United States v. Lee
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
296 F.3d 792 (2002)
- Written by Alex Ruskell, JD
Facts
Kent Lee (defendant), a video-rental store owner, pleaded conditionally guilty to wire fraud after he created a website to defraud Japanese runners who wanted to compete in the Honolulu Marathon. The official marathon website did not permit online registration from Japan, so Lee created a fake site that included a registration form in Japanese that collected credit-card numbers. Lee created the fake site by copying the real site’s files onto a computer server. The creator of the legitimate site testified that Lee could have created his fake site without knowing much about the site itself by using off-the-shelf software. Alternatively, Lee could have used a text editor to copy the website page by page. After Lee’s conviction, the trial court imposed a special-skills sentence enhancement that increased the conviction’s penalties. Lee appealed, arguing that the prosecution failed to prove he used special skills to create the fake website.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Kleinfeld, J.)
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