Full opinion text
CARNES, Circuit Judge: When Phillip Hill was a young man growing up in the small town of Sumatra, Florida he helped tend his grandfather’s beehives. He would, as his lawyer would later tell the jury, “get the honey out of the hives.” And he was good at what he did, being named “Florida beekeeper of the year” when he was twenty years old. Three decades later, Hill got involved in the busy hive of Atlanta’s high-end residential real estate market. His goal was still to get out as much honey as he could. From 2000 to 2003 Hill and his associates scooped out of the market almost $22 million in illicit gain. They did it by fraudulently obtaining over 300 mortgage-backed loans for buyers who used the loans to purchase Atlanta-area houses and condominiums from Hill and his associates at more than market value. Almost all of those loans, totaling $110 million, went into default causing lenders and guarantors to be stung with over $38 million in losses. Innocent homeowners in neighborhoods that were hit with foreclosures and distorted property values caused by the scheme also felt the pain, and many people who were used as straw buyers suffered ruined credit and a number of them went bankrupt. Big fraud schemes generally give rise to big prosecutions, and this one is no exception. In this trial alone there were a dozen defendants, and the 187-count indictment against them involved more than 300 transactions. The government’s exhibit list, which was 178 pages long, included 1,135 exhibits that filled 8 filing cabinets. The government also presented more than 100 witnesses, either through live testimony or the parties’ stipulation about what that testimony would be. The presentation of the evidence took 31 trial days. In the end, all but two of the twelve defendants were convicted of at least some charges, and they were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 5 months to 28 years. Big multi-defendant prosecutions generally give rise to big appeals and long opinions. Regrettably, this one is no exception. I. Factual Background A. The Scheme Hill or entities he created purchased properties that they sold to straw buyers for substantially more than the cost or value of those properties. The sales were financed with mortgages based on property values that were inflated by various fraudulent representations that Hill orchestrated. The buyers ultimately defaulted on the loans and the mortgages were foreclosed, but by then Hill and his associates had gotten their profits from the sweet deals they had made by selling the properties at inflated prices. The higher the property value the larger the loan, the larger the loan the higher the sales price, and the higher the sales price the larger the profit. In order to obtain loans for the highest possible property value, and reap the highest possible profit, Hill and his associates made a multitude of misrepresentations to lenders. They lied a lot. They lied about the true buyers, and they lied about the source of the down payments, and they lied about the value of the properties, and they lied about the income and employment of the buyers, and they lied about whether the buyers would occupy the properties, and they lied about whether any other properties owned by the buyers were being leased. Hill and his associates lied about the true owners of the properties in order to disguise the fact that Hill-owned entities were behind all of the transactions and were actually selling the properties to themselves. Unbeknownst to the lenders, Hill had recruited people with good credit scores to serve as straw buyers of the properties. He even had some of them purchase several properties from him using loans from different lenders, all of which were obtained within a short period of time so that each successive lender would not find out about the other loans to that borrower. Once multiple loans or mortgages showed up on the buyer’s credit report, which typically took a few weeks, it became difficult for that buyer to qualify for new loans. At that point, the buyer’s usefulness to Hill was at an end and he would recruit a new buyer. Hill and his associates lied about the source of the down payments to cover up the fact that Hill had supplied most or all of that money to the straw buyers. Lenders want to know that money for a down payment actually comes from the buyer because a buyer who has a substantial stake in the property is considered a better credit risk. That is why they inquire about the source of a down payment before making a loan. Hill circumvented that safeguard in a variety of ways. Sometimes Hill or an associate would give a borrower money to park in her bank account just long enough for the lender to verify the money’s presence, then they would take it back. Other times they falsified the HUD-1 settlement statements that were signed at the closings to show “cash from borrower” when the money had actually come from Hill, an entity he controlled, or one of his associates. Yet other times cashier’s checks were forged or altered to show earlier earnest money payments from the buyers to Hill as seller, when in fact that money had come from other sources. The false checks were created by altering actual checks from the bank account of a straw buyer. With most or all of the loans, the borrowers signed documents at closing falsely representing that they were supplying the down payment money. Hill and his associates lied about the value of the properties to circumvent lenders’ loan-to-value requirements and increase the selling price. Those lies were told through fraudulently inflated property valuations that Hill procured. For example, a bank would make a loan for $200,000 under the assumption that it was lending 80% on a property worth $250,000, when in reality the bank was lending 133% on a property worth only $150,000. To pull this off Hill needed the cooperation of appraisers, and he bought what he needed. The appraisers supported their inflated valuations by cherry-picking inappropriate comparative sales; by concealing recent prior sales of the same property for far lower amounts; by including upgrades that had not actually been done; and by neglecting to report conditions that would depress property values, such as a property’s proximity to railroad tracks or a landfill or its infestation with black mold. Hill and his associates lied about the straw buyers’ income on the loan applications in order to qualify the buyers for loans of the size they were seeking. And those lies in turn required lies about the buyers’ employment and positions to avoid arousing suspicions about the reported income. As part of the lies some borrowers got “promoted” on their loan applications. For example, Eddie Blanchard, a postal clerk in a small Louisiana town, became “Postmaster of Atlanta” on his application. Other buyers acquired impressive-sounding executive titles at companies where they had never worked or at companies that did not even exist. If the lenders tried to verify the employment and income information, Hill’s associates would generate fake W-2s and pay stubs, or they would answer phone calls posing as the borrower’s employer. Hill and his associates lied about the intended use of the properties in order to get the better loan terms and interest rates available for owner-occupied properties. Lenders operate on the assumption that a borrower will be more motivated to make payments on his own home than on an investment property, which is why investment loans require higher interest rates