PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 20-4019

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LEE ELBAZ, a/k/a Lena Green,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt. Theodore D. Chuang, District Judge. (8:18-cr-00157-TDC-1)

Argued: December 9, 2021 Decided: June 30, 2022

Before RICHARDSON, RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Rushing and Senior Judge Traxler joined.

ARGUED: Eric Joseph Brignac, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. James I. Pearce, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C. Leisten, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Nicholas A. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Robert A. Zink, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Caitlin R. Cottingham, Assistant Chief, Fraud USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 2 of 29

Section, Criminal Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

2 USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 3 of 29

RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:

Lee Elbaz and her confederates orchestrated a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme,

operating from Israel and targeting unsophisticated victims worldwide. Posing as an

investment firm, Elbaz and her partners solicited “investments” that cost fraud victims over

$100 million, including millions from victims in the United States. While vacationing in

New York, Elbaz was arrested and later convicted for conspiring to commit wire fraud and

for substantive wire fraud itself. She was sentenced to 22 years in prison and required to

pay $28 million in restitution.

Elbaz argues that the wire-fraud statute does not apply to her extraterritorial

conduct, so she did not commit a crime under United States law. She also argues that the

district court committed two procedural errors warranting a new trial: refusing to compel

immunity for witnesses she planned to call and refusing to grant a mistrial after a juror

overheard a disparaging remark about Elbaz. And, finally, she raises several challenges to

her sentence.

We reject most of these challenges. While the wire-fraud statute does not apply

extraterritorially, the focus of the statute is on misuse of American wires. As her conduct

misused American wires, she was properly prosecuted for a domestic offense. And the

district judge properly refused to compel immunity to witnesses and denied a mistrial. But

while we reject most of Elbaz’s alleged sentencing errors, we agree the district court erred

in imposing broad restitution that went beyond victims of domestic wire fraud.

3 USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 4 of 29

I. Factual Background and Procedural Posture

A. The Fraud

Elbaz and her partners’ fraud scheme involved so-called “binary options.” These

all-or-nothing options place a bet on the price of an as

Click Here to Read the rest of this document