United States v. Vampire Nation

United States v. Vampire Nation
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Full case name	United States of America v. Vampire Nation a/k/a Fredrik Von Hamilton a/k/a Frederick Hamilton Banks, Frederick H. Banks, Appellant.
Argued	May 16 2006
Decided	June 20 2006
Citation(s)	451 F.3d 189
Case history
Prior history	Defendant convicted at trial in Western District of Pennsylvania
Holding
Since Federal Sentencing Guidelines have been held to be advisory, Rule 32(h) does not require notice of contemplated variance; provisions for in personam criminal forfeiture exist wherever statute authorizes civil forfeiture and is otherwise silent. Conviction and sentence affirmed.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Marjorie Rendell, Joseph F. Weis, Jr., Franklin Van Antwerpen
Case opinions
Majority	Van Antwerpen
Laws applied
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000

United States v. Vampire Nation, 451 F.3d 189, is a 2006 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit regarding the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and asset forfeiture. A three-judge panel unanimously affirmed the conviction and sentence of Frederick Banks, a Pittsburgh man, on numerous felony charges resulting from fraudulent schemes carried out over the Internet. The case takes its title, which has been singled out as memorable^[1] and included among lists of amusingly titled cases,^[2] from one of Banks' aliases, an electronic music group of which he was the sole regular member.^[3] He had filed the appeal under that name while representing himself.^[4]

Banks had been offering discounted versions of Microsoft software online under different names as an Amazon.com reseller. His products were either pirated or deficient, costing some customers thousands of dollars, and eventually one complained to the FBI, who arrested Banks after a short investigation. At trial a jury convicted him of mail fraud, criminal copyright infringement and several other charges.

The judge sentenced Banks to five years in prison, varying the sentence upward by three months from the maximum range specified by the sentencing guidelines. An in personam criminal forfeiture judgment was also entered against him. Banks appealed to the Third Circuit, citing those among seven possible grounds for reversing the conviction. Foremost among them, he argued that notice of the possibility of variance was required prior to the sentencing and that the district court lacked the statutory authority to order the criminal forfeiture.

Judge Franklin Van Antwerpen wrote for the panel, which ruled for the government on all the issues. Other circuits had ruled on the variance issue, and he joined four of them in holding that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(h), which required a court to notify lawyers in advance of a contemplated departure, did not impose the same requirement on a variance. The forfeiture was likewise permitted since the mail fraud statute provided for civil forfeiture and, while it explicitly provided for criminal forfeiture only in cases where a financial institution was victimized, he did not find that Congress intended to limit it only to those cases via "a chain of cross-references."^[5]