and larger down payments. As for condominiums, some developments had restrictions on the percentage of units that could be rented out, and many lenders would not lend on condominium units if the complex’s owner-occupancy rate was below a certain level. Carrying out Hill’s instructions, straw buyers represented on each loan application that they intended to use the property as their “primary residence,” even though they actually were buying multiple properties and had no intention of moving into any of them. Some of the buyers slipped up and pointed this out at closings. Most of them were told by those conducting the closing (who were being paid by Hill) that they had to say they were going to occupy the property in order to get the loan. Other buyers signed their name to blank application forms, leaving Hill and his associates to generate whatever false information was necessary to meet the lender’s underwriting standards. Hill and his associates lied about whether any residences that the buyers already owned and occupied would be leased in order to cover up the fact that the new properties would not be used as residences. Again, owner-occupied housing attracts better loan-to-value ratios than investment property does. And the straw buyers who did disclose to lenders that they were buying the properties for investment needed to show that the properties would produce enough rental income to cover the mortgage payments. Hill and his associates met this need by generating fake lease contracts with nonexistent tenants or by grossly inflating the income generated by properties that actually were rented. Hill’s scheme needed not only a lot of lying liars but also a slew of straw buyers. Hill recruited the straw buyers by pitching a business model that supposedly involved buying distressed properties at a discount, renovating and furnishing them, renting them out on lucrative short-term leases to corporate executives, athletes, and entertainers, and later selling them for a handsome profit. He told his “investors” — the straw buyers — that they would not have to put any of their own money into the deal, just their name and good credit. Hill assured them that he would take care of mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, association fees, and all other expenses, and that he would maintain the properties, lease them, and collect the rents. After the straw buyers purchased properties, Hill would have them sign quitclaim deeds, conveying the properties back to him. Those quitclaim deeds were concealed from the lenders, and they were not recorded until Hill was ready to resell the property. Ordinarily, the earlier mortgages would have been picked up on a title search before a later loan was made, but Hill bribed some of the attorneys doing the closing work to report clear title to the lenders. In that way he was able to run some of the properties through the lending process more than once, thereby generating a second or third round of illicit gains. In order to get the money he needed for the down payments that the straw buyers fraudulently claimed to have provided at their closings, Hill borrowed “hard money” — short-term cash loans at double-digit interest rates — from wealthy acquaintances like Fred Filsof and John Kruger. The success of the scheme depended on the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds coming in fast enough to pay off the hard money loans. The only way Hill could stay current on existing mortgage loans was by using the incoming flow of sales proceeds. Eventually the whole house had to collapse. Within a few months of their closings, straw buyers found themselves besieged with letters and phone calls from banks complaining that payments on their loans were not being made. Hill promised the straw buyers he would take care of the payments, but he never did. Once their credit was ruined, they were no longer of any use to him and he quit returning their calls. Although all of the buyers had good credit scores before they met Hill, most of them lacked the assets to make down payments on the properties. Many would have had difficulty making the payment on a single loan, let alone on the multiple mortgages that were taken out in their names. Although some (maybe all) of the borrowers suspected something fishy was going on, they played their roles anyway. When questioned, some of them claimed that they thought that the transactions must be legal because there were attorneys present at the closings. The attorneys, however, made a point of leaving the room when the checks were passed around. In return for their part in the scheme, the buyers were paid anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 for each loan transaction. As some of them later testified at trial, however, those payments were not worth the damage done to their credit records once the loans went into default and the mortgages were foreclosed. Those Hill lured in as straw buyers were not the only ones who were injured by the scheme. The neighborhoods where the properties were located suffered from depressed housing values because of the foreclosures that always followed the purchases. The collateral damage from Hill’s fraud was even worse at the condominium complexes because, as we have mentioned, once the percentage of investor-owned units exceeds a certain threshold, lenders generally will refuse to loan money for any other units in that complex. At complexes where Hill had bought and flipped numerous units, the value-distorting fraudulent appraisals, foreclosures, and related litigation between Hill and the condominium associations destroyed value, tied up title, and made it difficult or impossible for the hundreds of legitimate owner-occupiers to sell or refinance their own units. Because Hill’s units failed to pay their dues, the complexes also lacked the funds necessary to maintain common areas, which further depressed the value of the properties. B. Hill’s Associates Hill could not carry out such a sophisticated scheme without plenty of help. He had a swarm of loan brokers, closing attorneys, appraisers, assistants, and recruiters. Leslie Rector began working for Hill during the summer of 2000 and became his right-hand man. He was responsible for managing, coordinating, and facilitating Hill’s scheme, and he worked with all of the key co-conspirators, including the straw buyers, recruiters, brokers, appraisers, and closing attorneys. He supplied the false lease agreements used to obtain loans, and after the closings he got the straw buyers to sign quitclaim deeds conveying the properties back to Hill in return for a promise that Hill would make the mortgage payments for them. Several mortgage brokers, including Robert Powers, actively deceived the lenders by representing that the borrowers intended to use the properties as a primary residence, or by concealing the true origin of the down payments. Appraisers such as Fred Farmer and Barbara Brown performed fraudulent appraisals on the properties, giving them inflated values and concealing earlier sales so that the buyers could obtain more money from lenders than the properties were actually worth. To feed the scheme’s appetite for straw buyers, Hill used a network of recruiters. Marcus Alcindor, Riley Graham, Christine Laudermill, and David Thomas all recruited straw buyers by telling them that they would be purchasing the properties for Hill when in reality they were buying them from him. The recruiters would promise the buyers that Hill would pay the mortgages on their “investment