Conspiracy to commit wire fraud
All sixNOT OVERCOME — Groff+Walsh admitted Count 1
Scope/duration of Alan's membership; script vs closer (¶28); no Alan consumer-call voice
Element grid — Count 1
Element A — agreement between two or more persons to commit wire fraud
| Element | Government proof | Defense answer | Exhibit ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two or more persons agreed | Six charged defendants plus “others known and unknown”; ¶¶ 14–15 misrepresentation roster; ¶¶ 23–36 manner and means; Groff's signed agreement pleading guilty to Count 1; Walsh's guilty plea to Count 1 | No available answer denies that a sales operation existed or that two men pled guilty to conspiring. The answer is scope: what agreement, on what misrepresentations, and over what period. Two entity co-defendants make a “no agreement at all” theory unusable | [EX-A] ¶ 17; [EX-G] Doc 96-1 ¶ 1; [EX-H] ECF 126 |
| Redmond was a party to that agreement | ¶ 6 control; nominee structure ¶ 15(p); Overt Acts naming Redmond as actor or recipient | Not one public plea admits an agreement with Redmond. Groff's ¶ 1 locates his own role as “a salesman and manager” of the Bene Market Group and names no co-conspirator; no public factual proffer describes any Redmond directive | [EX-E] § 7; [EX-G] |
| Unlawful objective was wire fraud | ¶¶ 17–22 object; charged wires Counts 2–20 as the fruit | Objective as pleaded includes conduct the government itself concedes was lawful: “During the charged period, neither the ACA nor state insurance laws made it illegal to offer for sale any of these Limited Benefit Plans” — ECF 96 at 6; ECF 127 at 6, verbatim in both | [EX-E] § 5; [EX-G]; [EX-H] |
Element A status: NOT OVERCOME. Two co-defendants have pled guilty to Count 1. The existence of a conspiracy is locked as to them. Nothing in the record eliminates this element, and no filing should suggest otherwise.
Element B — knowing and willful joinder with intent to further the objective
| Element | Government proof | Defense answer | Exhibit ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of the scheme's fraudulent character | Overt Act 4 (2/16/2019, Redmond received a list of 25 pending licensing issues and complaints); Overt Act 8 (9/13/2019, Redmond emailed about seven outstanding regulatory actions against Groff); Overt Act 25 (1/10/2021, list showing 7 of 19 closers licensed); Overt Act 61 (1/7/2022, list showing 4 of 16 licensed) | Notice of regulatory complaints is notice of a compliance problem, not agreement to a lie told to a purchaser. Willful blindness (5.06) is the government's fallback and must be resisted on the instruction, not conceded | [EX-A]; [EX-F] 72 OVERT ACTS MAP |
| Intent to further, by direction | Overt Act 1 (payroll transition); Overt Act 16 (6/23/2020 “combat 'this is not insurance'” email = Count 2 wire); Overt Act 30 (4/21/2021 pull Groff calls for training = Count 6); Count 7 KISS brochure; Overt Act 65 (4/1/2022 Bene-to-Seguro transition); Overt Act 69 (6/7/2022 “seek approval from me first … ZERO” = Counts 19–20) | ¶ 28 of the government's own instrument states that closers made false statements “beyond those contained in the standard scripts.” If the fraud the jury is asked to punish is the closer ad-lib, then intent to join that fraud is a Pinkerton and variance question | [EX-A] ¶¶ 25, 28; [EX-C] WIRE_TABLE footer |
| Intent proved through the defendant's own voice | Counts 2 and 7: Redmond is the sender. Counts 4, 8, 19, 20: Redmond is recipient or the source of the quoted instruction | Redmond is the sender on 2 of 7 email wires and the speaker on 0 of 12 customer calls. From the government's own ECF 148 Attachment A (38 [REDACTED]: 7 internal + 31 Five9 victim calls) he is the primary subject of exactly three, and not one is a charged wire | [EX-C] WIRING_ZERO; [EX-E] § 6; [EX-M] |
| Refund and complaint conduct as intent evidence | Overt Acts 42, 44, 54, 66: instructions to withhold refunds until the purchaser retracted a fraud or Department of Insurance complaint, and to send refund emails while directing “DO NOT REFUND” | These are the hardest overt acts in the instrument to explain and they name Redmond directly. They are not charged as wires, so they arrive as § 1349 and § 2326 context. Their reach must be fought on relevance and on limiting instructions, not on the facts | [EX-F] 72 OVERT ACTS MAP |
Element B status: NOT OVERCOME. It is weakened at the margin — Redmond is not the voice on any charged consumer call, and the instrument itself splits scripts from closer ad-libs. It is not eliminated. Counsel should not be told this element is dead.
Element C — the incorporated § 1343 components
| Element | Government proof | Defense answer | Exhibit ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scheme to defraud / obtain money by material falsehood | ¶¶ 14–15 roster; the twelve charged calls; the quoted “national enrollment center” text (Count 8) | Materiality is the live lane: Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999) [VERIFY PINCITE]. Government's noticed expert JoAnn Volk will opine that “prior to being asked to purchase a plan, a consumer should be provided a written summary” — an opinion about a duty the government has already conceded did not exist. That is a Rule 702 motion, not a cross | [EX-A]; [EX-E] § 5 |
| Property object | Premiums and commissions | Because the alleged object is money, the right-to-control line is unavailable and irrelevant. The Ciminelli attack is foreclosed by Kousisis v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 1382 — RETIRED. Do not file it. | [EX-E] § 4 |
| Interstate wire in furtherance | Charged wires Counts 2–20; interstate call and email routing | Furtherance is real but not automatic. For the seven internal emails the government must show the transmission advanced the scheme, not merely that it crossed a line. Whether the government can prove interstate routing for each internal email is [UNVERIFIED] in the present record | [EX-A]; [EX-D] § 2 |
Kill status — Count 1: NOT OVERCOME. Two co-defendants have pled guilty to this count; two of the six defendants are entities Redmond owned or controlled; Redmond authored two of the charged wires (2 and 7); the notice overt acts are documentary; the refund-conditioning overt acts name him directly; ¶ 72 puts his own sworn words in the case.
Cites — Doc 16 ¶17; Doc 96-1 ¶1; ECF 126 · Grid: CH_01 §3, kill status CH_01 §10 · Matrix: EXHIBIT A §A-1 row 1 · Unverified hole — Barrera counts; sealed 97/130 · Window 2018-01-01 to 2022-12-02 · Cooperator pled: Groff + Walsh YES; Barrera UNVERIFIED · Alan on the communication: N/A (agreement, not a single wire)