United States v. Robert Andreen

Appellant Robert Andreen, an attorney licensed to practice in California, was indicted with numerous codefendants, and charged for violations of federal laws relating to the embezzlement of union trust funds. Andreen was indicted on nine counts for his role in various schemes to embezzle money and credits from trust funds established for San Diego construction workers. He had been the attorney for the trusts. The codefendants were trustees.

Andreen initially faced a jury trial with the codefendants. The trial court denied his motions to sever the counts and to sever Andreen’s case from the other defendants. Andreen then waived trial by jury and elected to be tried by the court, simultaneously with eight codefendants’ trial by jury. Following a three month trial, generating over 8,000 pages of testimony, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts as to Andreen’s codefendants. We consider challenges to those convictions in separate dispositions. After receiving the jury verdict as to the codefendants, the court found Andreen guilty on four of nine counts. He received a five-year sentence for each count, to run concurrently.

On appeal Andreen claims the evidence did not…