properties.” Cheryl Denny, David Thomas, and David Van Mersbergen were among the large number of people who served as straw buyers for properties associated with Hill. C. The Properties Hill’s scheme involved a host of houses, condominium units, and some residential lots in the Atlanta area. Some of the properties had been on the market for months without selling. After Hill bought them, he immediately re-sold them at much higher prices to his straw buyers in deals financed by fraudulently procured loans. Some of the properties Hill bought had fallen into a bad state while they sat vacant, but that did not stop him from using them. For example, after buying one house for $1.4 million, Hill used an inflated valuation to re-sell it to a straw buyer for $2.8 million, even though the house was infested throughout with black mold. In a similar fashion, Hill bought and resold one group of residential lots. He used one of his companies, Estates Atlanta, Inc., to purchase 34 residential lots and six completed homes located in the Cascade subdivision. Later, Marcus Aleindor and Riley Graham (aka Riley Williams) formed the Alcindor-Williams Group, LLC, which bought 27 of the 34 Cascade lots from Estates Atlanta with a loan from Centrum Financial. In their loan application Aleindor and Graham made several false statements and representations, including a fraudulent financial statement and falsified sales agreements between Estates Atlanta and straw buyers of some of the lots. The loan request also included a fraudulent appraisal that valued the 27 lots at $2.7 million but failed to reveal the earlier purchase of all 34 lots for less than that amount or that these “luxury” lots were actually bordered by a railroad track and a landfill. Like the fraudulent loans on houses and condominiums, Aleindor and Graham had to show Centrum that they had a stake in the Cascade venture in order to qualify for the loan. To make that showing, they presented Centrum with altered checks as evidence of their payments for marketing work that was never actually done, Hill perjured himself in an affidavit stating that the Alcindor-Williams Group had paid him $150,000, and Aleindor and Graham presented at closing a check that was supposedly paid to Hill, when it actually came from Hill. Unbeknownst to Centrum, the Alcindor-Williams Group had entered into an agreement with Hill, through Estates Atlanta, for a second loan secured by a promissory note that was to be funded by the money they made from fraudulent sales to straw buyers of three Hill-owned houses in the Cascade subdivision. Hill then used those fraudulently obtained loan proceeds to pay off one of his own creditors who had loaned him money on the lots. D. The Charter Bank Fraud Once mortgage lenders began to catch on to the fraud, several quit dealing with Hill. Desperate to keep the hive humming, Hill sought out a new source of financing. Christopher Baker, a banking client of Charter Bank, introduced him to Fred Vargas, a vice president at Charter. Baker presented Hill as someone who needed a loan and who also could provide Vargas with an exciting real estate opportunity. Vargas was excited by the Hill investment scheme and the chance to make some quick money. He bought several condominiums from Hill at “discounted” prices with the intention of flipping them at a profit and replacing the money he had stolen before anyone noticed it was gone. In order to finance his purchase of those properties, Vargas stole money from the bank by using fraudulently created lines of credit. Exploiting the opportunity presented by his new confederate in crime, Hill got Vargas to issue lines of credit to two Hill-controlled entities, Atlanta Condo Parking and Storage and Atlanta Millennium, which were supposedly secured by extra parking spaces for sale in condominium complexes and by (nonexistent) “accounts receivable.” Because Vargas only had authority to make loans of $100,000 or less without seeking the approval of a supervisor, he set up two separate lines of credit for the two Hill entities, one at $90,000 and one at $80,000. After Hill defaulted on these loans, as did a suspiciously high number of other borrowers who had worked with Vargas, the bank investigated and uncovered Vargas’ scheme in late 2002, which eventually led to his resignation from the bank in March 2003. E. The Investigation Lenders began investigating after they noticed a high number of loan defaults associated with certain brokers. During their internal investigations, auditors uncovered falsified information and valuations in some loan applications. In 2001 Fannie Mae began an investigation, and then the IRS initiated its own criminal investigation. Investigators approached several participants in August and September of 2001 to discuss plea deals. In the meantime, Hill kept his scheme going by continuing to fraudulently “flip” houses and condominiums well into 2003 despite his awareness from late 2001 onward that he was under investigation; he was even receiving subpoenas during that time. Wayne Jenkins and Ted Tagalakis, loan brokers who had worked for Hill, began cooperating with the government’s investigation in late 2001 and early 2002. Each of them pleaded guilty in separate cases and received reduced sentences in exchange for their cooperation and testimony at trial. Rector, who was Hill’s second in command, was approached by investigators in February 2003. He began giving interviews and providing documents, and he continued cooperating well into 2005 until negotiations broke down, and he was indicted in January 2006. Vargas began cooperating with the government’s investigation near the end of 2003, implicating Hill in the Charter line of credit fraud. In May 2004 Vargas pleaded guilty in a separate case to charges of conspiracy and bank fraud and was sentenced to 51 months imprisonment. After he testified for the government in this trial, his sentence was reduced under a Rule 35 motion to 26 months. See Fed. R.Crim.P. 35. In November of 2004, Hill, Baker and other Vargas bank clients were indicted in a case involving the Charter line of credit conspiracy. Hill’s case was later severed from that one and the charges against him were consolidated with others in this case. II. Procedural History A. The Indictment This case went to trial on the third superseding indictment, which was returned in November 2006. It charged 18 defendants with a total of 187 counts, including three separate conspiracies and a host of substantive counts. The charges were grouped around each of the three conspiracies. The first group of charges, Counts 1 through 14, charged Hill and Baker with conspiracy to defraud Charter Bank and Trust in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; with bribing Vargas in connection with Charter’s business and transactions in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 215(a)(1); with two instances of bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344; with four instances of making false statements to influence the credit decision of a financial institution in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014; and with six instances of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957. The second group of charges, Counts 15 through 18, charged Hill, Alcindor, Moss, Baker, and Graham with conspiring to defraud Centrum Financial Services in connection with the sale of the 27 lots in the Cascade subdivision to the Alcindor-Williams Group in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and