United States v. Velton Rogers

This a relatively straightforward appeal from a conviction of one count of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and five counts of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 . The appeal principally concerns routine challenges to the admissibility and sufficiency of the evidence, but raises one issue of first impression in this Circuit. That issue involves the relationship between the mail fraud conviction and the money laundering convictions that rest on the basis of subsequent activity.

The convictions in this case arise out of a large scale Ponzi scheme, IFR Trust (“IFR”). IFR’s investors were recruited for what they were told was a high-yield investment program, but was in fact a fraudulent scheme. Defendant Velton Rogers acted as a referral agent for the so-called IFR Trust, receiving a commission of 5 percent of all investor funds he brought into the program. The money Rogers took in from investors and deposited was either withdrawn by Rogers in the form of cashier’s checks and cash, paid to other investors to further the scheme, or transferred to another company operated by IFR’s creator, Larry Wilcoxson.

Athough the defendant went to trial on two counts of…