Full opinion text
OPINION AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS’ POST-TRIAL MOTIONS ALGENON L. MARBLEY, District Judge. I. INTRODUCTION. .888 II. DEFENDANTS’ RULE 29 MOTIONS. 05 CO A. Legal Standards. 05 CO B. The Sufficiency of the Evidence as to Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulkenberry. 05 CO 1. National Century’s Business Model. 05 00 2. National Century’s Representations to Investors . 05 CO 3. The Fraud. 05 CO 4. The Cover-Up. 05 CO 5. What the Defendants Knew. 05 CO 6. The Demise of National Century. 05 CO 7. Summary of the Evidence as to Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulkenberry. o 05 C. The Sufficiency of the Evidence as to Dierker. o 05 1. Undisputed Facts Established at Trial. o 05 2. Evidence Supporting Dierker’s Acquittal. o 05 3. Evidence Implicating Dierker in the Fraud. o 05 (a) Dierker’s Knowledge of National Century’s Practice of Advancing o 05 (b) Dierker’s “Under Water” Comments to Beacham . o 05 (c) Dierker’s June 7, June 11, and July 12, 2001 Funding Authorizations. 00 05 (d) Gibson’s Advances to Medshares. o 05 (e) Dierker’s September 26, 2001 Memo About the Sale of Villa View Hospital. 05 (f) The Receivables Purchase Report. 05 (g) Summary of the Evidence as to Dierker . 05 III. DEFENDANTS’ RULE 33 MOTIONS. CO i i to A. Legal Standards. CO t i to B. Defendants’ Motions for New Trials Based on United States v. Santos tO to C. Ayers’s Motion for a New Trial Based on Pre-Trial and Trial Publicity CO i__j ^ D. Dierker’s Motion for a New Trial Based on Prosecutorial Misconduct .... tO i__i 1. The Government’s Re-Direct of Witness Terrence Glomski. CO i » as 2. The Government’s Closing Statement. i i oo E. Ayers’s and Dierker’s Motions for New Trials Based on Brady Violations and Rule 33. to to H- 1. The SEC Trustees Order. to CO DO 2. The SEC Auditors Orders. co to 3. Documents Disclosed in the Civil Litigation. CO DO 05 4. Gibson’s Letters to Demmler . to to 05 IV. AYERS’S MOTION TO INTERVIEW THE JURORS 928 V. CONCLUSION. 928 I. INTRODUCTION This is a case about the good company that wasn’t. It’s about those at the helm who steered it wrong. And it’s about investors who, through no fault of their own, lost billions in assets. At the start of the new millennium, National Century Financial Enterprises, Inc. (“National Century”) appeared to be a thriving financing company with a national reputation as a leader in its field. But as it turned out, that reputation was built on smoke and mirrors. When nearly a decade of fraud perpetrated by the company finally came to light in 2002, public investigations quickly followed, culminating in criminal charges brought against eleven owners and senior executives. Some of the accused pleaded guilty and cooperated with the Government’s investigation and prosecution. On February 4, 2007, five Defendants — Donald H. Ayers, Rebecca S. Parrett, Randolph H. Speer, Roger S. Faulkenberry, and James E. Dierker— proceeded to trial. After six weeks of extensive witness testimony, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts. Defendants now seek relief from the jury’s verdicts, arguing that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict them, that the trial was hopelessly tainted by prejudicial media coverage, that the Government engaged in prosecutorial misconduct, and that the Government improperly withheld critical evidence that casts doubt on the reliability of the jury’s guilty verdicts. For the reasons described below, the Court DENIES each of the Defendants’ motions. II. DEFENDANTS’ RULE 29 MOTIONS All the Defendants move for judgments of acquittal, claiming that the Government did not carry its burden of proof. The Court will begin by considering the evidence against Ayers, Parrett, Speer, and Faulkenberry. Because Dierker has filed a far more substantive motion than his Co-Defendants, the Court will separately consider the evidence concerning him. A. Legal Standards Following a jury verdict of guilty, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c) permits a defendant to move for a judgment of acquittal on the grounds that the evidence presented was insufficient to convict him. Trial courts adjudicate Rule 29(c) motions under a standard deferential to the jury’s verdict. The court asks whether, “after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The court does not “weigh the evidence, assess the credibility of the witnesses, or substitute [its] judgment for that of the jury.” United States v. Wright, 16 F.3d 1429, 1440 (6th Cir.1994). Rather, the court will “draw all available inferences and resolve all issues of credibility in favor of the jury’s verdict.” United States v. Salgado, 250 F.3d 438, 446 (6th Cir.2001). For these reasons, a defendant “bears a very heavy burden” in making out a sufficiency-of-the-evidenee challenge to his conviction. United States v. Davis, 397 F.3d 340, 344 (6th Cir.2005). Indeed, a motion for judgment of acquittal will be granted only “where the prosecution’s failure is clear.” Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 17, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). B. The Sufficiency of the Evidence as to Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulkenberry At the close of the Government’s case in chief, Defendants Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulkenberry moved for judgments of acquittal, as permitted by Rule 29(a). The Court denied Defendants’ motions and explained in detail the basis for its decision by citing to the documentary and witness testimony that, if credited by the jury, would support Defendants’ convictions. Defendants renewed their motions at the close of trial and the Court again denied them for the same reasons it had previously given. Defendants now renew their motions a second time. In their briefing, however, they do little more than recite the legal standards for assessing post-trial motions brought pursuant to Rules 29 and 33, and make unsubstantiated assertions that the evidence was insufficient to convict them. The Court once again finds that the jury was presented with ample evidence from which it reasonably could have concluded that Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulken-berry committed the offenses with which they were charged. The trial in this case lasted for six weeks. The twenty-two volume trial transcript shows that Defendants had considerable opportunities to, and in fact did, attack the Government’s evidence against them by putting on their own defenses and by extensively cross-examining the Government’s witnesses and challenging its documentary evidence. The record also shows that the evidence against Defendants was substantial. Six former National Century employees testified and three of these — Jon Beacham, Sheri Gibson, and Jessica Bily — were senior executives with intimate knowledge of the company’s operations and how it perpetrated investor fraud. Each of these executives admitted to engaging in criminal conduct and they all implicated Defendants in the criminal conspiracy. Besides National Century insiders, the Government put on witness testimony from the investors whose money, unbeknownst to them, was improperly used to make unsecured loans to healthcare providers. The Government also called to the stand representatives of the healthcare providers, who confirmed that they asked for, and received, hundreds of millions of dollars in National Century loans that the providers had little ability to pay back. The Court will not exhaustively review every witness’s testimony or every piece of evidence, but will here summarize the most probative testimony and evidence that the jury reasonably could have relied upon and that support the jury’s guilty verdicts. 