## Facts

- George Crisci served as chief engineer at a senior-care facility in Mount Vernon, New York.
- Over roughly six weeks in 1999, he prepared false invoices using contractors’ letterhead and caused the facility to issue checks payable to third-party contractors to satisfy fictitious accounts payable.
- He fraudulently endorsed and cashed twenty checks totaling about $95,000.
- The checks were drawn on facility accounts at two banks and were cashed through a check-cashing company used for employees’ paychecks.
- After being terminated, Crisci was interviewed by FBI agents and denied details of the scheme, leading to a charge for making false statements.

## Issues

1. Whether an indictment is duplicitous or otherwise defective when a single bank-fraud count charges both 18 U.S.C. § 1344(1) and § 1344(2).
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the bank-fraud convictions, including the element that the scheme exposed a financial institution to a risk of loss.
3. Whether any trial errors required reversal of the bank-fraud or false-statement convictions.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the convictions.
- The court held that charging both § 1344(1) and § 1344(2) in a single count is not duplicitous because the subsections describe alternative means of committing one bank-fraud offense.
- The court concluded that proof satisfying either subsection is sufficient to sustain a conviction under § 1344.
- The court rejected Crisci’s sufficiency arguments, finding adequate evidence that presenting the fraudulently endorsed checks created at least a risk of loss to the banks.
- The court also affirmed the false-statement conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and found no reversible instructional or evidentiary error.

## Legal Principles

- An indictment is not duplicitous when it charges, in one count, alternative statutory means of committing a single offense.
- 18 U.S.C. § 1344(1) and § 1344(2) are alternative means of committing bank fraud; the government need only prove a violation of either subsection to support conviction.
- For bank fraud, actual loss to a financial institution is not required where the evidence shows the scheme exposed the bank to a risk of loss through the processing and payment of fraudulent instruments.
- A conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 may be sustained where a defendant knowingly and willfully makes materially false statements to federal investigators during an investigation.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit upheld Crisci’s bank-fraud and false-statement convictions, holding that § 1344’s two subsections set out alternative means of committing a single bank-fraud offense, so a count charging both is not duplicitous and can be proven by showing a violation of either subsection.


United States v. Crisci, 273 F.3d 235 (2d Cir. 2001)