Toner Telemarketers Get Fraud Convictions Overturned on Appeal

Six individuals found guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy in connection with a telemarketing scheme for printer toner won appeals to vacate their convictions, when the Ninth Circuit agreed the government’s fraud theory was impermissibly broad.

The problem, the appeals court said, is that the government’s theory—and the district court’s jury instructions—didn’t require jurors to find that the defendants deceived customers about the nature of the bargain.

The purported victims got what they paid for—printer toner—at the agreed upon price, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Tuesday.

The gist of the allegedly criminal scheme was that ...