1. National Century’s Business Model National Century was a healthcare-financing company based in Dublin, Ohio. Prior to its collapse in November 2002, it had been the largest privately-held healthcare-financing company in the United States. Defendants were all principals (i.e., owners) and senior executives. Lance Poul-sen, who has not yet been tried but whose actions were integral to the fraud conspiracy, was an owner and Chief Executive Officer of National Century. Ayers and Parrett were the other two owners. Ayers worked as the company’s Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, and Parrett was Vice Chairman and Secretary/Treasurer. She also supervised National Century’s Servicer Department. Speer was an Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Faulkenberry was an Executive Vice President in charge of National Century’s Client Development Department. National Century financed healthcare providers, such as hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes, by purchasing the providers’ medical accounts receivable for less than their full value. In exchange for selling their receivables at a discount, the providers were paid for the patient services they had rendered much sooner than if they had to wait to collect from third-party insurers, like Medicare or Blue Cross. Purchasing medical accounts receivable was only half of National Century’s business model. The company then issued bonds to large institutional investors, such as pension funds and mutual funds, for which its pool of receivables served as collateral. In other words, National Century’s bonds were “asset-backed securities,” the “asset” being the pool of medical receivables that secured the bonds. The proceeds from the sale of the bonds were used to purchase additional receivables while the principal and interest owed to the investors was paid off through the ongoing collections on the receivables. National Century operated its healthcare-financing programs through two subsidiaries, NPF VI and NPF XII (sometimes referred to herein as “the programs”). NPF VI and XII were governed by an Indenture, which delineated in legal terms the relationship and responsibilities among three parties: the issuer of the bonds, the servicer of the receivables, and the investment trustee. NPF VI and XII issued the bonds to investors. Another National Century subsidiary called National Premier Financial Services (“National Premier”), serviced the receivables, meaning that it collected pertinent data about each receivable submitted by the healthcare providers, determined which receivables were eligible for purchase, and then oversaw their collection. Finally, JP Morgan Chase (“Chase”) was the trustee for NPF VI and Bank One was the trustee for NPF XII. The trustees’ job was to monitor the VI and XII program accounts on behalf of the investors to ensure that National Century observed all program requirements regarding how the investors’ money was to be used and protected against losses. 2. National Century’s Representations to Investors National Century depended upon investors to make its financing programs work. It communicated its business model and marketed its NPF investment vehicles mainly through the Private Placement Memoranda that accompanied its bond offerings and, less formally, through regular investor presentations. Consistent with the definition of an asset-backed security, National Century told investors that its bonds were secured by medical accounts receivable. Furthermore, National Century represented that the investors’ money would be used only to purchase eligible receivables. “Eligible” receivables were restricted to those for which medical services had already been provided. Jon Beacham, National Century’s Executive Vice President of Securiti-zations, testified that the Private Placement Memorandum defined an “eligible receivable” as one where a “healthcare procedure has been performed that’s subsequently created an account receivable.” Sheri Gibson, the Executive Vice President in charge of National Century’s Compliance Department, agreed. She testified that an “eligible receivable” was one in which medical services had already been provided to a patient and the bill to the insurer had been submitted. The only thing that remained was for the insurer to pay the receivable. To underscore this “services-already-rendered” requirement of an eligible receivable, National Century told investors that the receivables it purchased were patient specific, meaning that, according to Gibson, they identified a specific patient, a specific date of service, and a specific dollar amount. The specific date of service was important because another eligibility requirement concerned the age of the receivable. National Century told investors that any receivables older than 180 days (i.e., the medical procedure giving rise to the receivable had been performed more than 180 days earlier) were ineligible for purchase, and that any purchased receivables that did not collect within 180 days were returned to the healthcare providers where they originated. This temporal feature of what constituted an eligible receivable was meant to minimize the risk of non-collection. As both Beacham and Gibson explained, the older the receivable, the less likely it was to pay out. The fully secured nature of the bonds and the strict criteria governing what counted as eligible collateral were just two of the attributes that National Century touted as evidence of the reliability of its bonds. In addition, National Century talked up certain “credit enhancements” embedded in its NPF programs. These included “over-collateralization” and reserve accounts, both of which were intended to protect investors from losses resulting from receivables that did not pay out. “Over-collateralization” meant that the value of the receivables exceeded the value of the outstanding bonds, so that a $97 bond was backed by a $100 receivable. The reserves consisted of funding withheld from the providers and set aside in cash accounts. Gibson and Jessica Bily, a senior executive in National Century’s Funding Department, testified about how these two safeguards worked in practice by describing National Century’s process for determining the amount of funding healthcare providers received in exchange for their accounts receivable. Gibson and Bily testified to the following: A healthcare provider that entered into a financing agreement (called a sales and subservicing agreement) with either NPF VI or NPF VII sent its aecounts-receivable data to National Century’s Servicer Department each week. The Servicer Department reviewed the data, determined which receivables were eligible for purchase, and reported the total value of the eligible receivables to National Century’s Funding Department. The Funding Department then performed a series of calculations to figure out how much money the provider was entitled to receive, based on the total amount of eligible receivables it had submitted. Gibson and Bily described these calculations by giving an example of an eligible receivable totaling $100. First, the Funding Department applied a 97 percent “advance rate” to the $100 receivable, resulting