United States v. Stephen Nichols

Nichols and other deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department (“LASD”) stole nearly $8 million of confiscated drug money. Nichols was charged with a number of crimes, among them violating 18 U.S.C. § 666 , which makes it a federal offense in certain circumstances to steal from organizations that receive federal funding. Nichols unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the section 666 charge, and then pled guilty to a number of counts, conditioned on his right to appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss the 666. Nichols contends mainly that the government failed to establish that the LASD received in excess of $10,000 in “benefits” in any one year from a “Federal program,” as required by 18 U.S.C. § 666 (b). We review de novo. United States v. Ripinsky, 20 F.3d 359, 361 (9th Cir.1994).

1. Nichols first points to § 666(c), which excludes local agencies that receive federal funds only as “bona fide salary, wages, fees, or other compensation paid, or expenses paid or reimbursed, in the usual course of business.” Nichols would have us extrapolate from this language a rule that the statute covers only agencies that receive gifts or charitable distributions from the federal…