United States v. Uco Oil Company, and Donald Simeon

Defendants were indicted on thirty counts of violating 18 U.S.C. Secs. 1001 and 2. Counts three through thirty of the indictment charged them with making false statements in gasoline service station activity reports, credit card invoices and a maximum selling price form which were submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS conducted an audit of defendant UCO in the performance of its audit function under the federal petroleum product price control program of the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. Each count of the indictment is based on a single document and charges in substance that it is both a false statement and a concealment of a material fact by trick, scheme or device. The falsifications relate to the retail price charged for gasoline, the volume sold or the total revenue derived at particular UCO stations.

This is an appeal from an order of the District Court dismissing the indictment as duplicitous after the government had refused to make an election. Defendants had contended that counts three through thirty were duplicitous in that each charged defendants both with having “made . . . false writings . . . knowing the same to contain false . . . statements” and…