In United States v. Tat, --- F.4th ---, No. 19-50034 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court reversed a conviction on one count of making a false entry in bank records in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1005 (Count 3), affirmed a conviction on a second count of the same offense (Count 2), and remanded for resentencing.
The case involved Tat aiding a money-laundering scheme that used cashier’s checks while she managed a branch of East West Bank.
The analysis focused on the fact that the bank entry for Count 3 was NOT literally false. The entry involved an actual customer withdrawal.
Cashier’s checks—unlike loans—cannot be issued until the bank receives funds. The bank would know that a real customer drew a real cashier’s check from the undisputed balance of her real account. How one chooses to “dispose of the fund[s] so obtained should, in the absence of misrepresentation on h[er] part, be of no interest to the bank, and certainly not to the criminal law.”
Even if Defendant made the entries with an intent to deceive bank officials, that satisfies only one of §1005’s three elements. Wolf, 820 F.2d at 1504. An intent to deceive is the offense’s mens rea, not the entire offense. It is no answer that the cashier’s check was related to a money laundering scheme; § 1956—not § 1005—outlaws money laundering. Accurate records reflecting a customer’s purchase of a cashier’s check from her bank account are not false entries under § 1005 solely because that check has a nexus to money laundering. We thus reverse Defendant’s conviction on Count 3.
