Usav.Matthew G. Munksgard
Matthew Munksgard obtained several lines of credit by submitting fraudulent contracts to a Florida bank, including contracts bearing a real employee’s forged signature and fictional employees’ names. A jury convicted him of making false statements to an FDIC-insured bank and aggravated identity theft. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The government’s evidence of the bank’s FDIC insurance was limited, but a charter-era certification and testimony from a longtime bank employee were sufficient when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict. The court also held that Munksgard “used” another person’s means of identification when he employed that person’s signature to support a loan application; the statute did not require an intent to impersonate or act on the victim’s behalf. A dissent would have vacated the bank-fraud convictions because the government failed to prove the insurance element beyond a reasonable doubt and should not receive a presumption supplying missing proof. The majority left the convictions and sentences intact.
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