## Facts

- George Lindemann, Jr. was a partial owner of a show horse, Charisma, boarded at a family farm (“Cellular Farms”).
- Charisma died in its stall on December 15, 1990; the insurer concluded the death was natural and paid $250,000 under a life-insurance policy.
- Federal investigators later uncovered a paid horse-killing operation involving Tommy “The Sandman” Burns and Barney Ward, under which insured horses were killed so owners could collect insurance proceeds.
- Burns told investigators that Ward recruited him to travel from Illinois to New York to kill a horse for “Lindemann.”
- After arriving in New York, Burns placed sequential calls to Marion Hulick (Lindemann’s trainer) at Cellular Farms and was brought to the farm.
- Burns testified that Hulick said the horse needed to be killed that day because “George” wanted it done while he was abroad and because the horse was scheduled to travel the next day; Hulick also identified the policy amount as $250,000.
- The government’s theory was that Lindemann, through intermediaries, arranged Charisma’s death to collect insurance proceeds, and that interstate wire communications were used to arrange and execute the plan.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion by allowing, on redirect examination, testimony about Burns’s cooperation in other prosecutions and the broader horse-killing scheme to rehabilitate him after impeachment for bias and self-interest.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, including Lindemann’s knowing participation and the use (or foreseeable use) of interstate wire communications in furtherance of the scheme.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed Lindemann’s convictions on three counts of wire fraud.
- The court held the redirect testimony was permissible rehabilitation responsive to the defense’s impeachment theory that Burns was lying to gain leniency and had selectively targeted Lindemann.
- The court held the evidence allowed a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Lindemann knowingly participated in a scheme to defraud and that interstate wire communications were used, or were reasonably foreseeable to be used, to further the scheme.

## Legal Principles

- The scope of redirect examination is largely committed to the trial court’s discretion; redirect may address matters opened by cross-examination and may rehabilitate a witness against a specific bias attack.
- When a cooperating witness is impeached as uniquely biased or fabricating to obtain leniency, the prosecution may rebut that inference by eliciting contextual facts about the witness’s broader cooperation and involvement, subject to ordinary limits on unfair prejudice.
- Wire fraud requires proof of (1) a scheme to defraud, (2) intent to defraud, and (3) use of interstate wire communications in furtherance of the scheme.
- The wire-communications element is satisfied where interstate communications are an integral part of executing or arranging the fraud and are reasonably foreseeable in an interstate insurance-fraud plan, even if the defendant did not personally place each communication.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Lindemann’s wire-fraud convictions arising from an insurance scheme involving the death of an insured show horse, ruling that the government could rehabilitate its cooperating witness on redirect after a bias-based impeachment and that the record supported both Lindemann’s knowing participation and the foreseeable, scheme-furthering use of interstate wires.


United States v. Lindemann, 85 F.3d 1232 (7th Cir. 1996)