with three substantive counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. The third group of charges begins with Count 19, which charged that all of the appellants conspired with each other and with Carl Best, Annette Spear, Dean Thomas, William Chavis, Cheryl Denny, Michael Flake, and Graham to defraud various mortgage lenders in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Counts 20 through 33 charged those defendants with making false statements to influence the credit decision of a bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014, with each charge relating to the particular mortgage loans in which each defendant was involved. Counts 34 through 38 charged specific instances of mail fraud related to mortgage loans in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and Counts 39 through 48 charged specific instances of wire fraud related to mortgage loans in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. Counts 49 through 181 charged money laundering related to transactions involving the proceeds of the frauds alleged in the prior counts of the indictment in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957. Finally, Counts 182 through 187 charged additional counts of credit application fraud related to mortgage loans obtained from Flagstar Bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014. B. Pretrial Motions Alcindor, Rector, Van Mersbergen, Moss, David Thomas, Graham, and Annette Spear moved to sever their cases. The court granted Graham’s motion after finding that his insistence on proceeding pro se would cause delay and distraction at the main trial. It granted Spear’s motion for a severance because the only evidence of her involvement stemmed from her pri- or relationship with Graham. Before trial, a dispute arose over Rector’s proffer agreement when the government moved in limine to bar the defendants from mentioning in their opening statements that they had tried to cooperate by making proffers and that the government only prosecuted them because it was dissatisfied with what they had to say. Rector responded to the government’s motion by filing a motion in limine of his own to enforce the part of the proffer agreement that barred the government from using proffer-derived evidence against him except in limited circumstances. Because the motions were filed just before trial, the district court opted to take them under advisement. C. Trial The nine appellants — Hill, Alcindor, Powers, Laudermill, Van Mersbergen, Farmer, Rector, David Thomas, and Brown — plus Dean Thomas, Cheryl Denny, and James Moss pleaded not guilty and went to trial. The trial lasted from January 16 through March 14, 2007. The government’s case consisted of 1,135 exhibits and the testimony (or stipulation about the testimony) of more than 100 witnesses, some of whom were cooperating co-conspirators. Others were officials or agents of the victim lenders. An investigating agent also testified to provide, among other things, an overview of the case. The district court worked hard to keep the trial from getting out of control and consuming even more time and resources than it did. In the interests of efficiency and judicial economy, the court limited opening statements, sometimes restricted cross-examination, urged both sides to stipulate to the authenticity of various records and to what lenders would say, and in the presence of the jury encouraged both the prosecution and the defense to “move on.” In exchange for the defendants’ making reasonable and appropriate stipulations at trial in order to streamline the proceedings, the court promised to reward their cooperation at sentencing, and on at least one occasion the court intimated that failure to do so might lead to less favorable treatment at sentencing. At the end of the government’s case in chief, the court heard arguments on the defendants’ Rule 29 motions for judgments of acquittal. Each defendant went in alphabetical order, beginning with Alcindor. The court granted Alcindor’s motion for acquittal on Counts 38 and 94, agreeing with him that the evidence on those counts pointed only to the companies controlled by Alcindor and Graham and did not show Alcindor’s individual involvement. The court granted a judgment of acquittal for Cheryl Denny and James Moss on all counts after concluding that there was insufficient evidence that their involvement in the scheme was with knowledge of the fraud. The court denied the other defendants’ Rule 29 motions. And after reconsidering the matter, the court reversed its earlier ruling that had granted Alcindor’s motion for acquittal on Counts 38 and 94. Following the rulings on their Rule 29 motions, the defendants presented some evidence and witnesses. The strategy that they pursued was to argue that they acted in good faith and lacked any criminal intent because they had no idea that what they were doing was criminal. That strategy may have been hampered by the fact that none of the defendants took the stand. Nor did they present a united front. The defendants who were Hill’s associates and subordinates pointed the finger at him, while Alcindor blamed Graham, and Hill claimed innocence and reliance on the advice of counsel as a defense. The jury was instructed on March 5, and it returned its verdict on March 14, 2007, following eight days of deliberations. The jury delivered split verdicts on Farmer, Hill, Rector, and Dean Thomas, finding them guilty on some counts and not guilty on others, while Alcindor, Brown, Lauder-mill, Powers, David Thomas, and Van Mersbergen were found guilty on all counts. III. The Severance Motions Issues Before trial, Powers filed a motion for severance based on, among other things, antagonistic defenses. Rector and Van Mersbergen also filed motions for severance, contending that they should be tried separately because they were charged with only one of the three conspiracies alleged in the indictment. Although Alcindor made no motion of his own, he did adopt the severance motions of co-defendants Rector, Dean Thomas, and James Moss. The Thomas motion stated as its ground antagonistic defenses, while Moss’ motion contended that because the evidence in his case was the same as that in Riley Graham’s case he should be tried with Graham, who was likely to be granted a severance. We review a district court’s denial of a motion for severance only for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Ramirez, 426 F.3d 1344, 1353 (11th Cir.2005). In determining whether a joint trial is appropriate, the district court must “balance the prejudice that a defendant may suffer from a joint trial, against the public’s interest in judicial economy and efficiency.” United States v. Cross, 928 F.2d 1030, 1037 (11th Cir.1991). We are “reluctant to reverse a district court’s denial of severance, particularly in conspiracy cases, as generally persons who are charged together should also be tried together.” United States v. Knowles, 66 F.3d 1146, 1158 (11th Cir.1995) (quotation marks omitted). A district court’s denial of a severance warrants reversal only if the defendant can demonstrate that the denial was a “clear abuse of discretion” and that as a result he suffered “compelling prejudice against which the district court could offer no protection.” United States v. Walser, 3 F.3d 380, 385 (11th Cir.1993). A defendant may show that he suffered compelling prejudice by demonstrating “that the jury was unable to sift through the evidence and make an individualized determination as to each defendant.” United States v. Schlei, 122 F.3d 944, 984 (11th Cir.1997) (quotation marks omitted). A. Rector Rector contends that it was an abuse of discretion not to grant him a severance because the indictment charged three separate and distinct conspiracies, two of which did not implicate him. Because the other two conspiracies differed in time, in some of the participants, and in factual particulars from the residential mortgage fraud scheme charged against him in Count 19, he argues that his case was improperly joined under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(b) and should have been severed under Rule 14. Rule 8(b) provides that: “The indictment or information may charge 2 or more defendants if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction, or in the same series of acts or transactions, constituting an offense or offenses,” and the “defendants may be charged in one or more counts together or separately,” but they “need not be charged in each count.