in a net eligible receivable of $97. The 3 percent withheld in funding to the provider constituted the “over-collateralization.” Next, National Century deducted approximately 17 percent of the total value of the receivable and held it in cash accounts called “reserves.” The reserves functioned as a cushion against the risk of non-collection of a receivable. In other words, if a receivable did not pay out as expected, National Century could draw on the reserves to offset the loss, and the investors would not be out any money. Thus, after subtracting the 3 percent in over-collateralization and the 17 percent in reserves, a provider could expect to receive about $80 in funding for submitting a $100 receivable. Thanks to these credit enhancements, National Century’s bonds were given a “AAA” rating. This meant that they entailed the least amount of risk of any investment instrument, and were similar to Government Treasury bonds in reliability. Unsurprisingly, National Century highlighted its AAA rating as another reason investors should buy its bonds. Beacham testified that National Century held monthly day-long presentations to woo investors. The day typically began with an overview by one of the principals. Following that, the presentation was structured into multiple half-hour segments during which the other owners and senior executives described the operations of their particular departments. All Defendants regularly participated in investor presentations. Besides explaining the mechanics of National Century’s receivables-financing programs, Defendants boasted that their company was a market leader in securitizing healthcare receivables and that they had a depth of knowledge and experience in the healthcare industry worthy of investors’ confidence. Amy Boothe-Fuentes and Terrence Glomski were asset managers at Alliance Capital and Lincoln Capital, respectively, whose clients were large institutional investors. Both testified at trial that they reviewed the Private Placement Memoran-da that accompanied National Century’s note offerings, that they attended one or more presentations by National Century’s executives, and that they performed then-own independent research and analysis before deciding to invest millions of dollars of their clients’ money in National Century’s bonds. Both also testified that they relied on National Century’s representations regarding how its NPF programs worked, including its promises to the effect that (1) the bonds were backed by medical accounts receivable; (2) investors’ money would be used only to purchase “eligible” receivables, meaning receivables generated in connection with completed medical services that had already been billed to the insurer and that were less than 180 days old; (3) the investors were protected by the over-collateralization of their bonds and cash reserves; and (4) the bonds were AAA rated and therefore entailed little risk. All of these things, said Boothe-Fuentes and Glomski, were critical to their positive investment decisions, and the absence of any of them would have affected how they viewed National Century’s bonds. 3. The Fraud The former National Century employees who testified at trial believed that the company's business model was a good one. At various points, however, each of them came to realize that the way National Century explained its operations to investors was not the way it actually operated. As already described, National Century represented that it financed healthcare providers — using investors’ money — based strictly on the providers’ submission of eligible accounts receivable. But this was not the case. Instead, the evidence at trial showed that National Century financed certain providers in whatever amounts were necessary to satisfy the providers’ budgetary needs. So, if a provider needed two million dollars one week to pay its operating expenses, National Century wired it two million dollars, irrespective of the total amount of receivables the provider submitted, whether those receivables were “eligible,” or whether the provider submitted any receivables at all. This practice was known within the walls of National Century as “advancing,” and it was kept carefully hidden from investors for many years. The most important effect of advancing was to convert the investors’ bonds from what they believed were secured investments, backed by medical receivables, into risky unsecured loans to the healthcare providers. Former executives at three of the “advanced to” healthcare providers testified that National Century’s principals (Poul-sen, Ayers, and Parrett) held ownership interests in these providers. The Government’s summary witness corroborated their testimony and added to it by explaining that National Century had ownership stakes, sometimes as much as 100 percent, in at least four other providers that regularly received advances. Just as troubling, the providers who received advances were teetering on the edge of insolvency and thus were in no position to pay National Century back. This instability, coupled with their inability to secure other forms of financing, was why the providers were borrowing from National Century in the first place. The implication created by this testimony was that National Century’s principals corrupted the company’s operations, and a good business model, in order to keep their other business ventures afloat. The Government produced substantial evidence inculpating each Defendant. Indeed, the jury reasonably could have concluded that each of the Defendants participated in the alleged fraud conspiracy: (1) by actually authorizing unsecured advances to healthcare providers; (2) by concealing the advances from investors, as well as the disastrous effect advancing had on the NPF VI and NPF XII programs; and (3) by representing these securitized programs to be something other than what they were. Originally, only Poulsen, Ayers, and Parrett could authorize advances. By 2001, however, the authority to approve advances had been extended to the Executive Vice Presidents (including Faulken-berry and Speer) and Dierker, though Dierker’s authority was limited to one entity. Bily testified about the internal procedures National Century implemented to track information about advances, including who had authorized them. The requesting executive would typically call or email Bily (or her Funding Department staff) to convey instructions to make an advance. The Funding Department staff would then prepare an “advance request form” documenting the date, amount, and recipient of the advance, as well as the authorizing executive. Once completed, the advance request forms were forwarded to the authorizing executive for his or her signature. Bily testified that she sometimes had difficulty collecting the required signatures, but that this was not an obstacle to actually effectuating the advances. In fact, the normal procedure was for the funding to go out the door before the authorizing executive had signed the advance request form. Bily testified that each of the Defendants had authorized numerous advances. She further identified advance request forms covering the period of 1999 through 2002 that documented approximately forty advances authorized by Ayers, eighty advances authorized by Parrett, eighty authorized by Poulsen, four hundred authorized by Speer, and twenty-five authorized by Faulkenberry. Not only do the advance request forms show which Defendant approved the particular