United States v. Phillip L. Segal

Appellant Phillip Segal was convicted of aiding and abetting a failure to file currency transaction reports (“CTRs”), under 18 U.S.C. § 2 and 31 U.S.C. § 1058 . Segal was also convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States, under 18 U.S.C'. § 371.

Segal claims that the Government elicited evidence at trial of unrelated misconduct, that he is not liable as a mere bank “customer,” and that the conspiracy conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 371 cannot be punished as a felony, since the accompanying conviction was a misdemeanor.

We affirm.

I

In 1979, Segal (“appellant”) became acquainted with Frank Vignand, assistant manager of a branch of San Francisco Federal Bank.

In early Autumn 1981, appellant and Vig-nand had several conversations relating to the bank’s obligation to report currency transactions.

In November, 1981, appellant told Vig-nand that he was anticipating receipt of a large sum of cash. Appellant indicated that he wanted to deposit this cash at Vig-nand’s bank without causing a CTR to be filed with the IRS.

On November 6, 1981, appellant informed Vignand that he had received the cash. The same day, appellant’s son arrived at Vignand’s bank with a briefcase.…