Tanner

MEMORANDUM *

The wire and mail fraud counts and the related conspiracy counts did indeed state an offense, so the judge did not err by denying the motion to dismiss those counts. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 , “honest services” fraud is not limited to public officials. 1 Regardless of whether the pump-and-dump salespeople’s customers were beneficiaries of a fiduciary duty, the salespeople owed the customers an ordinary fraud duty to not lie to them about the stock they were selling to them. *215 Therefore, the fraud Tanner was accused of amounted to a denial of the brokers’ honest services to their customers. We need not consider any facial challenge because, as applied in this case, the indictment stated a crime.

The district court did not err in denying the motion for a new trial based on the jury foreman’s responses to questions, because none of the questions called upon the jury foreman to disclose that he had nearly been sucked into a Cayman Island reinsurance fraud. 2 Had a question elicited this response, it would not have furnished the basis for a challenge for cause. 3 Therefore, the district court’s refusal to hold an evidentiary hearing was not an abuse of discretion.…