## Facts

- David Reaume opened checking accounts at Monroe Bank & Trust, a federally insured bank, using aliases and small initial deposits; associates opened related accounts as well.
- Reaume and others wrote checks on those accounts to buy merchandise at national retailers while knowing the accounts lacked sufficient funds.
- The merchandise purchased with the bad checks was returned to the retailers for cash, which the participants kept.
- When the retailers (or check-guarantee companies) presented the checks, the bank refused payment due to insufficient funds.
- Retailers or their insurers bore the actual losses; the bank did not pay out on the checks.
- Reaume was indicted, tried by jury, and convicted of bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1344; he appealed on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds, arguing he did not intend to defraud the bank and the bank suffered no loss.

## Issues

1. Whether evidence is sufficient for bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1344 when the defendant’s scheme primarily targets merchants and the bank neither honors the checks nor suffers an actual loss.
2. Whether § 1344 requires proof that the bank was the intended victim, or whether placing a federally insured bank at risk of loss is enough.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the government need not prove the bank was the intended victim or that the bank suffered actual loss.
- The evidence allowed a rational jury to find a knowing fraudulent scheme that exposed a federally insured bank to a risk of loss.

## Legal Principles

- Under 18 U.S.C. § 1344, actual loss to a bank is not required; exposing a federally insured bank to a risk of loss can satisfy the statute.
- The intent element may be met by intent to defraud some entity when the fraudulent conduct places a bank at risk of loss.
- A defendant may commit bank fraud even if third parties are the immediate victims, so long as the scheme implicates bank funds or could cause the bank to transfer funds.
- On sufficiency review, the appellate court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and asks whether any rational trier of fact could find the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Reaume’s § 1344 conviction because his bad-check scheme, though directed at merchants, used accounts at a federally insured bank in a way that could have caused the bank to disburse funds, thereby placing the bank at risk of loss; proof of actual bank loss or that the bank was the intended victim was unnecessary.


United States v. Reaume, 338 F.3d 577 (6th Cir. 2003)