United States v. Saadey

393 F.3d 669 (6th Cir. 2005)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

From 1992 until the end of 1996, justice was for sale in Mahoning county. D was employed by the Mahoning County Prosecutor as an investigator. D participated in this case-fixing activity. D and James Vitullo, an Assistant Prosecutor in the Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office, were indicted for their activities. In Counts 14-16 D was indicted for filing false tax returns in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1); and in Counts 17-21 with making false statements in credit applications in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1014 and 2. D’s tax returns were placed into evidence and D admitted that they contained his signature. P then introduced into evidence false credit applications with D’s alleged signature on them. P failed to call any witnesses to testify that the signature on the applications was his. P sought to allow the jury to compare the signatures for themselves. As the district court noted in overruling Saadey's objection, the federal rule permits the trier of fact to compare documents with other documents that have been authenticated. The jury found D guilty on all of the false tax returns and false credit application counts. D appealed in part from the court's admission into evidence of documents containing D's signature without proper authentication of the evidence.