Opinion
Criminal Action 14-22
03-11-2024
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SUSAN HOFFMAN
SECTION L
ORDER & REASONS
Before the Court is Defendant Susan Hoffman's (“Hoffman”) Motion to Re-Urge and Adopt Pending Motions. R. Doc. 1071. After a review of the record, briefings, and applicable law, the Court rules as follows.
I. BACKGROUND
This white-collar criminal case was transferred to this section on January 31, 2022 upon the death of the late Judge Feldman. The Court is familiar with this case's lengthy procedural history and will only summarize the background relevant for the instant motions. In 2014, a grand jury returned a 25-count Second Superseding Indictment against defendants Peter Hoffman, Michael Arata, and Susan Hoffman. All three defendants were charged in Count 1 with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud by submitting false and misleading expenditure claims in applying for state tax credits under the Louisiana Motion Picture Incentive Act in relation to their company, Seven Arts Entertainment (“Seven Arts”) and the company's mansion on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans. Following an 11-day jury trial in April of 2015, the defendants were convicted of various charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and, as to Mr. Arata, making false statements to federal agents. Each defendant has engaged in motion practice and pursued appellate avenues as to various aspects of their trial and sentences, and the government also appealed because the District Court had set aside certain convictions following the jury verdict.
In 2018, the Fifth Circuit decided these various appeals and affirmed in part and reversed in part the sentences below. United States v. Hoffman, 901 F.3d 523 (2018). Relevant to the instant motion, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Hoffman's sentence of three years' probation. Id. at 559-60. The Fifth Circuit found that this sentence reflected her relatively small role in the fraud scheme and that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing her to only probation without incarceration. Id. The Fifth Circuit remanded portions of the case however and motion practice continued related to the remand, the Defendants' sentencings, and various discovery issues.
II. PRESENT MOTION
Susan seeks to reurge the following motions that had been previously terminated when the case was stayed: (1) Motion for Order to Show Cause, R. Doc. 815; (2) Motion to Vacate Order of Forfeiture, R. Doc. 829; (3) Motion to Set Aside Judgment, R. Doc. 897; (4) Motion for Discovery, R. Doc. 918; and (5) Motion to Compel, R. Doc. 927. Id. She also moves for permission to adopt Peter Hoffman's Brady Motion, R. Doc. 1052. Id. However, on March 7, 2024, the Court denied Peter Hoffman's Brady Motion and therefore the request to adopt this motion is now moot. See R. Doc. 1074.
The five motions Hoffman seeks to reurge all orbit the Brady issue and involve substantially the same arguments and materials. A brief description of each of the five motions she would reurge is below.
R. Doc. 815, Show Cause. In this motion, filed in 2019, Peter and Susan argued for an Order to Show Cause why LED and OIG should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with an order dated November 25, 2014, which instructed LED to respond to co-defendant Arata's subpoena duces tecum (R. Doc. 213). The Hoffmans first filed this motion on November 16, 2016. R. Doc. 706. Judge Feldman heard oral argument on this motion in March 2017. See Transcript, R. Doc. 731. He told them any ruling on the merits of contempt would be premature pending the Fifth Circuit appeal. It appears from the record that the evidentiary hearing was continued without a new date and that it never occurred.
This was before the Fifth Circuit issued its 2018 opinion regarding the parties' first appeal.
R. Doc. 829, Vacate Forfeiture. In July 2019, Hoffman filed to renew a motion to vacate forfeiture (referencing R. Doc. 793, filed in April 2019) relying on a 2017 case from the Supreme Court, Honeycutt v. United States, which dispenses with joint and several liability for coconspirators. 581 U.S. 443 (2017). In her renewed motion, R. Doc. 829, one argument offered was that the court retained the power to modify this forfeiture order because the judgment against Hoffman was not yet final. R. Doc. 829-2 at 7. This is no longer the case, but Hoffman seeks to reurge this renewed motion nevertheless.
R. Doc. 897, Set Aside Judgment. This motion was an earlier iteration of the recent Brady Motion, R. Doc. 1052. See R. Doc. 1074 for a summary of the arguments and the Court's analysis.
R. Doc. 918, Motion for Discovery. This motion urged the Court to enforce prior orders, specifically (1) the pretrial order where the government claimed no Brady materials existed, which Hoffman alleges was false, and (2) subpoena enforcement orders, specifically by completing document production and by providing documents related to the arbitrations between LED and LIFT and documents between OIG and LED related to Horizon investigations.
R. Doc. 927, Motion to Compel. This document reiterates R. Doc. 918 and again urges the production of all Brady materials as well as the enforcement of the pretrial order and subpoena enforcement orders. Much of its substance is verbatim from R. Doc. 918.
III. APPLICABLE LAW
Since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not specifically recognize a motion to reurge, Courts tend to treat them as akin to a motion to alter or amend a judgment or for a court to correct errors as to the laws or facts. See § 9:59, 3 Motions in Federal Court § 9:59 n.92 (3d ed.); see also Ford v. Elsbury, 32 F.3d 931, 936-37 (5th Cir. 1994) (“The motion to reurge is best characterized as a motion to alter or amend judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). We have held that a ‘motion for reconsideration' should be so treated, and see no reason to treat a ‘motion to reurge' differently.”). While Rules 59 and 60 apply to final judgments only, “if a party seeks reconsideration of an order that adjudicates fewer than all the claims among all the parties prior to entry of final judgment, then Rule 54(b) controls.” Id.
In Ford, the Fifth Circuit addressed whether a district court had diversity jurisdiction when certain non-diverse defendants were “fraudulently joined.” Ford, 32 F.3d at 933. The district court had denied the plaintiff's motion to remand and granted summary judgment for those defendants. Id. After judgment was entered, the plaintiffs filed a reurged motion to remand, citing additional evidence, which the district court denied. Id. at 936-37. The Fifth Circuit, in addressing the plaintiffs' reurged motion, described that a Rule 59(e) movant need not show that the underlying evidence they cite could have been obtained earlier. Id. A district court deciding whether to permit such “late-filed evidence must strike the proper balance between two competing interests:” finality and a just decision based on all relevant facts. Id. In treating a motion to reurge like a motion under Rule 59(e), courts apply the same timeliness analysis and require that the motion be filed within ten days of the final judgment. Id. at 936-37.
While final judgment has long since past, the Court granted Hoffman leave to file this motion and therefore does not decide this matter on timeliness.
IV. DISCUSSION
First, the Court recently denied Peter Hoffman's Brady Motion on the grounds that the evidence he cited was not Brady material. R. Doc. 1074. Therefore, Hoffman's request to adopt that motion is now moot. Next, the motions she seeks to reurge all relate to the same non-Brady materials that were subject to Peter's motion. The Court therefore will not reiterate its reasoning on the Brady issue here. See id. for a more thorough analysis on why these materials do not satisfy Brady. Accordingly, the Court finds that the “two competing interests” the Fifth Circuit discusses in Ford are not competing here at all - the interests of finality and a just result based on all relevant facts are in tandem in this case. The jury and Fifth Circuit both rejected the arguments that underly these reurged motions: that the Horizon Report and LIFT materials demonstrate that LED approved the defendants' behavior - namely, circular transactions - and the absence of these materials at trial require convictions be vacated or other relief. The jury heard these arguments at trial and rejected them, and the Fifth Circuit heard these arguments on appeal and rejected them.
Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Hoffman's motion to reurge.