REVISED

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

No. 23-40482 FILED ____________ December 12, 2024 Lyle W. Cayce United States of America, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus Keith Todd Ashley,

Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas USDC No. 4:20-CR-318-1 ______________________________ Before Elrod, Chief Judge, and Wiener and Wilson, Circuit Judges. Jennifer Walker Elrod, Chief Judge: IT IS ORDERED that the Appellant’s petition for panel rehearing and the Appellee’s petition for panel rehearing are both DENIED. However, we withdraw the opinion previously filed in this case on December 12, 2024, and substitute it with the following opinion. Defendant-Appellant Keith Todd Ashley was charged and convicted on 17 counts of violating federal law, including mail and wire fraud, Hobbs Act robbery, and bank theft for operating a Ponzi scheme and allegedly murdering one of his clients in order to steal funds from the client’s bank Case: 23-40482 Document: 138 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/18/2025

No. 23-40482

account and benefit from the client’s life insurance proceeds. 1 The district court sentenced Ashley to 240 months’ imprisonment to run consecutively for each of 15 counts of wire and mail fraud and imposed life sentences for his convictions of Hobbs Act robbery and bank theft. On appeal, Ashley challenges the sufficiency of the evidence for most of his convictions, claims that his sentence is unreasonable, asks for a new trial based on the district court’s denial of his motions for continuance and severance, and claims that the cumulative error doctrine applies. After obtaining convictions on all counts, the government now concedes on appeal that there was insufficient evidence to convict Ashley of five counts and that the life-sentence enhancement for his conviction of bank theft did not apply. Because we agree that several convictions were not supported by sufficient evidence and that the life-sentence enhancement does not apply, we AFFIRM in part, VACATE in part, and REMAND for resentencing and any other proceedings. I Ashley was a licensed financial advisor for the investment firm Parkland Securities. 2 Among other products, Parkland offers unit investment trusts (UITs), which are trusts that hold securities but do not have a guaranteed rate of return. Ashley convinced James Seegan, Robert Greening, and two other clients to invest in UITs offered by Parkland. The clients wrote checks or made wire transfers to Ashley’s bank account with Branch Banking & Trust. However, Ashley used those funds to cover _____________________ 1 Ashley was also indicted in Dallas County for capital murder of his client. See Texas v. Ashley, No. F2100109 (195th Dist. Ct., Dallas Cnty., Tex. Apr. 21, 2021). 2 Ashley worked in a variety of fields, often simultaneously. As relevant to this case, Ashley also worked as an investment advisor, insurance broker, nurse, paramedic, and owned a brewery business.

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