## Facts

- Morris D. Brooks, a Postal Service accounts-payable employee, made false entries in postal records to generate eight unauthorized U.S. Treasury checks totaling over $180,000, payable to persons with no postal claim.
- Rabbi Elyakim G. Rosenblatt, dean of a rabbinical college, deposited (“laundered”) the eight checks through the college’s bank account at Brooks’s request and kept about 10% as a fee.
- The prosecution stipulated that Rosenblatt did not know Brooks had caused unauthorized checks to be issued.
- Brooks represented to Rosenblatt that the checks were valid and that the laundering would help some payees evade taxes and help others conceal kickbacks on government contracts.
- Brooks pleaded guilty to conspiracy and one count of falsifying postal records and testified against Rosenblatt.
- Rosenblatt was convicted by a jury in the Southern District of New York of conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and an $8,000 fine.

## Issues

1. Whether a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 371 for conspiracy to defraud the United States may stand when the alleged conspirators did not agree on the same specific fraudulent scheme or the essential nature of the fraud.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed Rosenblatt’s conviction.
- The court held that § 371 requires proof of an agreement on a common scheme or plan; a bare agreement “to defraud the United States,” without agreement on the type of fraud, is inadequate.
- Because the evidence (including the government’s stipulation) showed no shared understanding between Brooks’s theft-by-unauthorized-check scheme and Rosenblatt’s belief he was facilitating tax evasion or concealment of kickbacks using valid checks, the agreement element was not proved.

## Legal Principles

- A conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 requires a “meeting of the minds” on a common plan, including the essential nature and specific type of fraud to be committed against the United States.
- Proof that two persons each intended to defraud the United States, without proof that they agreed on the same fraudulent objective, does not establish a § 371 conspiracy.
- When the government’s proof shows materially different contemplated frauds between alleged conspirators, the agreement element fails as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The conviction was reversed because § 371 requires an agreement on the essential nature of a particular fraud against the United States, and the record established only a generalized intent to defraud coupled with fundamentally different understandings of what fraud was being carried out.


United States v. Rosenblatt, 554 F.2d 36 (2d Cir. 1977)