Filed: Jun. 05, 2015
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-4711 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. STEPHEN G. FIELDS, Defendant – Appellant. No. 13-4818 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. TROY BRANDON WOODARD, Defendant – Appellant. No. 13-4863 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. EDWARD J. WOODARD, Defendant – Appellant. Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson,
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-4711 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. STEPHEN G. FIELDS, Defendant – Appellant. No. 13-4818 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. TROY BRANDON WOODARD, Defendant – Appellant. No. 13-4863 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. EDWARD J. WOODARD, Defendant – Appellant. Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, ..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4711
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
STEPHEN G. FIELDS,
Defendant – Appellant.
No. 13-4818
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
TROY BRANDON WOODARD,
Defendant – Appellant.
No. 13-4863
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
EDWARD J. WOODARD,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, District
Judge. (2:12-cr-00105-RAJ-DEM-3; 2:12-cr-00105-RAJ-DEM-4; 2:12-
cr-00105-RAJ-DEM-1)
Argued: May 13, 2015 Decided: June 5, 2015
Before MOTZ, SHEDD, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Shedd wrote the opinion,
in which Judge Motz and Judge Diaz joined.
ARGUED: Eugene Victor Gorokhov, BURNHAM & GOROKHOV, PLLC,
Washington, D.C.; Andrew Michael Sacks, SACKS & SACKS, Norfolk,
Virginia; James Brian Donnelly, J. BRIAN DONNELLY, P.C.,
Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellants. Katherine Lee Martin,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee. ON BRIEF: Ziran Zhang, BURNHAM & GOROKHOV, PLLC,
Washington, D.C., for Appellant Stephen G. Fields. Dana J.
Boente, United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, Melissa E.
O'Boyle, Uzo E. Asonye, Assistant United States Attorneys,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Norfolk, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2
SHEDD, Circuit Judge:
In this appeal, Stephen G. Fields, Edward J. Woodard, and
Troy Brandon Woodard raise a host of evidentiary and procedural
challenges to their convictions following a ten week jury trial
for conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Troy Brandon Woodard also
challenges his sentence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm
the convictions and sentence.
I.
The Bank of the Commonwealth (“the Bank”) was a community
bank with branches throughout southeastern Virginia and coastal
North Carolina. Appellant Edward Woodard (“Woodard”) served as
its longtime Chief Executive Officer, and Appellant Stephen
Fields was its Executive Vice President and Commercial Loan
Officer. Appellant Troy Brandon Woodard (“Brandon”) was
Woodard’s son and a Vice President of the Bank’s wholly-owned
mortgage loan subsidiary. The Bank failed in 2008, and the
FDIC, serving as the Bank’s receiver, sustained approximately
$333 million in losses.
On December 20, 2012, a federal grand jury returned a 26-
count indictment charging Woodard, Fields, Brandon, and two
additional defendants, who are not parties to this appeal, with
a massive bank fraud conspiracy and various financial crimes
arising therefrom. The indictment alleged that the objectives
3
of the conspiracy were to hide the true financial condition of
the Bank and to benefit the conspirators at the Bank’s expense.
The trial began on March 19, 2013 and lasted approximately
ten weeks. The government called 48 witnesses and entered over
600 exhibits into evidence. The defendants called 44 witnesses
and entered over 400 exhibits. All five defendants testified on
their own behalf.
After deliberating for four days, the jury returned a
guilty verdict against the Appellants. Woodard was convicted of
conspiracy to commit bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1349; making a
false entry in a bank record under 18 U.S.C. § 1005; four counts
of unlawful participation in a loan under 18 U.S.C. § 1005; two
counts of making a false statement to a financial institution
under 18 U.S.C. § 1014; two counts of misapplication of bank
funds under 18 U.S.C. § 656; and bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. §
1344. Fields was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud
under 18 U.S.C. § 1349; two counts of making a false entry in a
bank record under 18 U.S.C. § 1005; making a false statement to
a financial institution under 18 U.S.C. § 1014; and two counts
of misapplication of bank funds under 18 U.S.C. § 656. Brandon
was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud under 18 U.S.C.
§ 1349 and three counts of unlawful participation in a loan
under 18 U.S.C. § 1005.
4
The district court sentenced Woodard to a 276 month term of
imprisonment, Fields to a 204 month term of imprisonment, and
Brandon to a 96 month term of imprisonment. The court also
ordered restitution payments. All three defendants timely
appealed their convictions to this Court.
On appeal, Fields challenges the district court’s time
limitation of his direct testimony, its exclusion of certain
defense evidence as hearsay, its limitation of the scope of
cross-examination of two prosecution witnesses, its decision to
allow another prosecution witness to testify as a lay witness
rather than as an expert, and its exclusion of certain defense
evidence as irrelevant. Woodard challenges the sufficiency of
the evidence against him, the district court’s exclusion of
certain evidence regarding the Bank’s failure to apply for
federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, and the
district court’s exclusion of certain evidence regarding the
effect of the 2008 national financial crisis on the Bank’s
finances and operations. Brandon challenges the sufficiency of
the evidence against him as well, his sentence enhancement based
on the court’s calculation of the amount of loss that he caused
the Bank, and his sentence enhancement for abusing a position of
trust.
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II.