advance, but they also show that other Defendants were carbon-copied so that they too knew what was going on. Bily testified that beginning in 2002, she began keeping copies of the advance request forms in her home “[t]o protect [her]self and other individuals in the [FJunding and [A]ccounting [Departments who were involved with processing the advances.” Donna Talbott and Stanley Haines, executives with healthcare providers that had financing agreements with National Century, both confirmed at trial that their respective organizations (Doctors Community Health Care Corporation (“Doctors Community”) and PhyAmerica, Inc.) had received millions of dollars in funding from National Century well above their submission of eligible receivables. Talbott testified that by 2002, Doctors Community owed National Century $500 million and that it was incapable of paying National Century back in the normal course of business. Likewise, Haines testified that PhyAmerica’s total debt obligation to National Century ultimately climbed to $200 million and that it too had poor prospects for paying this money back. 4. The Cover-Up National Century went to extraordinary lengths to conceal what it was really doing with investors’ money. The evidence adduced at trial showed that in its monthly reports on the status of the NPF programs, in its presentations to investors, and in its dealings with outside professionals (such as auditors), National Century executives routinely falsified data and disguised the true nature of its affairs. Indeed, the jurors could well have been left with the impression that the purpose of an entire National Century department — the Compliance Department — was to cover up the fraud by distorting and inventing information for the outside world that would make the company appear to be a proven success. Before detailing the elaborate efforts that went into maintaining the illusion that was National Century, a bit more background about the NPF programs is necessary. NPF VI and XII each consisted of three different accounts that were supervised by the independent trustees (Chase and Bank One, respectively) that monitored both programs. These included the collection account, purchase account, and reserve account, and were intended for the very purposes that their names suggest: The collection account collected payments on the accounts receivable National Century had bought from the providers; the purchase account was funded with investors’ money and was supposed to be used to purchase more eligible receivables; and the reserve accounts held the nearly 17 percent in reserves deducted from the providers’ weekly funding wires as a way to offset any losses incurred through non-payment of a receivable. The testimony at trial established that, as one might expect, National Century’s ongoing advances to healthcare providers without receiving a commensurate amount of eligible receivables in return wreaked havoc on the VI and XII program accounts. This was a big problem, one that National Century took great pains to conceal, lest the investors catch on to the fraud scheme. The Indenture governing the VI and XII programs required National Century to prepare monthly investor reports, one for each program. The investors used the reports to monitor the performance of the programs and make sure that they were functioning as they were supposed to. To that end, the reports provided a snapshot of the status of the three accounts comprising each program as of the monthly “determination date,” i.e., the reports were based on information gathered from the accounts on a fixed date each month. If any of the accounts were out of balance— for instance, if the reserve accounts did not meet the specified level of approximately 17 percent — that would be treated as “an event of default” and the entire NPF VI or XII program would come crashing down. The investor reports also provided information about the age of the purchased receivables and how quickly the pool of receivables was “turning over,” i.e., how long it took for the receivables to collect. As Beacham testified, how old the receivables were was an important metric to investors, because the older the receivables were, the less likely they were to pay down. Thus, if a report showed that the collateral pool contained receivables older than 180 days, that too could trigger a default, bringing down the defaulted program, and possibly National Century along with it. The investor reports were prepared by the Compliance Department, at the direction of Sheri Gibson, who headed up that department. Gibson testified that if National Century had operated the NPF VI and XII programs as it represented to investors, generating the investor reports would “have been a push button process” of gathering the relevant data and pushing a button. Due to National Century’s regular advances to healthcare providers, however, compiling the investor reports was anything but a “push button process.” The purchase, collection, and reserve accounts were all too low relative to the amount of eligible receivables National Century had actually purchased, but Gibson testified that the deficiencies in the reserve accounts were especially acute. This fact had to be hidden. One way that National Century did so was by moving money between program accounts before the determination date, which was initially at month’s end, and then moving the money back after the determination date. At first, National Century moved money from a program’s purchase account into its reserve accounts. But, as the practice of advancing continued unabated, the magnitude of the problem grew, and intra-program transfers were not enough to make up the shortages. As a result, National Century decided to stagger the determination dates for NPF VI and XII. Rather than hold them on the same day at the end of each month, as it had been doing, National Century chose the last day of one month as the determination date for one NPF program, and the first day of the next month as the determination date for the other NPF program. That way, money could be moved back and forth between the NPF VI and XII program accounts. Another way that National Century manipulated the preparation of the investor reports was simply to falsify their data. This was done at Poulsen’s direction. He instructed Gibson never to issue an investor report that showed any sort of noncompliance. Consequently, she testified that “[t]he data would be manipulated in any way necessary to make compliance on the report.” Gibson was so creative in her preparation of the investor reports that she told the FBI in a pre-trial interview that the reports merited inclusion on the New York Times bestseller list for fiction. She further testified that from the inception of NPF VI in May 1995, every single one of its investor reports contained false and fabricated data. The same was true for each and every one of the investor reports issued for NPF XII, which opened in March 1999. The investor reports had to be signed by a National Century principal before they could be issued. According to Gibson, only Poulsen ever did so because Ayers and Parrett refused. The manipulation of investor-report data did not stop with the reports themselves. The VI and XII program accounts were reviewed by outside auditors. To cover its tracks with them, National Century, per Gibson, had to create all the backup data that went into producing the investor reports. This data was also necessarily