United States Seventh Circuit

A conviction of a defendant-police officer for stealing from evidence locker of the police department is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the government failed to prove an element of the wire fraud charge, count 3 of the indictment, that the defendant transmitted or caused to be transmitted a wire communication; 2) district court did not err in finding sufficiency of the indictment under FRCP 7(c)(1); 3) the court did not abuse its discretion in the exclusion of evidence about possible previous robberies as irrelevant; 4) district court did not err in refusing to give a proposed jury instruction as defendant was not entitled to a theory-of-defense jury instruction where the proposed instruction was not an accurate statement of the law and defendant's recantation defense is unsupported by evidence in the case. Defendant's sentence in vacated and remanded for resentencing.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/27/2009
• Decided 08/20/2009
• Published 08/20/2009

Judges

• RIPPLE, Circuit Judge., Before CUDAHY, RIPPLE and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Steven D. Weinhoeft (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Fairview Heights, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee., Gordon E. Freese, Attorney (argued), Clayton, MO, for Defendant-Appellant.