We first examine Fields’ claim that the district court
committed reversible error by limiting the duration of his
direct testimony. We review a district court’s decision to
limit the duration of a witness’s testimony for abuse of
discretion. United States v. Midgett, 488 F.3d 288, 297 (4th
Cir. 2007) (citing United States v. Turner,
198 F.3d 425, 429
(4th Cir. 1999)). Federal Rule of Evidence 611(a) provides that
“[t]he court should exercise reasonable control over the mode
... of examining witnesses and presenting evidence so as to (1)
make those procedures effective for determining the truth [and]
(2) avoid wasting time... .” “It is well settled ... that a
trial court possesses broad discretion to control the mode of
interrogation of witnesses,” including the time limitations
placed on the interrogation of that witness.
Midgett, 488 F.3d
at 299-300. “A district court thus may impose ‘reasonable
restrictions’ on a defendant’s ability to present relevant
evidence” so long as those restrictions are not “‘arbitrary or
disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.’”
United States v. Woods,
710 F.3d 195, 200 (4th Cir. 2013)
(quoting United States v. Scheffer,
523 U.S. 303, 308 (1998) and
Rock v. Arkansas,
483 U.S. 44, 55-56 (1987)).
Here, the court notified Fields’ counsel well before
Fields’ direct examination began that the court intended to
6
“move it along” through each defendant’s case. J.A. 6489.
Fields’ counsel began his direct examination in the afternoon,
and upon adjourning for the evening, the court indicated that
counsel would be expected to finish the following morning. Once
counsel failed to finish the direct examination within that
timeframe, the court alerted him that he would be expected to
finish that afternoon. Ultimately, the court delayed
adjournment that day until 6:40pm to allow Fields’ counsel
additional time for the direct examination. Throughout the
examination, the court warned counsel repeatedly that he was
straying into irrelevant or marginally relevant lines of
questioning.
Fields’ counsel took four days to present his case, despite
his initial estimate that the case would take two to three days.
Fields’ direct examination lasted seven and one-half hours and
was the longest direct examination of any witness in the case.
In response to counsel’s objection that he had had insufficient
time to address each challenged transaction during direct
examination, the court noted that Fields was charged with fewer
counts than two of his codefendants, both of whom had testified
for a shorter amount of time. Finally, although the court
emphasized the wide latitude that Fields’ counsel had to inquire
into transactions on redirect that he had not addressed during
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the direct examination, Fields’ counsel declined to make use of
the entire time allotted for redirect.
In light of the court’s repeated warnings and extensions of
time during Fields’ direct testimony, and in light of the
greater amount of time that Fields had to present his case
relative to his codefendants, we conclude that the district
court did not abuse its discretion in limiting the duration of
Fields’ direct testimony.
III.
We next examine Woodard’s and Brandon’s claims that the
evidence supporting their convictions for conspiracy to commit
bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1349 is insufficient. 1 “A reviewing
court may set aside the jury’s verdict on the ground of
insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could
have agreed with the jury.” Cavazos v. Smith, 132 S. Ct. 2, 4
(2011) (citing Jackson v. Virginia,
443 U.S. 307 (1979)). “The
jury, not the reviewing court, weighs the credibility of the
evidence and resolves any conflicts in the evidence presented,
and if the evidence supports different, reasonable
interpretations, the jury decides which interpretation to
1
The elements of conspiracy to commit bank fraud are, in
relevant part, conspiring to execute a scheme to defraud a
financial institution. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1344, 1349.
8
believe.” United States v. Murphy, 35 F.3d 143, 148 (4th Cir.
1994) (internal citations omitted).
The government presented abundant evidence in support of
Woodard’s charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The
testimony of Eric Menden alone is sufficient to support
Woodard’s conviction. Menden, a longtime borrower from the
Bank, testified at trial that Woodard had informed him that
Woodard’s son Brandon was having difficulty making payments on
one of Brandon’s properties. Menden testified that Woodard
asked Menden to give Brandon money to make these payments, that
Menden did so, and that Menden obtained the money he gave
Brandon from the Bank. This money, Menden testified, was
delivered to Brandon in cash in a brown paper bag. If the jury
chose to believe this testimony – as, indeed, drawing all
inferences in the light most favorable to the government, we
must assume it did – then this testimony alone would be
sufficient to sustain Woodard’s conviction for conspiracy to
commit bank fraud. We therefore affirm his conviction on this
count.
There is also sufficient evidence against Brandon on the
conspiracy charge. To take one example, Kevin Glenn, the
general contractor who remodeled the Bank’s Suffolk branch,
testified that Brandon was present when his father, Woodard,
instructed Glenn to “wrap ... up” certain costs of the remodel
9
of Brandon’s personal residence into the invoices that the Bank
was paying for the remodel of its Suffolk branch. J.A. 6634.
Glenn testified that he inflated those invoices as instructed,
and that the Bank paid them. This evidence, if believed by the
jury, is sufficient to support Brandon’s conviction for
conspiracy to commit bank fraud. We therefore affirm Brandon’s
conviction on this count. 2
IV.
Based on the foregoing, Appellants’ convictions and
Brandon’s sentence are hereby
AFFIRMED.
2
We have reviewed the record as to all of Appellants’
challenges and find no reversible error in any of them.
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