false because it had to match the false data shown in the investor reports. Another way National Century concealed its fraudulent activities was by inputting ineligible and non-existent collateral into the Servicer Department’s computer tracking system to make it appear as though there was collateral to support National Century’s advances. This was necessary to mislead the outside auditors who performed the company’s annual financial audit. These auditors did not confirm that the collateral reflected in the computer database actually consisted of eligible medical accounts receivable, but simply compared the providers’ total amount of liabilities with the total amount of collateral they had submitted. National Century therefore worked to identify any other asset that a healthcare provider had — including real estate, stock, and settlements in lawsuits — and then included these assets as collateral supporting the funding advances in its computer tracking system. Donna Talbott at Doctors Community, one of the over-funded healthcare providers, testified that in the summer of 2002, Parrett asked her to submit information about additional types of assets that could be used to offset the ad-vanees Doctors Community had received. Of course, this additional collateral did not consist of eligible accounts receivable and no mention was made to either the outside auditors or the investors that National Century was counting such non-receivables assets as collateral. National Century also loaded ineligible accounts receivable onto its computer system. Talbott testified that Parrett asked her to submit receivables that were older than 180 days, receivables that were anticipated but had not yet been generated (such as patients who were still in the hospital) and receivables that had not yet been billed to the third-party insurer. When the counting of ineligible collateral was still not enough to account for the advances, Gibson testified that National Century inserted a “plug number” into the computer-tracking system. This “plug number” represented the difference between all the eligible and ineligible collateral National Century loaded on the system for a particular provider and the total amount of funding the provider had received. Finally, the investor presentations. As already described, all the Defendants participated in presentations to current and prospective investors, at which they explained National Century’s business model and marketed its financing programs. Former executives Beacham, Gibson, and Bily testified that in their interactions with investors, including during their segments of the investor presentations, they did not reveal anything about National Century’s practice of advancing, the effects that advancing had on the NPF program accounts, or how National Century forged its investor reports and the collateral data on its computer database. Bily testified that Parrett instructed her not to discuss things like “under-collateralization” and “overfunding” with investors. Gibson testified that she told investors “absolutely nothing” about how their money was actually being used, and that she never heard any other senior executive disclose anything about what was really going on. At one point, Gibson saw to it that certain information in Parrett’s portion of the presentation was removed so that investors did not catch wind of the fraud. Gibson testified that Parrett was telling investors the true amount of payments on the receivables coming into the collection account. This had to stop, said Gibson, because the “volume of collections ... were [sic] very low compared to the monthly funding going to the sellers [i.e., healthcare providers]” and there was a risk that the investors would notice the discrepancy. 5. What the Defendants Knew The evidence adduced at trial established that the principals and senior executives knew how their funding advances were eating away at the NPF program accounts, and further knew what Gibson was doing to keep the fraud under wraps. Gibson testified that the problems caused by advancing were discussed in National Century’s executive committee meetings, which were attended by the principals and executive vice presidents. She testified that she specifically spoke with Ayers, Parrett, Speer, and Faulkenberry about what she had to do each month to manipulate the data presented in the investor reports. For example, Gibson explained that “[w]ith Becky Parrett, I specifically walked through the investor report and the manipulations that were done with the aging [of the receivables], the manipulations that were done with the concentration limits, the fact that data had to be adjusted line by line. I went over the investor report very detailed with Becky Parrett.” Similarly, Gibson testified that she complained to Faulkenberry about the amount of work entailed in producing the fraudulent reports. Gibson also testified that the Compliance Department maintained both the fraudulent investor reports that were actually issued and accurate reports based on the true data, and circulated memos to National Century’s principals comparing the two reports to show the nature and extent of the “manipulations.” Corroborating Gibson’s testimony are numerous memos and emails she and others in the Compliance Department authored, addressed to the principals and Speer and Faulkenberry, advising them about the shortages in the NPF program accounts and the nature of the data manipulations that had to be performed to produce a fully compliant investor report. On February 17, 1999, for example, Gibson wrote Parrett a memo telling her that the “status of NPF VI reserves is dismal,” a situation she attributed to the “continued pillage of reserves for funding.” Shortly thereafter, in a February 25, 1999 memo, Gibson wrote Ayers and Parrett that “NPF VI is $45,000,000 SHORT in reserves” as a result of funding healthcare providers without purchasing the requisite amount of eligible receivables. Gibson’s memo went on, “Please advise — how can we have an investor report ... with a $45,000,000 shortage in reserves? ... We are creative with month end and the investor reports — but this is beyond our capability to create. This is a crisis — we need help!” In yet another example, on December 20, 1999, Gibson emailed Speer and Faulkenberry, and carbon copied Poulsen, Ayers, and Parrett, notifying them that “[a]s of December 20, 1999, the combined balances in the Purchase and Collection accounts for NPF XII is $5,644,795. When you factor in the SHORTAGES in reserves, say $4.2 million, the excess cash remaining in NPF XII is approximately $1.4 million.” Gibson went on to say that despite the lack of cash in NPF XII, two funding wires totaling $36 million were scheduled to go out. She concluded her email by asking, ‘We are staring at month end/year end and the book is short now in reserves — how do we explain being $40 million short?” 