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(b). Although Rector was not charged with crimes in connection with two of the three conspiracies, the Count 19 conspiracy with which he was charged is the big one. He was actually charged in two-thirds of the counts (121 of 187) in the indictment. In any event, “separate conspiracies with different memberships may still be joined if they are part of the same series of acts or transactions.” United States v. Weaver, 905 F.2d 1466, 1476 (11th Cir.1990) (quotation marks and alteration omitted). In this case the three conspiracies and the various substantive counts arrayed around them were properly joined because each of the charges arose out of Hill’s master scheme to defraud lenders through a common plan and design. The fact that Hill used a different set of actors to perform the three acts of his play did not transform it into three different plays. Rector has also failed to demonstrate that he suffered any specific and compelling prejudice from the court’s refusal to sever his case from that of his co-defendants. Most of the evidence that was introduced at trial related to the 121 counts with which he was charged. But even if, as Rector asserts, there had been an “enormous disparity” in the amount of evidence that related to other defendants or charges compared with the evidence that related to him, “[a] defendant does not suffer compelling prejudice, sufficient to mandate a severance, simply because much of the evidence at trial is applicable only to co-defendants.” Schlei 122 F.3d at 984 (quotation marks omitted). Although the district court, in the interests of efficiency and judicial economy, understandably refused to give the jury a curative instruction every time evidence irrelevant to the charges against Rector was introduced, the court did give the jury a closing instruction that it must consider the evidence separately as to each defendant with respect to each charge. We generally presume that jurors follow their instructions. Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756, 766 n. 8, 107 S.Ct. 3102, 3109 n. 8, 97 L.Ed.2d 618 (1987); United States v. Stone, 9 F.3d 934, 938 (11th Cir.1993). More specifically, we apply “the strong presumption ... that jurors are able to compartmentalize evidence by respecting limiting instructions specifying the defendants against whom the evidence may be considered.” United States v. Blankenship, 382 F.3d 1110, 1123 (11th Cir.2004). Even without presumptions, it is obvious that the jury followed the court’s instructions in this case. After deliberating for eight days, the jury acquitted Rector of 25 of the 121 charges against him, a result that demonstrates the care with which the jury sifted through the evidence and considered the charges. See United States v. Baker, 432 F.3d 1189, 1237 (11th Cir.2005) (“In evaluating a jury’s ability to sift through the evidence presented and to make individualized interpretations of guilt, an appellate court may consider whether the jury issued a ‘split’ verdict, finding guilt as to some defendants or charges but not as to others. Split verdicts weigh against a finding of undue ‘spillover.’ ”). The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Rector’s motion for a severance. B. Van Mersbergen Van Mersbergen contends that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court not to grant his severance motion because he was prejudiced by the district court’s efforts to effectively manage the unwieldy trial of 12 defendants. Before voir dire, the district court determined that the government would be given 10 peremptory strikes and the defendants would be collectively allotted 16, and the court permitted the defendants to determine the method they would use to exercise those strikes. When the defendants failed to reach an agreement about that, the court allotted one strike to each of the defendants and then distributed the remaining four strikes to the defendants who would figure most prominently in the trial: two to Hill, one to Farmer, and one to Rector. The district court then devised a rotating method for exercising the strikes under which the defendants would exercise two strikes and the government one until all of the strikes were used. The district court also decided that instead of permitting counsel for each of the 12 defendants and an attorney representing the government to question prospective jurors, the court would do the questioning. Counsel for each party was allowed input into the questions that would be asked and also allowed to suggest follow-up questions. Opening statements were limited to accommodate the number of attorneys involved. Each defendant was given 15 minutes, except for Powers and Farmer who were given 20 minutes each, Rector who was given 30 minutes, and Hill who was given 45 minutes. Van Mersbergen argues that he was prejudiced as a result of the joint trial because the large number of defendants resulted in his peremptory strikes being reduced from the normal 10 to only 1; his counsel was not allowed to question prospective jurors directly; his time for opening statements was reduced; he was not permitted a full opportunity to further develop his Batson challenge; and one witness was allowed to testify that when he heard Hill’s sales pitch (outside the presence of Van Mersbergen), the witness had told Hill that what he was describing was mortgage fraud. Van Mersbergen did not properly raise all of these prejudice arguments in the district court. He did adopt the motions of his co-defendants, but their motions did not assert that a severance was necessary to avoid all of the types of prejudice that Van Mersbergen now argues the district court should have considered. Instead, the co-defendants’ motions that Van Mersbergen adopted asserted only that a failure to sever would result in three types of prejudice: reduction in the number of peremptory strikes each individual defendant was allotted, curtailment of the jury voir dire that might otherwise occur, and a reduction in the time given each defendant for opening statements. The district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the interests of efficiency and judicial economy outweighed any prejudice that might befall Van Mersbergen in a joint trial with his co-defendants. Although he was not allowed to individually exercise the number of peremptory strikes that he would have had if tried separately, Van Mersbergen and his co-defendants were jointly given 16 strikes, which is more than the 10 strikes normally allotted to a defendant or to jointly