No. 22-1380

UNITED STATES,

Appellee,

v.

JAYNE CARBONE,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, Thompson and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.

Zainabu Rumala, Assistant Federal Public Defender, for appellant. Mark T. Quinlivan, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Joshua S. Levy, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

August 1, 2024 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the scourge of financial elder abuse is described as "the illegal, unauthorized, or improper use of an elder's money, benefits, belongings, property or assets for the benefit of someone other than the older adult." CDC, Fast Facts: Preventing Elder Abuse, https://perma.cc/7F9B-3ZBY (last visited May 10, 2024). And that is what today's appeal is all about. Jayne Carbone ("Carbone") seeks to undo her conviction related to her theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from her elderly (and now deceased) uncle, Wayne Kerr ("Kerr"). Following a five-day jury trial in October 2021, a federal jury in Massachusetts found Carbone guilty on all counts. On appeal, Carbone asks us to vacate and remand her case for a new trial because of the District Court's alleged procedural and evidentiary blunders. More specifically, she claims that the District Court erred by: (1) denying her counsel's motions to continue the testimonies of two key government witnesses; and (2) admitting those witnesses' testimonies at trial over her objections. Finding her claims meritless, for the reasons we'll discuss, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We briefly set forth the relevant facts of the case so that the reader can understand how Carbone was able to carry out her theft, and in doing so we note that "our recitation of the factual background is, of course, done in the light most

- 2 - complimentary to the jury verdict." United States v. Belanger, 890 F.3d 13, 17 (1st Cir. 2018).

A. The Victim: Wayne Kerr

Beginning in the early 2000s, Carbone became responsible for the primary care of her uncle. Like many familial relationships, theirs was complicated. However, before we examine the complex family dynamics underlying this case, we'll introduce Kerr to give some context to the issues at play.

Born in 1941, Kerr was a longtime resident of Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he resided in a first-floor apartment unit of a triple-decker home that he owned, and rented out, on Grove Street. Kerr enjoyed a stable professional life, first working as an assistant manager for a local grocery store chain for twenty-four years before later managing the Chelsea Community Center (also known as the Chelsea YMCA or just simply the Chelsea Y) until his eventual retirement in 2016. Upon his retirement, Kerr's income consisted of social security, pension checks, and rental income from his second- and third-floor Grove Street apartment units. Kerr was also a modest man. He did not gamble, regularly purchase clothes, invest in the stock market, take frequent vacations, use recreational drugs, or drink often. Instead, he was described as a homebody. For reasons that will soon become clear, it's important to note that like many members o