6. The Demise of National Century By October 2002, National Century was no longer able to stay ahead of the problems caused by advancing. At that time, Poulsen contacted the investors to ask them for a waiver of the program compliance requirements. He explained that $350 million had been taken from NPF XII’s reserve accounts to fund healthcare providers. According to Terrence Glomski at Lincoln Capital, Poulsen claimed that National Century had obtained accounts receivable for the funding. Glomski characterized the expenditure of the reserves as “a big problem” that constituted a violation of the governing documents, including the Indenture and the Private Placement Memorandum. He regarded the non-compliance as a straight-up “event of default.” Amy Boothe-Fuentes of Alliance Capital testified similarly about the gravity of the situation. She said that Poulsen’s notice to the investors signaled to them that “everything wasn’t performing like it was supposed to.” After investigating further, Boothe-Fuentes told her boss that she “thought we had a very serious problem.” The investors began organizing among themselves to try to get to the bottom of what was happening at National Century. Within a few days of Poulsen’s request for a waiver, the investors had formed an ad hoc committee, hired forensic accountants and attorneys, and flew to Ohio to meet in person with Poulsen and the senior executives at National Century’s headquarters. At that meeting, Boothe-Fuentes testified that she learned for the first time that National Century had been funding healthcare providers without purchasing the requisite amount of eligible receivables in return. National Century’s funding programs came to an immediate halt and within a matter of weeks the company had declared bankruptcy and was under investigation by the federal government. The Defendants were indicted on multiple charges of fraud and money laundering in May 2006. At the time of National Century’s collapse in November 2002, NPF VI had outstanding bonds totalling approximately $900 million, while the outstanding bonds in NPF XII equalled about $2 billion. Glomski testified that at the time of National Century’s unraveling, Lincoln Capital’s investment in National Century’s bonds totalled nearly $50 million, of which it has recovered six cents on the dollar to date. Bernard Wolfley, the Government’s summary witness, testified about the extent of National Century’s over-funding of the healthcare providers. Doing his calculations of National Century’s data just as the company would have, Wolfley concluded that in the four-year period between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2002, National Century made $1.3 billion in unsecured loans to eight healthcare providers. Further, Wolfley found that National Century had an ownership stake in seven of the eight providers. 7. Summary of the Evidence as to Ayers, Parrett, Speer and Faulkenberry Defendants do not explain why or how they believe that the evidence was insufficient for the jury to have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed the charged offenses. On this basis alone, the Court could have denied Defendants’ Rule 29 motions. Nonetheless, the Court deemed it worthwhile to lay out, in some detail, the testimony and evidence that, if believed by the jurors, would have been sufficient to convict Defendants. As described above, the Government’s case against Defendants was not thin. The testimony of Beacham, Gibson, and Bily was particularly probative, as all three admitted to their own criminal behavior while employed at National Century and implicated Defendants in the same wrongdoing. The healthcare-provider witnesses confirmed that they received millions of dollars in advances from National Century without submitting eligible receivables in return. The investor witnesses testified that they were effectively duped into believing that National Century’s bonds were safe and secured, when in fact they were just the opposite. Taken together, this evidence was more than sufficient for the jury to have concluded that Defendants were guilty. The motions of Defendants Ayers, Parrett, Speer, and Faulkenberry are therefore denied. C. The Sufficiency of the Evidence as to Dierker Defendant Dierker was charged in four counts of the superceding indictment, including Count 1 (conspiracy), Count 17 (money-laundering conspiracy), and Counts 25 and 26 (concealment of money laundering). The Government alleged that Dierker committed these offenses by advancing funds to a National Century client, California Psychiatric Management Services (“California Psychiatric”), on two occasions, without purchasing the required amount of eligible receivables. According to the facts set forth in the indictment, Dierker advanced $670,000 to California Psychiatric on August 3, 2001, and $720,000 on September 28, 2001. Following trial, the jury convicted Dierker on all four counts. As he did at the close of the Government’s case-in-chief, and at the close of all the evidence, Dierker once again moves for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Rule 29 on the grounds that the evidence adduced was insufficient to support his conviction. For the reasons explained in detail below, Dierker’s motion is not well-founded, and it is therefore denied. The discussion below begins by laying out the undisputed facts established at trial relative to Dierker’s employment at National Century and the conduct leading to his conviction. The Court then turns to the evidence which, if believed by the jury, could have formed the basis for acquitting him. Finally, the Court considers the evidence implicating Dierker as a co-conspirator in the fraud, and concludes that this inculpatory evidence readily lends itself to a finding of guilt. Simply put, the jury was presented with substantial proof on both sides of the question. Because the jury’s verdict was rational in light of this record evidence, the Court is obligated to give due deference to the jury’s considered judgment as the finder of fact and the judge of witnesses’ — including Dierker’s— credibility. See e.g. United States v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177, 182 (6th Cir.2007) (en banc). 1. Undisputed Facts Established at Tñal Dierker began working at National Century in 1999 as Associate Director of Marketing. Two years later, he was promoted to the position of Vice President of Client Development. The purpose of the Client Development Department was to assist National Century’s healthcare-provider clients in acquiring operating capital from sources other than National Century’s ac-eounts-receivable funding programs. The Client Development Department was not totally removed from the operations of the receivables-based programs, however. In fact, one of Dierker’s job duties involved “debt restructuring and recapitalization” of healthcare providers in the NPF VI and XII programs who were in breach of their financing agreements with National Century. “Breach” in this case meant that a provider had been over-funded relative to the amount of eligible receivables it had submitted. Dierker’s job was to investigate and cure these instances of non-compliance by working with the over-extended providers. California Psychiatric had a financing agreement with NPF XII to fund its two psychiatric hospitals, Bay View and Villa View, located in San Diego, California. National Century (through a subsidiary) held a fifty percent ownership stake in California Psychiatric. On June 9, 2000, California Psychiatric filed a bankruptcy petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. On June 15, 2000, the bankruptcy court entered an interim order, which became final on October 6, 2000, appointing National Century the Debtor-In-Possession (“DIP”) financier for California Psychiatric, thereby enabling California Psychiatric to remain up and running. The Indenture governing NPF VI and XII prohibited these programs from using their investor dollars to fund bankrupt healthcare