tried defendants under Rule 24(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. There is no constitutional right to peremptory strikes, Rivera v. Illinois, 556 U.S. 148, 129 S.Ct. 1446, 1453, 173 L.Ed.2d 320 (2009), and the rotation-sharing method used for the exercise of the defendants’ joint strikes in this case is similar to one that we approved in United States v. Romero, 780 F.2d 981, 984 (11th Cir.1986) (upholding a district court’s use of six rotating rounds of peremptory challenges in a case involving multiple defendants). AlS for the attorneys not being allowed to directly question the venire members, a district court has discretion about how to conduct voir dire, including whether to have counsel submit questions in writing. United States v. Brooks, 670 F.2d 148, 152 (11th Cir.1982). The same goes for the amount of time allotted for opening statements. United States v. Zielie, 734 F.2d 1447, 1455 (11th Cir.1984), abrogated on other grounds by Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 177-79, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 2779-80, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987), as recognized in United States v. Chestang, 849 F.2d 528, 531 (11th Cir.1988). Van Mersbergen has failed to convince us that the district court abused its discretion in taking the reasonable steps it did to manage the difficulties presented by trial of a ease of this magnitude, considered either apart from or in the context of the denial of his motion for severance. Van Mersbergen also insists that because he was charged with only one of the three conspiracies his due process rights were violated by the joint trial. Although he was charged as part of the big Count 19 conspiracy, Van Mersbergen was named in only 14 of the counts, which involved only three of the properties. To the extent that he claims he was a victim of “spillover” prejudice or transference of guilt, however, his claim fails for the same reason as Rector’s. While there was less evidence relevant to the charges against Van Mersbergen than to all of the charges against his co-defendants, that fact is not enough to demonstrate compelling prejudice. If it were enough, in every joint trial the defendant facing the fewest charges with the least amount of evidence would be automatically entitled to a severance. Then, the next defendant left who faced the fewest charges and least amount of evidence would be automatically entitled to a severance, and so on, until only one or a few defendants remained in the trial. That cannot be, and it is not, the law. Even though Van Mersbergen was convicted on all 14 counts against him, the fact that the jury returned split verdicts against some of his co-defendants shows its ability to separate out the charges and evidence. A defendant cannot demonstrate that he suffered compelling prejudice merely because the jury ultimately concluded that he was guilty as charged. For all of these reasons, the district court did not err by denying the severance motions of Van Mersbergen or those of his co-defendants that he was deemed to have adopted. C. Alcindor Alcindor presents us with the novel theory that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to sever him from the joint trial so that he could be tried together with Graham, who had been granted a severance. Alcindor’s contention is that it violated due process to try him separately from Graham, because that permitted the government to advance in the two trials inconsistent positions regarding the culpability of the two men for the fraud on Centrum Bank. There are a number of reasons that contention does not entitle him to a new trial. First, Alcindor failed to assert the potential for inconsistent prosecution theories as a ground for a severance in the district court. He did not file his own severance motion but instead adopted those of three of his co-defendants, none of whom asserted that severance should be granted to permit the movant to be tried with Graham in order to foreclose the possibility of the government pursuing inconsistent theories of guilt. We will not hold that the district court abused its discretion in failing to grant a severance on a ground that was never brought to its attention. The best that Alcindor is entitled to is plain error review, and the failure to grant a severance in these circumstances does not qualify as plain error by any stretch of the imagination. For one thing, Alcindor’s contention suffers from a fundamental flaw. The last severance motion was denied in this case in December of 2006, the trial itself was over in March of 2007, and Graham’s trial did not begin until February of 2008. At the time the district court denied the severance motions in this case, neither Alcindor nor anyone else had suggested that the government might pursue inconsistent theories of prosecution in Alcindor’s and Graham’s trials, and there was no reason to believe that it would. We do not require that trial courts be clairvoyant and grant motions on grounds not asserted because of events that have not yet happened. Instead, they may treat as gospel the age-old advice to take “no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34 (King James). Even putting aside that fatal flaw in Alcindor’s position, and assuming for present purposes that trial courts have a duty to foresee the future, it is not at all plain that a defendant has a right to prevent the prosecution from using inconsistent theories to prosecute two separately tried defendants charged with the same crime. In Parker v. Singletary, 974 F.2d 1562, 1577-78 (11th Cir.1992), we rejected a claim that the prosecution violated due process by arguing at the defendant’s trial that he was the triggerman while failing to disclose to him that it had argued in the separated trials of his two co-defendants that each one of them had been the triggerman. We stressed that the prosecution in those cases did not use “necessarily contradictory evidence,” and “the only inconsistency was in the state’s alternative arguments” about what inference the jury should draw from the same evidence. Id. at 1578; see also Bradshaw v. Stumpf. 545 U.S. 175, 190, 125 S.Ct. 2398, 2409-10, 162 L.Ed.2d 143 (2005) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“This Court has never hinted, much less held, that the Due Process Clause prevents a State from prosecuting defendants based on inconsistent theories.”); Fotopoulos v. Sec., Dep’t of Corr., 516 F.3d 1229, 1234-35 (11th Cir.2008) (concluding that a holding that the presentation of inconsistent theories at the trial of two defendants charged with the same crime did not violate due process was not contrary to clearly established law). Likewise, there was no “necessarily contradictory evidence” in the two trials involved here. In the trial of this case, as Alcindor points out, the government made little mention of Graham in its opening and closing statements, but that is understandable since Graham was not one of the dozen defendants on trial. At no time during this trial did the government ever take the position that Graham was not guilty of the Centrum Bank fraud, and at no time during the later trial of Graham did the government ever take the position that Alcindor was not guilty of it. In fact, during the present trial several government witnesses testified to Graham’s guilt, and during Graham’s trial several testified to Alcindor’s guilt. The government’s consistent position in both trials was that both Alcindor and Graham were guilty of the Centrum Bank