In United States v. Maher, No. 19-10074 (Apr. 8,
2020) (William Pryor, Branch, Luck), the Court—without oral argument—rejected
the defendant’s statute of limitations argument.
The defendant was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the
United States by committing mail fraud, wire fraud, and receiving/concealing/retaining
government property. The Court affirmed that conspiracy conviction
because, although the defendant argued that he was not timely indicted for
receiving/concealing/retaining government property, there was no dispute about
the other two objects of the conspiracy, for which the jury found him guilty in
a special verdict.
The Court also concluded that the government timely indicted
the defendant for receiving/concealing/retaining government property. Although the defendant focused only on the
date he received the property, the alternative means of retaining property rendered
it a continuous offense. And because the
government charged the defendant within five years of the last date he retained
the property, there was no statute of limitations problem.