providers. California Psychiatric’s bankruptcy therefore meant that its financing relationship with NPF XII had to terminate. Accordingly, NPF XII assigned its interest in California Psychiatric’s accounts receivable to another program sponsored by National Century, namely, NPF X. The money in NPF X was National Century’s own, not investors’, and therefore could be used for any purpose to which National Century saw fit to devote it. The assignment of California Psychiatric’s financing relationship from NPF XII to X meant that the latter would finance California Psychiatric by purchasing its receivables. The bankruptcy court approved of this arrangement, specifically noting the transfer of interest from NPF XII to X, and further approved the establishment of a management committee to oversee California Psychiatric’s post-petition operations. Dierker had not had much involvement with California Psychiatric prior to its bankruptcy filing on June 9, 2000. On that day, Dierker was summoned to sit in on a conference call already in progress in which the participants, including Defendant Ayers and National Century’s lawyers, were discussing how to respond to California Psychiatric’s bankruptcy filing. Ayers and the lawyers decided that National Century would seek the court order, subsequently issued on June 15, naming it California Psychiatric’s DIP lender. Because Dierker had a good working relationship with the two minority owners of California Psychiatric (National Century being the majority stakeholder), Ayers and company tapped him to serve as National Century’s liaison to California Psychiatric’s post-petition management committee. Dierker testified that one of his responsibilities entailed evaluating any third-party bids to acquire California Psychiatric. But his most immediate and important duty as liaison was to oversee National Century’s DIP financing commitment by arranging for California Psychiatric to receive weekly funding wires based on its budgetary needs. Each week, Brian Weiss, a member of California Psychiatric’s post-petition management committee, emailed Dierker an operating budget setting forth the amount of money California Psychiatric would need to cover its costs that week. Dierker reviewed the budget to make sure that it contained only those expenses approved by the bankruptcy court and necessary to keep California Psychiatric in business. If Dierker was satisfied with the budget, he forwarded Weiss’s email to National Century’s Funding Department to process the funding transfer. California Psychiatric submitted its accounts receivable to National Century in exchange for the funding, but at least on payroll weeks, California Psychiatric did not generate sufficient receivables to cover the funding that National Century was providing. This gap between the incoming receivables and the outgoing funding should have been immaterial (except for whatever costs it imposed on National Century that the company wished to recover) because California Psychiatric was supposed to be funded out of NPF X. And NPF X money, as noted above, was not investor money and so was not subject to the restrictions of the VI and XII programs. In other words, there was nothing wrong with “advancing” out of NPF X. Unlike the securitized programs, which were managed by National Century’s Funding Department, NPF X fell under the control of the Accounting Department. Gibson testified (without controversy) that if she had wanted to release a funding wire from NPF X, she would have gone to that department to make it happen. Dierker nonetheless forwarded Weiss’s weekly emails, along with instructions to send the requested funding, to National Century’s Funding Department. Even though the bankruptcy court order specified that the DIP financing was to come out of NPF X, and even though NPF XII had assigned its interest in California Psychiatric’s receivables to X and was altogether precluded from funding bankrupt healthcare providers, the weekly funding National Century advanced to California Psychiatric actually came out of XII, not X. National Century stopped funding California Psychiatric in November 2001, because at that time California Psychiatric was sold to another entity. As described in Part III.B.3 above, Jessica Bily testified that the Funding Department documented each advance by preparing an “advance request form,” which noted the amount of the advance, the date it was sent, the provider to which it was sent, and the National Century executive who approved it. These advance request forms were used only when National Century deliberately funded its healthcare-provider clients in excess of their accounts receivable. They were not used to track regular receivables funding, that is, funding tied to the provider’s submission of eligible receivables. Between June 29, 2001, and October 26, 2001, Dierker authorized seventeen funding advances to California Psychiatric, including the two advances (on August 3 and September 28) that gave rise to the charges against him. Dierker’s authorization is memorialized in a memo sent to him by Jessica Bily on November 13, 2001. The memo itemized each of the seventeen advances Dierker approved, and listed their amounts and the dates they were wired to California Psychiatric. Dierker signed the memo on November 14, 2001. In so doing, he circled the memo’s “requested by” column that listed him as the executive who requested the advances, and wrote next to it “[p]ursuant to National Century commitment to provide DIP financing.” This memo nowhere states out of which NPF program — X or XII — the funds were transferred. Dierker also signed a standard advance request form dated November 9, 2001, that documented another funding transfer to California Psychiatric. Once again, Dierker wrote “pursuant to National Century commitment to provide DIP financing” on the form. It too did not state the source of the funding, whether NPF X or XII or some other program. In fact, the Government did not introduce any documentary evidence or witness testimony showing that Dierker ever signed any National Century paperwork in connection with the DIP financing to California Psychiatric that had “NPF XII” written on it. 2. Evidence Supporting Dierker’s Acquittal Throughout these proceedings, Dierker has maintained his innocence. He does not deny that he authorized the two fund transfers to California Psychiatric for which he has been found criminally liable. Rather, he insists that he did not instruct anyone to transfer the funds out of NPF XII, that he did not know the funding was coming out of NPF XII, and that he had no reason to know this because he did not work in the Funding Department or prepare any of the paperwork necessary to actually initiate the wire transfers. Dierker argues that he performed the merely ministerial duty of reviewing the weekly budget requests from Weiss for reasonableness and, provided they passed this test, directing the Funding Department to transfer the amounts requested. Dierker says that the evidence presented at trial substantiates his claims and that no reasonable jury could have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. As an initial matter, Dierker correctly points out that his signature approving a funding request for California Psychiatric does not appear on any document expressly identifying NPF XII as the source of the funds. On the only two documents memorializing the transfers that Dierker signed — the November 9, 2001 advance