fraud counts. Alcindor’s argument that the government took inconsistent positions focuses on the testimony of Quianna Wasler, Graham’s long-time girlfriend, in the two trials. Alcindor claims that in this trial he was unable to succeed with his defense of no criminal intent because government witnesses such as Wasler testified to his personal participation in several components of the fraud against Centrum Financial. According to Alcindor, later at Graham’s trial the government used Wasler’s testimony to point the finger at Graham who had directed her to participate in the fraud, and by doing that the government was making essentially the same point that Alcindor had sought to establish in his trial' — that Graham manipulated Alcindor and others into becoming unwitting participants in his fraudulent scheme. The fact is, however, that Wasler testified consistently in both trials. She told both juries that: Graham directed her to falsify pay stubs and W-2 forms in the names of straw buyers for the Centrum loan package; she and Graham “inflated” items on Alcindor’s personal financial statement; and she and Graham falsified cashier’s checks made out to Alcindor and the Alcindor-Williams Group. Wasler’s testimony at both trials implicated Alcindor and Graham together in the fraud on Centrum. She testified that both of them were present at the closings for the straw purchases of Cascade lots, and that they both assisted three straw buyers in falsifying the purchases of pre-existing homes in order to finance the purchase of the Cascade subdivision by the Alcindor-Williams Group. Other matters that Alcindor considers stark inconsistencies between the evidence at the two trials are easily understood in the context of the separate trials, the different defendants, and the inevitable difference in questions asked of the witnesses. How far Alcindor strains to find some differences is apparent from his use of testimony about whether both he and Graham were present at some of the closings. For example, in this trial of Alcindor the government offered testimony that he and Graham were both present at the closings involving the Alcindor-Williams Group, thus undermining Alcindor’s defense that he was out of the country at those times. He argues that the testimony he was present at those closings is inconsistent with what Michael Key “made clear” in his testimony at Graham’s trial, which is that only Graham was present at the closings on behalf of the Alcindor-Williams Group. The record shows, however, that Key actually admitted during his testimony at Graham’s trial that in addition to Graham “[t]here could have been others” present. The government’s consistent theory was that both Alcindor and Graham were guilty to the gills of the Centrum Bank fraud charges against them, and the evidence at both trials supported that position. We cannot say, to borrow a few key words from an Eighth Circuit opinion, that the government used “inherently factually contradictory theories” and changed the color of its stripes from one trial to the next by advancing an “inconsistency ... at the core of the prosecutor’s [separate] cases against defendants for the same crime.” Smith v. Groose, 205 F.3d 1045, 1052 (8th Cir.2000). Far from it. So, Alcindor loses on the severance issue because he failed to raise in the district court the inconsistent prosecution theories and evidence ground that he now asserts; because we do not require district courts to foretell that the prosecution theory or evidence in a future trial of a co-defendant will be different from what it is in the trial then before the court; because it is not plain that inconsistent prosecution theories and evidence would violate a defendant’s rights; and because, even if they would, Alcindor has not shown inconsistency here. D. Powers Powers, who acted as a mortgage broker in some of the transactions, contends that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court not to grant his motion for a severance on the ground of antagonistic defenses. Part of his defense was that he was an innocent participant who had been duped by the straw buyers, while the defense of the straw buyer defendants was that they themselves had been unwitting participants which, if true, would rule out their duping Powers or anyone else. After the court restricted a portion of Powers’ cross-examination of Wayne Jenkins, he renewed his motion for severance, and he was joined by Denny, one of the straw buyer defendants. The law is that defendants indicted together generally should be tried together; the fact that a defendant’s chances of acquittal are materially better in separate trials is not enough; a defendant is not entitled to a severance merely because of antagonistic or mutually exclusive defenses; and a defendant must show that the joint trial caused him such compelling prejudice that he was deprived of a fair trial. Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 537-41, 113 S.Ct. 933, 937-39, 122 L.Ed.2d 317 (1993); see also Blankenship, 382 F.3d at 1125 (“The Supreme Court has held that co-defendants do not suffer prejudice simply because one co-defendant’s defense directly inculpates another, or it is logically impossible for a jury to believe both co-defendants’ defenses.”). Powers clearly has not made that showing. As we said of the two appellants in the Blankenship case, “[a]side from pointing out their mutually antagonistic defenses, however, neither ... ha[s] shown how the joint trial prejudiced them in any other legally cognizable way.” Id. There was no abuse of discretion in denying Powers’ motion for a severance. IV. Jury Selection Issues Van Mersbergen contends that the district court erred by not permitting the prospective jurors to be asked during voir dire about each of the witnesses who would testify during the trial. All of the appellants contend that the district court erred in not granting their Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), objection to the government’s use of its peremptory strikes. A. Failure to Ask the Venire About All Government Witnesses Jury selection took place during two days. As part of its effort to streamline and effectively manage a trial involving so many defendants and attorneys, the district court decided that members of the jury venire would be asked about their familiarity with only the most important witnesses. To that end, the court directed both the prosecution and the defendants to submit lists of each side’s 10 most important witnesses to be published to the venire instead of the names of the 185 or so potential witnesses on their lists. Perhaps as a result, the prospective jurors were not asked if they knew a government witness named Brenda Stewart. Early in the trial Stewart testified that she and her brother had negotiated with Hill for her brother to buy one of the completed houses in the Cascade subdivision and for a new house to be built for herself and her mother on one of the empty lots. Before those negotiations could be completed, however, Stewart shifted to dealing with Alcindor and Graham who had purchased the Cascade subdivision from Hill through the Alcindor-Williams Group. Stewart testified that during the course of their dealings she and her brother paid $25,000 in earnest money to Hill and another $7,500 to the Alcindor-Williams Group, money which she was never able to recover after she learned that neither she nor her brother would receive the houses they had contracted to buy. Shortly after Stewart was called to testify, the court interrupted