DISCLAIMER: The following unofficial case summaries are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
141241P.pdf 07/07/2015 United States v. Brandy Lemons
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 14-1241
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis
[PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Wollman and Benton, Circuit Judges]
Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. In action alleging defendant
had fraudulently obtained Social Security disability benefits, the
district court did not err in admitting material from defendant's Facebook
page without omitting comments from third persons as the comments were
part of defendant's conversations and made her responses intelligible to
the jury and recognizable as admissions; while there is a hearsay issue
present, defendant did not raise such an objection, limiting her
objections to the district court to relevancy and prejudice; considering
the record as a whole, the mistaken admission of hearsay on the Facebook
page did not affect any substantial right and did not warrant a reversal;
the court did not err in permitting the Hearing Office and ALJ to testify
as lay witnesses regarding defendant's disability; district court did not
abuse its discretion by refusing to take notice of the Social Security
Administration's regulations on overpayment; the district court did not
err in calculating the intended loss as the amount defendant would have
received had the fraud continued until she was 62 as there was sufficient
evidence to show she intended to keep collecting disability benefits until
she reached age 62.