United States v. Zvi

Roz Ben Zvi (defendant) owned, and Luiz Ben Zvi (defendant) was employed by, a jewelry store. Roz and Luiz staged a robbery at the store, falsely claiming to have lost millions of dollars in gold chain. Before the alleged robbery, the Zvis allegedly secretly sold all the purportedly stolen gold chain. The Zvis received almost $4 million in insurance money due to the alleged robbery. Roz was indicted for, among other things, filing false tax returns in violation of Internal Revenue Code (code) § 7206(1). At trial, the district court read the indictment, which alleged that the returns contained material false statements, to the jury. The district court also read § 7206(1), which referred to materiality, to the jury. The district court instructed the jury that the United States had the burden of proving that Roz did not believe the tax returns reflected the store’s true and correct gross sales and receipts or his personal income. Roz did not object to this instruction, which did not mention materiality. The district court further instructed the jury that it could find Roz guilty only if it found the specific misrepresentations that were alleged in the indictment. The jury convicted Roz, who appealed, arguing that the district court erred by not instructing the jury that any false statements in the returns had to be material.