United States v. Gramins, No. 18-2007 (2d Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
Shortly after defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, the Second Circuit decided United States v. Litvak, 889 2 F.3d 56 (2d Cir. 2018) (Litvak II), which held in the context of a similar prosecution that the erroneous and idiosyncratic viewpoint of a defendant's counterparty could not be relevant to the objective, "reasonable investor" standard for materiality in a securities fraud prosecution. The district court relied on Litvak II to grant defendant's motion for a new trial on the basis that counterparty testimony had been improperly admitted against defendant at trial.
The court held, however, that the counterparty testimony at defendant's trial was not improperly admitted and did not implicate the court's holding in Litvak II. In this case, the testimony did not reflect the counterparty's idiosyncratic and erroneous belief, and the testimony was relevant to the jury's assessment of materiality under FRE 401. Furthermore, the testimony did not advance the government's theory of materiality in an impermissible manner. The court held that, even if the admission of the testimony did constitute error, the error was harmless. Finally, the district court's cumulative prejudice analysis did not provide a valid alternative ground for affirmance. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.