the government’s examination to ask Stewart if she were acquainted with Rosemary Burton. Burton was one of the alternate jurors, and she had apparently alerted a court security officer that she knew Stewart. Defense counsel for Farmer and Brown complained that if Stewart’s relationship with Burton had been revealed earlier during voir dire, the defendants could have used a peremptory strike to remove her. The court questioned Burton outside the presence of the other jurors, but in open court, regarding her relationship with Stewart. Burton stated that they worked in different departments and on different floors of the Social Security Administration, and that they were acquaintances who had interacted only on a limited basis. Burton assured the court that she would not give any additional weight to Stewart’s testimony and that knowing Stewart would have no effect on her ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror. The court found that Burton could be fair and impartial, and no defendant asked that she be removed from the jury. Nevertheless, Van Mersbergen contends that the court empaneled a jury in violation of his constitutional right to a fair trial by seating Burton, who he argues should have been struck for cause and would have been if the court had permitted the venire to be asked about all of the names on the witness list. Van Mersbergen further contends that the district court abridged his right to exercise his peremptory challenges by failing to show the jury a complete list of witnesses. He says that if the district court had done so, the relationship between Burton and Stewart would have come to light, and Van Mersbergen would have used one of his peremptory challenges to strike Burton from the jury. Alternatively, he argues that even if the empaneled jury was fair and impartial, reversible error occurred when the government during its closing arguments mentioned Stewart, but not other “investors,” by name. Actually, what the government did in its closing was mention Stewart’s name along with the names of all of those who were involved in the Cascade/Centrum fraud when it was discussing the details of that fraud. “The method of conducting the voir dire is left to the sound discretion of the trial court and will be upheld unless an abuse of discretion is found.” United States v. Vera, 701 F.2d 1349, 1355 (11th Cir.1983). It is well established that “[t]he voir dire conducted by the trial court need only provide reasonable assurance that prejudice will be discovered if present.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). Any error involving Burton’s service on the jury is subject to review only for plain error because no defendant objected to her continued service, asked that she be questioned further, or took issue with the court’s finding that she could be fair and impartial. United States v. Raad, 406 F.3d 1322, 1323 (11th Cir.2005) (“When a defendant fails to object to an error before the district court, we review the argument for plain error.”). Burton’s continued presence on the jury could not have been error — much less plain error — because she did not sit on the final jury that rendered the verdict in this case. Even if Van Mersbergen could convince us that Burton was biased and should have been excluded from the jury, he cannot prove that he was prejudiced by the district court’s failure to exclude her because Burton was an alternate juror who never participated in the jury’s deliberations. She could not have had any effect on the verdicts in the ease. Furthermore, Van Mersbergen has failed to cite to any authority demonstrating that a district court abuses its discretion by failing to publish the government’s complete list of witnesses to the venire. We are satisfied that the district court did not abuse its discretion by disclosing to the venire a list that included 41 corporate victims, 8 affected condominium complexes, and the government’s 10 most important witnesses, but failed to include Burton. Van Mersbergen’s contention that the court’s failure to ask the venire about all of the witnesses, including Stewart, abridged his right to exercise a peremptory strike against Burton fails for similar reasons. Since Burton did not serve on the jury that convicted him, Van Mersbergen was not harmed by the fact that he did not strike her from the jury. Instead, he gained the opportunity to use that strike against another venire member. B. The Batson Issue All of the appellants contend that the government improperly used its peremptory strikes to remove black jurors on the basis of their race, and that the district court erred in denying their challenge of the government’s strikes under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). That decision, of course, established that the Equal Protection Clause forbids the exercise of peremptory jury strikes on the basis of race. In Batson and its progeny, the Supreme Court laid out a three-part inquiry for deciding whether a party’s strikes were motivated by race. Id. at 97-98, 106 S.Ct. at 1723-24; see also Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472, 476-77, 128 S.Ct. 1203, 1207, 170 L.Ed.2d 175 (2008), Johnson v. California, 545 U.S. 162, 168, 125 S.Ct. 2410, 2416, 162 L.Ed.2d 129 (2005). First, the district court must determine whether the party challenging the strikes has established a prima facie case by showing facts sufficient to support an inference of discriminatory motive. Johnson, 545 U.S. at 170, 125 S.Ct. at 2417; United States v. Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d 1015, 1038 (11th Cir.2005). If a prima facie showing is made, Batson’s second step requires the striking party to offer a race-neutral explanation for its strikes. Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d at 1038. The reason given for the peremptory strike need not be a good reason. It can be an irrational, “silly or superstitious” reason, as long as it is not a discriminatory reason. Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 1771, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995). However, the ultimate burden of persuasion remains with the party challenging the strike as discriminatory. Id.; Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d at 1038. In the third and final stage, the district court must evaluate the persuasiveness of the proffered reason and determine whether, considering all relevant circumstances, the objector has carried the burden of proving discrimination. Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d at 1039. In this case after the defendants made their Batson objections, the district court initially had the government state some reasons for its peremptory strikes against black venire members, but the court cut that process short by not allowing the appellants to respond fully to the stated reasons. The court denied the Bat-son claim both on the ground that there was no prima facie case and also on the ground that the government’s explanations for its strikes were “legitimate and nondiscriminatory.” Any error in not allowing the defendants to respond to the stated reasons is purely academic if the court’s finding that there was no prima facie ease stands. See Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d at 1038 (“Our precedent makes clear that ‘the establishment of a prima facie case is an absolute precondition to further inquiry into the motivation behind the challenged strike.’ ”) (quoting Central Alabama Fair Housing Ctr. v. Lowder Realty Co., 236 F.3d 629, 636 (11t