## Facts

- McDonald’s ran national promotional games with high-value prizes administered by a sweepstakes company whose security director, Jerome Jacobson, controlled access to winning game pieces.
- Jacobson embezzled high-value game pieces and distributed them to various “recruits,” who then recruited “winners” (often friends or relatives) to redeem the pieces.
- Winners shared prize proceeds with the recruit, who in turn paid a portion to Jacobson.
- The government charged numerous defendants, including George Chandler, Jerome Pearl, Kevin J. Whitfield, and John Henderson, with participating in a single conspiracy to commit mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 371.
- At trial, the government conceded that recruits and winners generally did not know about one another, did not know Jacobson had stolen the pieces, and were unaware they were part of any broader scheme beyond their own redemption arrangements.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the single overarching conspiracy charged, rather than multiple separate conspiracies centered on Jacobson.
2. Whether a material and prejudicial variance occurred where the indictment alleged one conspiracy but the proof showed multiple conspiracies.
3. Whether trying defendants together on a single-conspiracy theory produced spillover prejudice warranting reversal.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit reversed the defendants’ conspiracy convictions and remanded.
- The court held the evidence did not establish the single conspiracy alleged in the indictment.
- The proof showed multiple separate conspiracies between Jacobson and each recruit/winner group, with no connecting agreement among the groups.
- The mismatch between the single-conspiracy charge and the multiple-conspiracy proof constituted a material variance that substantially prejudiced the defendants through spillover and guilt-by-association effects.

## Legal Principles

- A single “wheel” conspiracy requires more than a common central actor; the “spokes” must be aware of, and act in furtherance of, a single illegal enterprise.
- A hub-and-spoke arrangement without a “rim” (no awareness, coordination, or interdependence among spokes) is properly treated as multiple conspiracies.
- Similarity of conduct across groups and dealings with the same hub do not, by themselves, prove a single overarching agreement.
- When an indictment alleges a single conspiracy but trial proof establishes multiple conspiracies, a variance requires reversal if it affects substantial rights, including through evidentiary spillover in a joint trial.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the government proved, at most, separate Jacobson-centered conspiracies rather than one unified conspiracy, and that trying the defendants under a single-conspiracy theory created a prejudicial variance requiring reversal of the conspiracy convictions.


United States v. Chandler, 388 F.3d 796 (11th Cir. 2004)