United States v. Ratliff

623 F.2d 1293 (1980)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ratliff (D) exaggerated the present value of pre-World War II German corporate bonds, and tried to use them as collateral for a bank loan. The German bank was destroyed during the war, so only some of the bonds were redeemable. The list of redeemable bonds was located in Germany. The government (P) sought to prove that D's bonds were worthless. Mintken, a German bond and bank examiner, testified for P, stating that D's bonds were not on the master list. D challenged this testimony with the best evidence rule. He claimed that since the master list was not available at trial, Mintken could not testify about it. However, the court admitted his testimony, and D was convicted. D appealed, claiming that the court made a mistake when it did not determine whether or not the list was privileged when it ruled it admissible.