United States v. Rutgard
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
116 F.3d 1270 (1997)

- Written by Sara Rhee, JD
Facts
Jeffrey Jay Rutgard (defendant) was an ophthalmologic surgeon with his own medical practice. Between 1988 and 1992, Rutgard ran a scheme in which he fraudulently billed Medicare. Rutgard deposited several million dollars of his Medicare receipts into an existing family-trust account containing $560,000. On May 5, 1992, Rutgard arranged for a wire transfer of $5.6 million from his family-trust account to another bank account. On May 6, he arranged for another wire transfer of nearly $2 million between the same accounts. Rutgard was indicted for several offenses, including the withdrawal of criminally derived proceeds from the family-trust account in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. Evidence at trial established that $46,000 of Rutgard’s funds were directly attributable to his fraudulent activity. It was further established that after the wire transfers were made, more than $46,000 remained in the family-trust account. Rutgard was convicted for violating § 1957. Rutgard appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Noonan, J.)
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