United States Seventh Circuit

Conviction for filing false tax returns is affirmed and sentence vacated where: 1) there was no impermissible constructive amendment of the indictment warranting a new trial; 2) there was sufficient evidence to support his conviction as the jury could have found that defendant signed the returns willfully and knowing that they were false; 3) defendant's claim that the government violated his due process rights when it took inconsistent positions in the two cases against him fails as the two trials did not involve the same underlying crime and the government did not take fundamentally opposite positions in its two prosecutions; and 4) defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him was not violated. Co-defendant Velasquez's acquittal for conspiring to defraud the United States is reversed where a rational jury could have determined that he had the requisite intent.

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/28/2008
• Decided 06/24/2009
• Published 06/24/2009

Judges

• WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge., Before ROVNER, WOOD, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• John F. Podliska, Amarjeet S. Bhachu (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant., Marc W. Martin, Chicago, IL, for Defendant, Cross-Appellee Velasquez., Patrick W. Blagen, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee Presbitero.