## Facts

- Audley Evans served as Executive Director of the Tampa Housing Authority, a city-created public housing agency receiving substantial HUD funding, including Section 8 rent-subsidy funds.
- After resigning, Evans remained an unpaid consultant to the Authority and became Executive Director of Meridian River Development Corp. (MRDC), a nonprofit created by the Authority to implement Authority housing plans and treated as an instrumentality of the Authority.
- MRDC owned residential properties and received Section 8 payments from the Authority on behalf of eligible tenants.
- C. Hayward Chapman formed a company that received MRDC contracts.
- Trial evidence showed Chapman provided Evans personal financial benefits, including a letter of credit used as collateral for Evans’s personal loan and payments toward Evans’s personal creditors.
- The government alleged these benefits were tied to Evans’s official influence over federally funded housing decisions and contracting.

## Issues

1. Whether Evans was a “public official” under 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(1) while acting as an unpaid consultant and MRDC executive director.
2. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 201 applies to officials of a local housing authority and its instrumentality administering HUD programs and funds.
3. Whether Wharton’s Rule bars conviction for conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371) in addition to substantive bribery/gratuity offenses under § 201.
4. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the bribery, illegal gratuity, and false-statement convictions.
5. Whether Evans’s sentence was affected by reversible guideline-calculation error.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit held Evans qualified as a “public official” under § 201 because he acted for or on behalf of the United States in an official function by administering and directing federally funded housing programs through the Authority and MRDC.
- The court rejected the Wharton’s Rule challenge and allowed separate convictions for conspiracy and substantive § 201 offenses.
- The court vacated Chapman’s illegal gratuity convictions (Counts 69–72).
- The court vacated Evans’s illegal gratuity convictions on Counts 45–48 and Evans’s false-statement convictions on Counts 120–121.
- The court affirmed Evans’s remaining convictions (including conspiracy, bribery, and other gratuity/false-statement counts) and otherwise affirmed the judgment, leaving sentencing largely intact except as affected by the vacated counts.

## Legal Principles

- “Public official” in 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(1) includes a person “acting for or on behalf of the United States” in an official function; formal federal employment or salary is not required.
- Administration and control of federally funded programs through local or quasi-public entities can satisfy § 201’s “acting for or on behalf of” requirement when the person exercises official authority over federal program implementation.
- Wharton’s Rule generally does not bar a separate conspiracy conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 371 for conduct also constituting bribery or illegal gratuities under § 201; conspiracy is a distinct offense addressing added dangers of coordinated criminal action.
- Sufficiency review is conducted independently on appeal, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government; convictions may be vacated when the record fails to establish required statutory elements for particular counts.

## Conclusion

The court treated a local housing official controlling HUD-funded housing activities as a federal “public official” for § 201 purposes, permitted separate conspiracy liability alongside bribery/gratuity offenses, and affirmed most of Evans’s convictions while vacating specific gratuity and false-statement counts (and all of Chapman’s gratuity convictions) for insufficient proof on those counts.


United States v. Evans, 344 F.3d 1131 (11th Cir. 2003)