78ff (a) states that no person should be imprisoned for violating any regulation if he/she proves he/she did not know of the existence of such a regulation. This creates a dilemma of what willful means and when one can be prosecuted for willfulness. Some past cases such as United States v. Dixon, 536 F.2d 1388, 1395 (2d Cir. 1976) states that an individual may violate a SEC rule willfully even without the know how that it exists. On th