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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.

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Holding and Reasoning (Noonan, J.)

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