request form, and the November 13, 2001 memo from Bily — he penned in the note “pursuant to National Century’s commitment to provide DIP financing.” Dierker testified that by making these notations, he intended to link the funding to the bankruptcy court order, which specified NPF X as the funding source. Bily’s testimony corroborates Dierker’s claim of ignorance insofar as she admitted that she was not aware of any paperwork Dierker signed designating NPF XII as California Psychiatric’s DIP lender. Bily further admitted that Dierker did not have a hand in preparing, nor did he sign, the “receivables purchase report,” which was the document sent to the trustee (Bank One) instructing it to wire the money to California Psychiatric. The Funding Department prepared the receivables purchase reports and Poul-sen signed the ones authorizing the funding wires to California Psychiatric for which Dierker was indicted. Dierker therefore did not play any direct part in the communications between National Century and the trustee about actually releasing the funding. Dierker took the stand in his defense, insisting that he had nothing to do with the decisions that led to California Psychiatric’s DIP financing coming out of the wrong program account. He testified that just the opposite was true in that he informed “the processing staff’ that they needed to internally re-orient California Psychiatric from an NPF XII client to an NPF X client. According to Dierker, he “communicated very early on with the processing staff that this bankruptcy order was in place, that its key provisions were that what once was an NPF XII funding relationship is now an NPF X funding relationship, and the necessary steps and all of those processing and clerical functions needed to follow to sort of make that happen.” Dierker further testified that besides not instructing anyone to fund California Psychiatric out of NPF XII, “[t]here [were] a number of reasons [he] wouldn’t want it to come from XII.” He explained that these included the prohibition barring NPF XII from funding bankrupt healthcare providers, and the assignment of XII’s interest in California Psychiatric’s receivables to X, which was consistent with the prohibition and protected the interests of XII’s investors. Dierker insisted that “I, to this day, don’t know how money came out of NPF XII to go to California Psychiatric.” Finally, Dierker’s own contemporaneous description of National Century’s funding relationship with California Psychiatric supports his claim of innocence. In an email dated August 2, 2001, Dierker asked Defendant Faulkenberry to cover his California Psychiatric duties while he was on vacation. Dierker explained the situation and what needed to be done, as follows: As you may or may not be aware, National Century through NPF X has been providing California Psychiatric with its post-petition financing. The procedure by which this occurs is that on every Thursday Bryan Weiss submits a weekly funding request to me with a file attached that contains the uses of cash as submitted to the bankruptcy court. Assuming that this submission looks reasonable, I forward the funding file to Jeff Martin and copy Jessica as Jeffs backup.... [¶] If you would be so kind to review the file attachment for reasonableness and, assuming it passes the test, forward the file to Jeff Martin I would be most grateful. Dierker’s reference to NPF X certainly supports his assertion that he intended the DIP financing to come from that program and that he believed that this is precisely what was happening. It would be reasonable to infer that in an internal communication to a colleague — and an alleged co-conspirator to boot — -Dierker would not have felt it necessary to pretend that the California Psychiatric funding was coming from X, when he knew it was actually coming from XII. The evidence described above was not trifling. As is often the case, the question before the jury came down to whose version of events was the more credible: Dierker’s or that of his former colleagues (see below) who implicated him in the fraud scheme? The jury was free to credit Dierker’s testimony and find persuasive the documentary evidence supporting him. At the same time, the jury was free to go the other way, putting more stock in the witness testimony and documentary evidence suggesting that Dierker knowingly participated in the fraud. As discussed below, this evidence was also not trifling, and the jury quite reasonably relied upon it to conclude that Dierker had indeed committed the charged offenses. 3. Evidence Implicating Dierker in the Fraud (a) Dierker’s Knowledge of National Century’s Practice of Advancing Both Bily and Gibson fingered Dierker as a participant in the fraud scheme. Both testified that he knew about National Century’s practice of advancing and both also testified that he was one of the senior executives who was given the authority to approve advances, although his authority was limited to California Psychiatric. Bily also asserted that Dierker knew that the DIP financing for California Psychiatric was taken out of NPF XII, not X. She said that he engaged in criminal behavior by “signing] advance request forms knowing that the funds were coming out of XII.” Given Gibson’s uncontroverted testimony that the Accounting Department, not the Funding Department, was in charge of NPF X, the question inevitably arises as to why Dierker was communicating with Bily at all — including sending her Weiss’s emails and signing advance request forms — about funding California Psychiatric. The Court merely flags this question now, but will return to it shortly. Gibson added to the picture of what Dierker knew about National Century’s true business practices by relaying a conversation she had with him following an investor presentation. According to her, she and Dierker expressed mutual contempt for the seemingly know-it-all investors who National Century successfully deceived: After an investor presentation where the investors were all from Ivy League schools, Jim Dierker and I were in the hallway talking about how smart they thought they were and that they didn’t think that those of us from Ohio that had gone to Ohio schools knew anything, and that they should — weren’t asking questions and they weren’t getting any answers and yet they were Ivy League; they knew everything. Gibson further testified that the “questions” the investors were not asking and were not getting answers to pertained to “the funding program as it actually worked.” The evidence presented at trial also showed that Dierker contributed to and received internal memos that arguably would have alerted him to the fact that National Century was not operating its securitized funding programs as advertised. For instance, on July 20, 2001, Bily prepared and circulated to the senior executives a memo entitled “Overview of Special Funding Arrangements.” Bily testified that she drafted the memo in response to a directive from Poulsen, who told her “to contact the people who were working with the accounts that were receiving advances and see if we could eliminate any of the special arrangements we had with them to provide advances.” One of the people Bily contacted was Dierker, since he was the point person on California Psychiatric. It would not be a far leap to conclude that Bily’s explanation to Dierker about the nature of the information she was compiling necessarily would have encompassed references to Nationa