United States v. Milton Zucker Mende

Milton Mende appeals his conviction and sentence for conspiracy, multiple counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Mende alleges that the district court erred in three ways: failing to grant his motion for mistrial based on improper prose-cutorial comments on his exercise of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination; admitting evidence of his prior fraudulent conduct; and calculating his base offense level. We AFFIRM.

I. BACKGROUND

From 1984 until 1990, Mende and his co-conspirators, Robert Turman and Samuel Longo, organized and implemented a complex loan fee fraud scheme. Beginning in 1984, Mende created a series of worthless shell companies backed by millions of dollars in nonexistent assets. He used false documentation to deceive accountants into certifying that his companies were backed by millions of dollars which, in fact, did not exist.

Mende then sent out false financial packages and made phone calls to hundreds of prospective clients in order to solicit advance fees for nonexistent loans and loan guarantees. Based on these financial packages, which contained lists of fictitious assets, falsified financial statements, and a fictional…